The Track

Mr. Bucket and his fat forefinger are much in consultation together
under existing circumstances. When Mr. Bucket has a matter of this
pressing interest under his consideration, the fat forefinger seems
to rise, to the dignity of a familiar demon. He puts it to his ears,
and it whispers information; he puts it to his lips, and it enjoins
him to secrecy; he rubs it over his nose, and it sharpens his scent;
he shakes it before a guilty man, and it charms him to his
destruction. The Augurs of the Detective Temple invariably predict
that when Mr. Bucket and that finger are in much conference, a
terrible avenger will be heard of before long.

Otherwise mildly studious in his observation of human nature, on the
whole a benignant philosopher not disposed to be severe upon the
follies of mankind, Mr. Bucket pervades a vast number of houses and
strolls about an infinity of streets, to outward appearance rather
languishing for want of an object. He is in the friendliest condition
towards his species and will drink with most of them. He is free with
his money, affable in his manners, innocent in his conversation--but
through the placid stream of his life there glides an under-current
of forefinger.

Time and place cannot bind Mr. Bucket. Like man in the abstract, he
is here to-day and gone to-morrow--but, very unlike man indeed, he is
here again the next day. This evening he will be casually looking
into the iron extinguishers at the door of Sir Leicester Dedlock's
house in town; and to-morrow morning he will be walking on the leads
at Chesney Wold, where erst the old man walked whose ghost is
propitiated with a hundred guineas. Drawers, desks, pockets, all
things belonging to him, Mr. Bucket examines. A few hours afterwards,
he and the Roman will be alone together comparing forefingers.

It is likely that these occupations are irreconcilable with home
enjoyment, but it is certain that Mr. Bucket at present does not go
home. Though in general he highly appreciates the society of Mrs.
Bucket--a lady of a natural detective genius, which if it had been
improved by professional exercise, might have done great things, but
which has paused at the level of a clever amateur--he holds himself
aloof from that dear solace. Mrs. Bucket is dependent on their lodger
(fortunately an amiable lady in whom she takes an interest) for
companionship and conversation.

A great crowd assembles in Lincoln's Inn Fields on the day of the
funeral. Sir Leicester Dedlock attends the ceremony in person;
strictly speaking, there are only three other human followers, that
is to say, Lord Doodle, William Buffy, and the debilitated cousin
(thrown in as a make-weight), but the amount of inconsolable
carriages is immense. The peerage contributes more four-wheeled
affliction than has ever been seen in that neighbourhood. Such is the
assemblage of armorial bearings on coach panels that the Herald's
College might be supposed to have lost its father and mother at a
blow. The Duke of Foodle sends a splendid pile of dust and ashes,
with silver wheel-boxes, patent axles, all the last improvements, and
three bereaved worms, six feet high, holding on behind, in a bunch of
woe. All the state coachmen in London seem plunged into mourning; and
if that dead old man of the rusty garb be not beyond a taste in
horseflesh (which appears impossible), it must be highly gratified
this day.

Quiet among the undertakers and the equipages and the calves of so
many legs all steeped in grief, Mr. Bucket sits concealed in one of
the inconsolable carriages and at his ease surveys the crowd through
the lattice blinds. He has a keen eye for a crowd--as for what
not?--and looking here and there, now from this side of the carriage,
now from the other, now up at the house windows, now along the
people's heads, nothing escapes him.

"And there you are, my partner, eh?" says Mr. Bucket to himself,
apostrophizing Mrs. Bucket, stationed, by his favour, on the steps of
the deceased's house. "And so you are. And so you are! And very well
indeed you are looking, Mrs. Bucket!"

The procession has not started yet, but is waiting for the cause of
its assemblage to be brought out. Mr. Bucket, in the foremost
emblazoned carriage, uses his two fat forefingers to hold the lattice
a hair's breadth open while he looks.

And it says a great deal for his attachment, as a husband, that he is
still occupied with Mrs. B. "There you are, my partner, eh?" he
murmuringly repeats. "And our lodger with you. I'm taking notice of
you, Mrs. Bucket; I hope you're all right in your health, my dear!"

Not another word does Mr. Bucket say, but sits with most attentive
eyes until the sacked depository of noble secrets is brought
down--Where are all those secrets now? Does he keep them yet? Did
they fly with him on that sudden journey?--and until the procession
moves, and Mr. Bucket's view is changed. After which he composes
himself for an easy ride and takes note of the fittings of the
carriage in case he should ever find such knowledge useful.

Contrast enough between Mr. Tulkinghorn shut up in his dark carriage
and Mr. Bucket shut up in HIS. Between the immeasurable track of
space beyond the little wound that has thrown the one into the fixed
sleep which jolts so heavily over the stones of the streets, and the
narrow track of blood which keeps the other in the watchful state
expressed in every hair of his head! But it is all one to both;
neither is troubled about that.

Mr. Bucket sits out the procession in his own easy manner and glides
from the carriage when the opportunity he has settled with himself
arrives. He makes for Sir Leicester Dedlock's, which is at present a
sort of home to him, where he comes and goes as he likes at all
hours, where he is always welcome and made much of, where he knows
the whole establishment, and walks in an atmosphere of mysterious
greatness.

No knocking or ringing for Mr. Bucket. He has caused himself to be
provided with a key and can pass in at his pleasure. As he is
crossing the hall, Mercury informs him, "Here's another letter for
you, Mr. Bucket, come by post," and gives it him.

"Another one, eh?" says Mr. Bucket.

If Mercury should chance to be possessed by any lingering curiosity
as to Mr. Bucket's letters, that wary person is not the man to
gratify it. Mr. Bucket looks at him as if his face were a vista of
some miles in length and he were leisurely contemplating the same.

"Do you happen to carry a box?" says Mr. Bucket.

Unfortunately Mercury is no snuff-taker.

"Could you fetch me a pinch from anywheres?" says Mr. Bucket.
"Thankee. It don't matter what it is; I'm not particular as to the
kind. Thankee!"

Having leisurely helped himself from a canister borrowed from
somebody downstairs for the purpose, and having made a considerable
show of tasting it, first with one side of his nose and then with the
other, Mr. Bucket, with much deliberation, pronounces it of the right
sort and goes on, letter in hand.

Now although Mr. Bucket walks upstairs to the little library within
the larger one with the face of a man who receives some scores of
letters every day, it happens that much correspondence is not
incidental to his life. He is no great scribe, rather handling his
pen like the pocket-staff he carries about with him always convenient
to his grasp, and discourages correspondence with himself in others
as being too artless and direct a way of doing delicate business.
Further, he often sees damaging letters produced in evidence and has
occasion to reflect that it was a green thing to write them. For
these reasons he has very little to do with letters, either as sender
or receiver. And yet he has received a round half-dozen within the
last twenty-four hours.

"And this," says Mr. Bucket, spreading it out on the table, "is in
the same hand, and consists of the same two words."

What two words?

He turns the key in the door, ungirdles his black pocket-book (book
of fate to many), lays another letter by it, and reads, boldly
written in each, "Lady Dedlock."

"Yes, yes," says Mr. Bucket. "But I could have made the money without
this anonymous information."

Having put the letters in his book of fate and girdled it up again,
he unlocks the door just in time to admit his dinner, which is
brought upon a goodly tray with a decanter of sherry. Mr. Bucket
frequently observes, in friendly circles where there is no restraint,
that he likes a toothful of your fine old brown East Inder sherry
better than anything you can offer him. Consequently he fills and
empties his glass with a smack of his lips and is proceeding with his
refreshment when an idea enters his mind.

Mr. Bucket softly opens the door of communication between that room
and the next and looks in. The library is deserted, and the fire is
sinking low. Mr. Bucket's eye, after taking a pigeon-flight round the
room, alights upon a table where letters are usually put as they
arrive. Several letters for Sir Leicester are upon it. Mr. Bucket
draws near and examines the directions. "No," he says, "there's none
in that hand. It's only me as is written to. I can break it to Sir
Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to-morrow."

With that he returns to finish his dinner with a good appetite, and
after a light nap, is summoned into the drawing-room. Sir Leicester
has received him there these several evenings past to know whether he
has anything to report. The debilitated cousin (much exhausted by the
funeral) and Volumnia are in attendance.

Mr. Bucket makes three distinctly different bows to these three
people. A bow of homage to Sir Leicester, a bow of gallantry to
Volumnia, and a bow of recognition to the debilitated Cousin, to whom
it airily says, "You are a swell about town, and you know me, and I
know you." Having distributed these little specimens of his tact, Mr.
Bucket rubs his hands.

"Have you anything new to communicate, officer?" inquires Sir
Leicester. "Do you wish to hold any conversation with me in private?"

"Why--not to-night, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet."

"Because my time," pursues Sir Leicester, "is wholly at your disposal
with a view to the vindication of the outraged majesty of the law."

Mr. Bucket coughs and glances at Volumnia, rouged and necklaced, as
though he would respectfully observe, "I do assure you, you're a
pretty creetur. I've seen hundreds worse looking at your time of
life, I have indeed."

The fair Volumnia, not quite unconscious perhaps of the humanizing
influence of her charms, pauses in the writing of cocked-hat notes
and meditatively adjusts the pearl necklace. Mr. Bucket prices that
decoration in his mind and thinks it as likely as not that Volumnia
is writing poetry.

"If I have not," pursues Sir Leicester, "in the most emphatic manner,
adjured you, officer, to exercise your utmost skill in this atrocious
case, I particularly desire to take the present opportunity of
rectifying any omission I may have made. Let no expense be a
consideration. I am prepared to defray all charges. You can incur
none in pursuit of the object you have undertaken that I shall
hesitate for a moment to bear."

Mr. Bucket made Sir Leicester's bow again as a response to this
liberality.

"My mind," Sir Leicester adds with a generous warmth, "has not, as
may be easily supposed, recovered its tone since the late diabolical
occurrence. It is not likely ever to recover its tone. But it is full
of indignation to-night after undergoing the ordeal of consigning to
the tomb the remains of a faithful, a zealous, a devoted adherent."

Sir Leicester's voice trembles and his grey hair stirs upon his head.
Tears are in his eyes; the best part of his nature is aroused.

"I declare," he says, "I solemnly declare that until this crime is
discovered and, in the course of justice, punished, I almost feel as
if there were a stain upon my name. A gentleman who has devoted a
large portion of his life to me, a gentleman who has devoted the last
day of his life to me, a gentleman who has constantly sat at my table
and slept under my roof, goes from my house to his own, and is struck
down within an hour of his leaving my house. I cannot say but that he
may have been followed from my house, watched at my house, even first
marked because of his association with my house--which may have
suggested his possessing greater wealth and being altogether of
greater importance than his own retiring demeanour would have
indicated. If I cannot with my means and influence and my position
bring all the perpetrators of such a crime to light, I fail in the
assertion of my respect for that gentleman's memory and of my
fidelity towards one who was ever faithful to me."

While he makes this protestation with great emotion and earnestness,
looking round the room as if he were addressing an assembly, Mr.
Bucket glances at him with an observant gravity in which there might
be, but for the audacity of the thought, a touch of compassion.

"The ceremony of to-day," continues Sir Leicester, "strikingly
illustrative of the respect in which my deceased friend"--he lays a
stress upon the word, for death levels all distinctions--"was held by
the flower of the land, has, I say, aggravated the shock I have
received from this most horrible and audacious crime. If it were my
brother who had committed it, I would not spare him."

Mr. Bucket looks very grave. Volumnia remarks of the deceased that he
was the trustiest and dearest person!

"You must feel it as a deprivation to you, miss," replies Mr. Bucket
soothingly, "no doubt. He was calculated to BE a deprivation, I'm
sure he was."

Volumnia gives Mr. Bucket to understand, in reply, that her sensitive
mind is fully made up never to get the better of it as long as she
lives, that her nerves are unstrung for ever, and that she has not
the least expectation of ever smiling again. Meanwhile she folds up a
cocked hat for that redoubtable old general at Bath, descriptive of
her melancholy condition.

"It gives a start to a delicate female," says Mr. Bucket
sympathetically, "but it'll wear off."

Volumnia wishes of all things to know what is doing? Whether they are
going to convict, or whatever it is, that dreadful soldier? Whether
he had any accomplices, or whatever the thing is called in the law?
And a great deal more to the like artless purpose.

"Why you see, miss," returns Mr. Bucket, bringing the finger into
persuasive action--and such is his natural gallantry that he had
almost said "my dear"--"it ain't easy to answer those questions at
the present moment. Not at the present moment. I've kept myself on
this case, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," whom Mr. Bucket takes
into the conversation in right of his importance, "morning, noon, and
night. But for a glass or two of sherry, I don't think I could have
had my mind so much upon the stretch as it has been. I COULD answer
your questions, miss, but duty forbids it. Sir Leicester Dedlock,
Baronet, will very soon be made acquainted with all that has been
traced. And I hope that he may find it"--Mr. Bucket again looks
grave--"to his satisfaction."

The debilitated cousin only hopes some fler'll be executed--zample.
Thinks more interest's wanted--get man hanged presentime--than get
man place ten thousand a year. Hasn't a doubt--zample--far better
hang wrong fler than no fler.

"YOU know life, you know, sir," says Mr. Bucket with a complimentary
twinkle of his eye and crook of his finger, "and you can confirm what
I've mentioned to this lady. YOU don't want to be told that from
information I have received I have gone to work. You're up to what a
lady can't be expected to be up to. Lord! Especially in your elevated
station of society, miss," says Mr. Bucket, quite reddening at
another narrow escape from "my dear."

"The officer, Volumnia," observes Sir Leicester, "is faithful to his
duty, and perfectly right."

Mr. Bucket murmurs, "Glad to have the honour of your approbation, Sir
Leicester Dedlock, Baronet."

"In fact, Volumnia," proceeds Sir Leicester, "it is not holding up a
good model for imitation to ask the officer any such questions as you
have put to him. He is the best judge of his own responsibility; he
acts upon his responsibility. And it does not become us, who assist
in making the laws, to impede or interfere with those who carry them
into execution. Or," says Sir Leicester somewhat sternly, for
Volumnia was going to cut in before he had rounded his sentence, "or
who vindicate their outraged majesty."

Volumnia with all humility explains that she had not merely the plea
of curiosity to urge (in common with the giddy youth of her sex in
general) but that she is perfectly dying with regret and interest for
the darling man whose loss they all deplore.

"Very well, Volumnia," returns Sir Leicester. "Then you cannot be too
discreet."

Mr. Bucket takes the opportunity of a pause to be heard again.

"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I have no objections to telling this
lady, with your leave and among ourselves, that I look upon the case
as pretty well complete. It is a beautiful case--a beautiful
case--and what little is wanting to complete it, I expect to be able
to supply in a few hours."

"I am very glad indeed to hear it," says Sir Leicester. "Highly
creditable to you."

"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," returns Mr. Bucket very seriously,
"I hope it may at one and the same time do me credit and prove
satisfactory to all. When I depict it as a beautiful case, you see,
miss," Mr. Bucket goes on, glancing gravely at Sir Leicester, "I mean
from my point of view. As considered from other points of view, such
cases will always involve more or less unpleasantness. Very strange
things comes to our knowledge in families, miss; bless your heart,
what you would think to be phenomenons, quite."

Volumnia, with her innocent little scream, supposes so.

"Aye, and even in gen-teel families, in high families, in great
families," says Mr. Bucket, again gravely eyeing Sir Leicester aside.
"I have had the honour of being employed in high families before, and
you have no idea--come, I'll go so far as to say not even YOU have
any idea, sir," this to the debilitated cousin, "what games goes on!"

The cousin, who has been casting sofa-pillows on his head, in a
prostration of boredom yawns, "Vayli," being the used-up for "very
likely."

Sir Leicester, deeming it time to dismiss the officer, here
majestically interposes with the words, "Very good. Thank you!" and
also with a wave of his hand, implying not only that there is an end
of the discourse, but that if high families fall into low habits they
must take the consequences. "You will not forget, officer," he adds
with condescension, "that I am at your disposal when you please."

Mr. Bucket (still grave) inquires if to-morrow morning, now, would
suit, in case he should be as for'ard as he expects to be. Sir
Leicester replies, "All times are alike to me." Mr. Bucket makes his
three bows and is withdrawing when a forgotten point occurs to him.

"Might I ask, by the by," he says in a low voice, cautiously
returning, "who posted the reward-bill on the staircase."

"I ordered it to be put up there," replies Sir Leicester.

"Would it be considered a liberty, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, if
I was to ask you why?"

"Not at all. I chose it as a conspicuous part of the house. I think
it cannot be too prominently kept before the whole establishment. I
wish my people to be impressed with the enormity of the crime, the
determination to punish it, and the hopelessness of escape. At the
same time, officer, if you in your better knowledge of the subject
see any objection--"

Mr. Bucket sees none now; the bill having been put up, had better not
be taken down. Repeating his three bows he withdraws, closing the
door on Volumnia's little scream, which is a preliminary to her
remarking that that charmingly horrible person is a perfect Blue
Chamber.

In his fondness for society and his adaptability to all grades, Mr.
Bucket is presently standing before the hall-fire--bright and warm on
the early winter night--admiring Mercury.

"Why, you're six foot two, I suppose?" says Mr. Bucket.

"Three," says Mercury.

"Are you so much? But then, you see, you're broad in proportion and
don't look it. You're not one of the weak-legged ones, you ain't. Was
you ever modelled now?" Mr. Bucket asks, conveying the expression of
an artist into the turn of his eye and head.

Mercury never was modelled.

"Then you ought to be, you know," says Mr. Bucket; "and a friend of
mine that you'll hear of one day as a Royal Academy sculptor would
stand something handsome to make a drawing of your proportions for
the marble. My Lady's out, ain't she?"

"Out to dinner."

"Goes out pretty well every day, don't she?"

"Yes."

"Not to be wondered at!" says Mr. Bucket. "Such a fine woman as her,
so handsome and so graceful and so elegant, is like a fresh lemon on
a dinner-table, ornamental wherever she goes. Was your father in the
same way of life as yourself?"

Answer in the negative.

"Mine was," says Mr. Bucket. "My father was first a page, then a
footman, then a butler, then a steward, then an inn-keeper. Lived
universally respected, and died lamented. Said with his last breath
that he considered service the most honourable part of his career,
and so it was. I've a brother in service, AND a brother-in-law. My
Lady a good temper?"

Mercury replies, "As good as you can expect."

"Ah!" says Mr. Bucket. "A little spoilt? A little capricious? Lord!
What can you anticipate when they're so handsome as that? And we like
'em all the better for it, don't we?"

Mercury, with his hands in the pockets of his bright peach-blossom
small-clothes, stretches his symmetrical silk legs with the air of a
man of gallantry and can't deny it. Come the roll of wheels and a
violent ringing at the bell. "Talk of the angels," says Mr. Bucket.
"Here she is!"

The doors are thrown open, and she passes through the hall. Still
very pale, she is dressed in slight mourning and wears two beautiful
bracelets. Either their beauty or the beauty of her arms is
particularly attractive to Mr. Bucket. He looks at them with an eager
eye and rattles something in his pocket--halfpence perhaps.

Noticing him at his distance, she turns an inquiring look on the
other Mercury who has brought her home.

"Mr. Bucket, my Lady."

Mr. Bucket makes a leg and comes forward, passing his familiar demon
over the region of his mouth.

"Are you waiting to see Sir Leicester?"

"No, my Lady, I've seen him!"

"Have you anything to say to me?"

"Not just at present, my Lady."

"Have you made any new discoveries?"

"A few, my Lady."

This is merely in passing. She scarcely makes a stop, and sweeps
upstairs alone. Mr. Bucket, moving towards the staircase-foot,
watches her as she goes up the steps the old man came down to his
grave, past murderous groups of statuary repeated with their shadowy
weapons on the wall, past the printed bill, which she looks at going
by, out of view.

"She's a lovely woman, too, she really is," says Mr. Bucket, coming
back to Mercury. "Don't look quite healthy though."

Is not quite healthy, Mercury informs him. Suffers much from
headaches.

Really? That's a pity! Walking, Mr. Bucket would recommend for that.
Well, she tries walking, Mercury rejoins. Walks sometimes for two
hours when she has them bad. By night, too.

"Are you sure you're quite so much as six foot three?" asks Mr.
Bucket. "Begging your pardon for interrupting you a moment?"

Not a doubt about it.

"You're so well put together that I shouldn't have thought it. But
the household troops, though considered fine men, are built so
straggling. Walks by night, does she? When it's moonlight, though?"

Oh, yes. When it's moonlight! Of course. Oh, of course!
Conversational and acquiescent on both sides.

"I suppose you ain't in the habit of walking yourself?" says Mr.
Bucket. "Not much time for it, I should say?"

Besides which, Mercury don't like it. Prefers carriage exercise.

"To be sure," says Mr. Bucket. "That makes a difference. Now I think
of it," says Mr. Bucket, warming his hands and looking pleasantly at
the blaze, "she went out walking the very night of this business."

"To be sure she did! I let her into the garden over the way."

"And left her there. Certainly you did. I saw you doing it."

"I didn't see YOU," says Mercury.

"I was rather in a hurry," returns Mr. Bucket, "for I was going to
visit a aunt of mine that lives at Chelsea--next door but two to the
old original Bun House--ninety year old the old lady is, a single
woman, and got a little property. Yes, I chanced to be passing at the
time. Let's see. What time might it be? It wasn't ten."

"Half-past nine."

"You're right. So it was. And if I don't deceive myself, my Lady was
muffled in a loose black mantle, with a deep fringe to it?"

"Of course she was."

Of course she was. Mr. Bucket must return to a little work he has to
get on with upstairs, but he must shake hands with Mercury in
acknowledgment of his agreeable conversation, and will he--this is
all he asks--will he, when he has a leisure half-hour, think of
bestowing it on that Royal Academy sculptor, for the advantage of
both parties?

Springing a Mine

Refreshed by sleep, Mr. Bucket rises betimes in the morning and
prepares for a field-day. Smartened up by the aid of a clean shirt
and a wet hairbrush, with which instrument, on occasions of ceremony,
he lubricates such thin locks as remain to him after his life of
severe study, Mr. Bucket lays in a breakfast of two mutton chops as a
foundation to work upon, together with tea, eggs, toast, and
marmalade on a corresponding scale. Having much enjoyed these
strengthening matters and having held subtle conference with his
familiar demon, he confidently instructs Mercury "just to mention
quietly to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, that whenever he's ready
for me, I'm ready for him." A gracious message being returned that
Sir Leicester will expedite his dressing and join Mr. Bucket in the
library within ten minutes, Mr. Bucket repairs to that apartment and
stands before the fire with his finger on his chin, looking at the
blazing coals.

Thoughtful Mr. Bucket is, as a man may be with weighty work to do,
but composed, sure, confident. From the expression of his face he
might be a famous whist-player for a large stake--say a hundred
guineas certain--with the game in his hand, but with a high
reputation involved in his playing his hand out to the last card in a
masterly way. Not in the least anxious or disturbed is Mr. Bucket
when Sir Leicester appears, but he eyes the baronet aside as he comes
slowly to his easy-chair with that observant gravity of yesterday in
which there might have been yesterday, but for the audacity of the
idea, a touch of compassion.

"I am sorry to have kept you waiting, officer, but I am rather later
than my usual hour this morning. I am not well. The agitation and the
indignation from which I have recently suffered have been too much
for me. I am subject to--gout"--Sir Leicester was going to say
indisposition and would have said it to anybody else, but Mr. Bucket
palpably knows all about it--"and recent circumstances have brought
it on."

As he takes his seat with some difficulty and with an air of pain,
Mr. Bucket draws a little nearer, standing with one of his large
hands on the library-table.

"I am not aware, officer," Sir Leicester observes; raising his eyes
to his face, "whether you wish us to be alone, but that is entirely
as you please. If you do, well and good. If not, Miss Dedlock would
be interested--"

"Why, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," returns Mr. Bucket with his
head persuasively on one side and his forefinger pendant at one ear
like an earring, "we can't be too private just at present. You will
presently see that we can't be too private. A lady, under the
circumstances, and especially in Miss Dedlock's elevated station of
society, can't but be agreeable to me, but speaking without a view to
myself, I will take the liberty of assuring you that I know we can't
be too private."

"That is enough."

"So much so, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," Mr. Bucket resumes,
"that I was on the point of asking your permission to turn the key in
the door."

"By all means." Mr. Bucket skilfully and softly takes that
precaution, stooping on his knee for a moment from mere force of
habit so to adjust the key in the lock as that no one shall peep in
from the outerside.

"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I mentioned yesterday evening that I
wanted but a very little to complete this case. I have now completed
it and collected proof against the person who did this crime."

"Against the soldier?"

"No, Sir Leicester Dedlock; not the soldier."

Sir Leicester looks astounded and inquires, "Is the man in custody?"

Mr. Bucket tells him, after a pause, "It was a woman."

Sir Leicester leans back in his chair, and breathlessly ejaculates,
"Good heaven!"

"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," Mr. Bucket begins, standing
over him with one hand spread out on the library-table and the
forefinger of the other in impressive use, "it's my duty to prepare
you for a train of circumstances that may, and I go so far as to say
that will, give you a shock. But Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, you
are a gentleman, and I know what a gentleman is and what a gentleman
is capable of. A gentleman can bear a shock when it must come, boldly
and steadily. A gentleman can make up his mind to stand up against
almost any blow. Why, take yourself, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.
If there's a blow to be inflicted on you, you naturally think of your
family. You ask yourself, how would all them ancestors of yours, away
to Julius Caesar--not to go beyond him at present--have borne that
blow; you remember scores of them that would have borne it well; and
you bear it well on their accounts, and to maintain the family
credit. That's the way you argue, and that's the way you act, Sir
Leicester Dedlock, Baronet."

Sir Leicester, leaning back in his chair and grasping the elbows,
sits looking at him with a stony face.

"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock," proceeds Mr. Bucket, "thus preparing
you, let me beg of you not to trouble your mind for a moment as to
anything having come to MY knowledge. I know so much about so many
characters, high and low, that a piece of information more or less
don't signify a straw. I don't suppose there's a move on the board
that would surprise ME, and as to this or that move having taken
place, why my knowing it is no odds at all, any possible move
whatever (provided it's in a wrong direction) being a probable move
according to my experience. Therefore, what I say to you, Sir
Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, is, don't you go and let yourself be put
out of the way because of my knowing anything of your family
affairs."

"I thank you for your preparation," returns Sir Leicester after a
silence, without moving hand, foot, or feature, "which I hope is not
necessary; though I give it credit for being well intended. Be so
good as to go on. Also"--Sir Leicester seems to shrink in the shadow
of his figure--"also, to take a seat, if you have no objection."

None at all. Mr. Bucket brings a chair and diminishes his shadow.
"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, with this short preface I come
to the point. Lady Dedlock--"

Sir Leicester raises himself in his seat and stares at him fiercely.
Mr. Bucket brings the finger into play as an emollient.

"Lady Dedlock, you see she's universally admired. That's what her
ladyship is; she's universally admired," says Mr. Bucket.

"I would greatly prefer, officer," Sir Leicester returns stiffly, "my
Lady's name being entirely omitted from this discussion."

"So would I, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, but--it's impossible."

"Impossible?"

Mr. Bucket shakes his relentless head.

"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it's altogether impossible. What I
have got to say is about her ladyship. She is the pivot it all turns
on."

"Officer," retorts Sir Leicester with a fiery eye and a quivering
lip, "you know your duty. Do your duty, but be careful not to
overstep it. I would not suffer it. I would not endure it. You bring
my Lady's name into this communication upon your responsibility--upon
your responsibility. My Lady's name is not a name for common persons
to trifle with!"

"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I say what I must say, and no more."

"I hope it may prove so. Very well. Go on. Go on, sir!" Glancing at
the angry eyes which now avoid him and at the angry figure trembling
from head to foot, yet striving to be still, Mr. Bucket feels his way
with his forefinger and in a low voice proceeds.

"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it becomes my duty to tell you that
the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn long entertained mistrusts and
suspicions of Lady Dedlock."

"If he had dared to breathe them to me, sir--which he never did--I
would have killed him myself!" exclaims Sir Leicester, striking his
hand upon the table. But in the very heat and fury of the act he
stops, fixed by the knowing eyes of Mr. Bucket, whose forefinger is
slowly going and who, with mingled confidence and patience, shakes
his head.

"Sir Leicester Dedlock, the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn was deep and
close, and what he fully had in his mind in the very beginning I
can't quite take upon myself to say. But I know from his lips that he
long ago suspected Lady Dedlock of having discovered, through the
sight of some handwriting--in this very house, and when you yourself,
Sir Leicester Dedlock, were present--the existence, in great poverty,
of a certain person who had been her lover before you courted her and
who ought to have been her husband." Mr. Bucket stops and
deliberately repeats, "Ought to have been her husband, not a doubt
about it. I know from his lips that when that person soon afterwards
died, he suspected Lady Dedlock of visiting his wretched lodging and
his wretched grave, alone and in secret. I know from my own inquiries
and through my eyes and ears that Lady Dedlock did make such visit in
the dress of her own maid, for the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn employed
me to reckon up her ladyship--if you'll excuse my making use of the
term we commonly employ--and I reckoned her up, so far, completely. I
confronted the maid in the chambers in Lincoln's Inn Fields with a
witness who had been Lady Dedlock's guide, and there couldn't be the
shadow of a doubt that she had worn the young woman's dress, unknown
to her. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I did endeavour to pave the
way a little towards these unpleasant disclosures yesterday by saying
that very strange things happened even in high families sometimes.
All this, and more, has happened in your own family, and to and
through your own Lady. It's my belief that the deceased Mr.
Tulkinghorn followed up these inquiries to the hour of his death and
that he and Lady Dedlock even had bad blood between them upon the
matter that very night. Now, only you put that to Lady Dedlock, Sir
Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and ask her ladyship whether, even after
he had left here, she didn't go down to his chambers with the
intention of saying something further to him, dressed in a loose
black mantle with a deep fringe to it."

Sir Leicester sits like a statue, gazing at the cruel finger that is
probing the life-blood of his heart.

"You put that to her ladyship, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, from
me, Inspector Bucket of the Detective. And if her ladyship makes any
difficulty about admitting of it, you tell her that it's no use, that
Inspector Bucket knows it and knows that she passed the soldier as
you called him (though he's not in the army now) and knows that she
knows she passed him on the staircase. Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock,
Baronet, why do I relate all this?"

Sir Leicester, who has covered his face with his hands, uttering a
single groan, requests him to pause for a moment. By and by he takes
his hands away, and so preserves his dignity and outward calmness,
though there is no more colour in his face than in his white hair,
that Mr. Bucket is a little awed by him. Something frozen and fixed
is upon his manner, over and above its usual shell of haughtiness,
and Mr. Bucket soon detects an unusual slowness in his speech, with
now and then a curious trouble in beginning, which occasions him to
utter inarticulate sounds. With such sounds he now breaks silence,
soon, however, controlling himself to say that he does not comprehend
why a gentleman so faithful and zealous as the late Mr. Tulkinghorn
should have communicated to him nothing of this painful, this
distressing, this unlooked-for, this overwhelming, this incredible
intelligence.

"Again, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," returns Mr. Bucket, "put it
to her ladyship to clear that up. Put it to her ladyship, if you
think it right, from Inspector Bucket of the Detective. You'll find,
or I'm much mistaken, that the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn had the
intention of communicating the whole to you as soon as he considered
it ripe, and further, that he had given her ladyship so to
understand. Why, he might have been going to reveal it the very
morning when I examined the body! You don't know what I'm going to
say and do five minutes from this present time, Sir Leicester
Dedlock, Baronet; and supposing I was to be picked off now, you might
wonder why I hadn't done it, don't you see?"

True. Sir Leicester, avoiding, with some trouble those obtrusive
sounds, says, "True." At this juncture a considerable noise of voices
is heard in the hall. Mr. Bucket, after listening, goes to the
library-door, softly unlocks and opens it, and listens again. Then he
draws in his head and whispers hurriedly but composedly, "Sir
Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, this unfortunate family affair has taken
air, as I expected it might, the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn being cut
down so sudden. The chance to hush it is to let in these people now
in a wrangle with your footmen. Would you mind sitting quiet--on the
family account--while I reckon 'em up? And would you just throw in a
nod when I seem to ask you for it?"

Sir Leicester indistinctly answers, "Officer. The best you can, the
best you can!" and Mr. Bucket, with a nod and a sagacious crook of
the forefinger, slips down into the hall, where the voices quickly
die away. He is not long in returning; a few paces ahead of Mercury
and a brother deity also powdered and in peach-blossomed smalls, who
bear between them a chair in which is an incapable old man. Another
man and two women come behind. Directing the pitching of the chair in
an affable and easy manner, Mr. Bucket dismisses the Mercuries and
locks the door again. Sir Leicester looks on at this invasion of the
sacred precincts with an icy stare.

"Now, perhaps you may know me, ladies and gentlemen," says Mr. Bucket
in a confidential voice. "I am Inspector Bucket of the Detective, I
am; and this," producing the tip of his convenient little staff from
his breast-pocket, "is my authority. Now, you wanted to see Sir
Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Well! You do see him, and mind you, it
ain't every one as is admitted to that honour. Your name, old
gentleman, is Smallweed; that's what your name is; I know it well."

"Well, and you never heard any harm of it!" cries Mr. Smallweed in a
shrill loud voice.

"You don't happen to know why they killed the pig, do you?" retorts
Mr. Bucket with a steadfast look, but without loss of temper.

"No!"

"Why, they killed him," says Mr. Bucket, "on account of his having so
much cheek. Don't YOU get into the same position, because it isn't
worthy of you. You ain't in the habit of conversing with a deaf
person, are you?"

"Yes," snarls Mr. Smallweed, "my wife's deaf."

"That accounts for your pitching your voice so high. But as she ain't
here; just pitch it an octave or two lower, will you, and I'll not
only be obliged to you, but it'll do you more credit," says Mr.
Bucket. "This other gentleman is in the preaching line, I think?"

"Name of Chadband," Mr. Smallweed puts in, speaking henceforth in a
much lower key.

"Once had a friend and brother serjeant of the same name," says Mr.
Bucket, offering his hand, "and consequently feel a liking for it.
Mrs. Chadband, no doubt?"

"And Mrs. Snagsby," Mr. Smallweed introduces.

"Husband a law-stationer and a friend of my own," says Mr. Bucket.
"Love him like a brother! Now, what's up?"

"Do you mean what business have we come upon?" Mr. Smallweed asks, a
little dashed by the suddenness of this turn.

"Ah! You know what I mean. Let us hear what it's all about in
presence of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Come."

Mr. Smallweed, beckoning Mr. Chadband, takes a moment's counsel with
him in a whisper. Mr. Chadband, expressing a considerable amount of
oil from the pores of his forehead and the palms of his hands, says
aloud, "Yes. You first!" and retires to his former place.

"I was the client and friend of Mr. Tulkinghorn," pipes Grandfather
Smallweed then; "I did business with him. I was useful to him, and he
was useful to me. Krook, dead and gone, was my brother-in-law. He was
own brother to a brimstone magpie--leastways Mrs. Smallweed. I come
into Krook's property. I examined all his papers and all his effects.
They was all dug out under my eyes. There was a bundle of letters
belonging to a dead and gone lodger as was hid away at the back of a
shelf in the side of Lady Jane's bed--his cat's bed. He hid all
manner of things away, everywheres. Mr. Tulkinghorn wanted 'em and
got 'em, but I looked 'em over first. I'm a man of business, and I
took a squint at 'em. They was letters from the lodger's sweetheart,
and she signed Honoria. Dear me, that's not a common name, Honoria,
is it? There's no lady in this house that signs Honoria is there? Oh,
no, I don't think so! Oh, no, I don't think so! And not in the same
hand, perhaps? Oh, no, I don't think so!"

Here Mr. Smallweed, seized with a fit of coughing in the midst of his
triumph, breaks off to ejaculate, "Oh, dear me! Oh, Lord! I'm shaken
all to pieces!"

"Now, when you're ready," says Mr. Bucket after awaiting his
recovery, "to come to anything that concerns Sir Leicester Dedlock,
Baronet, here the gentleman sits, you know."

"Haven't I come to it, Mr. Bucket?" cries Grandfather Smallweed.
"Isn't the gentleman concerned yet? Not with Captain Hawdon, and his
ever affectionate Honoria, and their child into the bargain? Come,
then, I want to know where those letters are. That concerns me, if it
don't concern Sir Leicester Dedlock. I will know where they are. I
won't have 'em disappear so quietly. I handed 'em over to my friend
and solicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn, not to anybody else."

"Why, he paid you for them, you know, and handsome too," says Mr.
Bucket.

"I don't care for that. I want to know who's got 'em. And I tell you
what we want--what we all here want, Mr. Bucket. We want more
painstaking and search-making into this murder. We know where the
interest and the motive was, and you have not done enough. If George
the vagabond dragoon had any hand in it, he was only an accomplice,
and was set on. You know what I mean as well as any man."

"Now I tell you what," says Mr. Bucket, instantaneously altering his
manner, coming close to him, and communicating an extraordinary
fascination to the forefinger, "I am damned if I am a-going to have
my case spoilt, or interfered with, or anticipated by so much as half
a second of time by any human being in creation. YOU want more
painstaking and search-making! YOU do? Do you see this hand, and do
you think that I don't know the right time to stretch it out and put
it on the arm that fired that shot?"

Such is the dread power of the man, and so terribly evident it is
that he makes no idle boast, that Mr. Smallweed begins to apologize.
Mr. Bucket, dismissing his sudden anger, checks him.

"The advice I give you is, don't you trouble your head about the
murder. That's my affair. You keep half an eye on the newspapers, and
I shouldn't wonder if you was to read something about it before long,
if you look sharp. I know my business, and that's all I've got to say
to you on that subject. Now about those letters. You want to know
who's got 'em. I don't mind telling you. I have got 'em. Is that the
packet?"

Mr. Smallweed looks, with greedy eyes, at the little bundle Mr.
Bucket produces from a mysterious part of his coat, and identifies it
as the same.

"What have you got to say next?" asks Mr. Bucket. "Now, don't open
your mouth too wide, because you don't look handsome when you do it."

"I want five hundred pound."

"No, you don't; you mean fifty," says Mr. Bucket humorously.

It appears, however, that Mr. Smallweed means five hundred.

"That is, I am deputed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to consider
(without admitting or promising anything) this bit of business," says
Mr. Bucket--Sir Leicester mechanically bows his head--"and you ask me
to consider a proposal of five hundred pounds. Why, it's an
unreasonable proposal! Two fifty would be bad enough, but better than
that. Hadn't you better say two fifty?"

Mr. Smallweed is quite clear that he had better not.

"Then," says Mr. Bucket, "let's hear Mr. Chadband. Lord! Many a time
I've heard my old fellow-serjeant of that name; and a moderate man he
was in all respects, as ever I come across!"

Thus invited, Mr. Chadband steps forth, and after a little sleek
smiling and a little oil-grinding with the palms of his hands,
delivers himself as follows, "My friends, we are now--Rachael, my
wife, and I--in the mansions of the rich and great. Why are we now in
the mansions of the rich and great, my friends? Is it because we are
invited? Because we are bidden to feast with them, because we are
bidden to rejoice with them, because we are bidden to play the lute
with them, because we are bidden to dance with them? No. Then why are
we here, my friends? Air we in possession of a sinful secret, and do
we require corn, and wine, and oil, or what is much the same thing,
money, for the keeping thereof? Probably so, my friends."

"You're a man of business, you are," returns Mr. Bucket, very
attentive, "and consequently you're going on to mention what the
nature of your secret is. You are right. You couldn't do better."

"Let us then, my brother, in a spirit of love," says Mr. Chadband
with a cunning eye, "proceed unto it. Rachael, my wife, advance!"

Mrs. Chadband, more than ready, so advances as to jostle her husband
into the background and confronts Mr. Bucket with a hard, frowning
smile.

"Since you want to know what we know," says she, "I'll tell you. I
helped to bring up Miss Hawdon, her ladyship's daughter. I was in the
service of her ladyship's sister, who was very sensitive to the
disgrace her ladyship brought upon her, and gave out, even to her
ladyship, that the child was dead--she WAS very nearly so--when she
was born. But she's alive, and I know her." With these words, and a
laugh, and laying a bitter stress on the word "ladyship," Mrs.
Chadband folds her arms and looks implacably at Mr. Bucket.

"I suppose now," returns that officer, "YOU will be expecting a
twenty-pound note or a present of about that figure?"

Mrs. Chadband merely laughs and contemptuously tells him he can
"offer" twenty pence.

"My friend the law-stationer's good lady, over there," says Mr.
Bucket, luring Mrs. Snagsby forward with the finger. "What may YOUR
game be, ma'am?"

Mrs. Snagsby is at first prevented, by tears and lamentations, from
stating the nature of her game, but by degrees it confusedly comes to
light that she is a woman overwhelmed with injuries and wrongs, whom
Mr. Snagsby has habitually deceived, abandoned, and sought to keep in
darkness, and whose chief comfort, under her afflictions, has been
the sympathy of the late Mr. Tulkinghorn, who showed so much
commiseration for her on one occasion of his calling in Cook's Court
in the absence of her perjured husband that she has of late
habitually carried to him all her woes. Everybody it appears, the
present company excepted, has plotted against Mrs. Snagsby's peace.
There is Mr. Guppy, clerk to Kenge and Carboy, who was at first as
open as the sun at noon, but who suddenly shut up as close as
midnight, under the influence--no doubt--of Mr. Snagsby's suborning
and tampering. There is Mr. Weevle, friend of Mr. Guppy, who lived
mysteriously up a court, owing to the like coherent causes. There was
Krook, deceased; there was Nimrod, deceased; and there was Jo,
deceased; and they were "all in it." In what, Mrs. Snagsby does not
with particularity express, but she knows that Jo was Mr. Snagsby's
son, "as well as if a trumpet had spoken it," and she followed Mr.
Snagsby when he went on his last visit to the boy, and if he was not
his son why did he go? The one occupation of her life has been, for
some time back, to follow Mr. Snagsby to and fro, and up and down,
and to piece suspicious circumstances together--and every
circumstance that has happened has been most suspicious; and in this
way she has pursued her object of detecting and confounding her false
husband, night and day. Thus did it come to pass that she brought the
Chadbands and Mr. Tulkinghorn together, and conferred with Mr.
Tulkinghorn on the change in Mr. Guppy, and helped to turn up the
circumstances in which the present company are interested, casually,
by the wayside, being still and ever on the great high road that is
to terminate in Mr. Snagsby's full exposure and a matrimonial
separation. All this, Mrs. Snagsby, as an injured woman, and the
friend of Mrs. Chadband, and the follower of Mr. Chadband, and the
mourner of the late Mr. Tulkinghorn, is here to certify under the
seal of confidence, with every possible confusion and involvement
possible and impossible, having no pecuniary motive whatever, no
scheme or project but the one mentioned, and bringing here, and
taking everywhere, her own dense atmosphere of dust, arising from the
ceaseless working of her mill of jealousy.

While this exordium is in hand--and it takes some time--Mr. Bucket,
who has seen through the transparency of Mrs. Snagsby's vinegar at a
glance, confers with his familiar demon and bestows his shrewd
attention on the Chadbands and Mr. Smallweed. Sir Leicester Dedlock
remains immovable, with the same icy surface upon him, except that he
once or twice looks towards Mr. Bucket, as relying on that officer
alone of all mankind.

"Very good," says Mr. Bucket. "Now I understand you, you know, and
being deputed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to look into this
little matter," again Sir Leicester mechanically bows in confirmation
of the statement, "can give it my fair and full attention. Now I
won't allude to conspiring to extort money or anything of that sort,
because we are men and women of the world here, and our object is to
make things pleasant. But I tell you what I DO wonder at; I am
surprised that you should think of making a noise below in the hall.
It was so opposed to your interests. That's what I look at."

"We wanted to get in," pleads Mr. Smallweed.

"Why, of course you wanted to get in," Mr. Bucket asserts with
cheerfulness; "but for a old gentleman at your time of life--what I
call truly venerable, mind you!--with his wits sharpened, as I have
no doubt they are, by the loss of the use of his limbs, which
occasions all his animation to mount up into his head, not to
consider that if he don't keep such a business as the present as
close as possible it can't be worth a mag to him, is so curious! You
see your temper got the better of you; that's where you lost ground,"
says Mr. Bucket in an argumentative and friendly way.

"I only said I wouldn't go without one of the servants came up to Sir
Leicester Dedlock," returns Mr. Smallweed.

"That's it! That's where your temper got the better of you. Now, you
keep it under another time and you'll make money by it. Shall I ring
for them to carry you down?"

"When are we to hear more of this?" Mrs. Chadband sternly demands.

"Bless your heart for a true woman! Always curious, your delightful
sex is!" replies Mr. Bucket with gallantry. "I shall have the
pleasure of giving you a call to-morrow or next day--not forgetting
Mr. Smallweed and his proposal of two fifty."

"Five hundred!" exclaims Mr. Smallweed.

"All right! Nominally five hundred." Mr. Bucket has his hand on the
bell-rope. "SHALL I wish you good day for the present on the part of
myself and the gentleman of the house?" he asks in an insinuating
tone.

Nobody having the hardihood to object to his doing so, he does it,
and the party retire as they came up. Mr. Bucket follows them to the
door, and returning, says with an air of serious business, "Sir
Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it's for you to consider whether or not
to buy this up. I should recommend, on the whole, it's being bought
up myself; and I think it may be bought pretty cheap. You see, that
little pickled cowcumber of a Mrs. Snagsby has been used by all sides
of the speculation and has done a deal more harm in bringing odds and
ends together than if she had meant it. Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, he
held all these horses in his hand and could have drove 'em his own
way, I haven't a doubt; but he was fetched off the box head-foremost,
and now they have got their legs over the traces, and are all
dragging and pulling their own ways. So it is, and such is life. The
cat's away, and the mice they play; the frost breaks up, and the
water runs. Now, with regard to the party to be apprehended."

Sir Leicester seems to wake, though his eyes have been wide open, and
he looks intently at Mr. Bucket as Mr. Bucket refers to his watch.

"The party to be apprehended is now in this house," proceeds Mr.
Bucket, putting up his watch with a steady hand and with rising
spirits, "and I'm about to take her into custody in your presence.
Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, don't you say a word nor yet stir.
There'll be no noise and no disturbance at all. I'll come back in the
course of the evening, if agreeable to you, and endeavour to meet
your wishes respecting this unfortunate family matter and the
nobbiest way of keeping it quiet. Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock,
Baronet, don't you be nervous on account of the apprehension at
present coming off. You shall see the whole case clear, from first to
last."

Mr. Bucket rings, goes to the door, briefly whispers Mercury, shuts
the door, and stands behind it with his arms folded. After a suspense
of a minute or two the door slowly opens and a Frenchwoman enters.
Mademoiselle Hortense.

The moment she is in the room Mr. Bucket claps the door to and puts
his back against it. The suddenness of the noise occasions her to
turn, and then for the first time she sees Sir Leicester Dedlock in
his chair.

"I ask you pardon," she mutters hurriedly. "They tell me there was no
one here."

Her step towards the door brings her front to front with Mr. Bucket.
Suddenly a spasm shoots across her face and she turns deadly pale.

"This is my lodger, Sir Leicester Dedlock," says Mr. Bucket, nodding
at her. "This foreign young woman has been my lodger for some weeks
back."

"What do Sir Leicester care for that, you think, my angel?" returns
mademoiselle in a jocular strain.

"Why, my angel," returns Mr. Bucket, "we shall see."

Mademoiselle Hortense eyes him with a scowl upon her tight face,
which gradually changes into a smile of scorn, "You are very
mysterieuse. Are you drunk?"

"Tolerable sober, my angel," returns Mr. Bucket.

"I come from arriving at this so detestable house with your wife.
Your wife have left me since some minutes. They tell me downstairs
that your wife is here. I come here, and your wife is not here. What
is the intention of this fool's play, say then?" mademoiselle
demands, with her arms composedly crossed, but with something in her
dark cheek beating like a clock.

Mr. Bucket merely shakes the finger at her.

"Ah, my God, you are an unhappy idiot!" cries mademoiselle with a
toss of her head and a laugh. "Leave me to pass downstairs, great
pig." With a stamp of her foot and a menace.

"Now, mademoiselle," says Mr. Bucket in a cool determined way, "you
go and sit down upon that sofy."

"I will not sit down upon nothing," she replies with a shower of
nods.

"Now, mademoiselle," repeats Mr. Bucket, making no demonstration
except with the finger, "you sit down upon that sofy."

"Why?"

"Because I take you into custody on a charge of murder, and you don't
need to be told it. Now, I want to be polite to one of your sex and a
foreigner if I can. If I can't, I must be rough, and there's rougher
ones outside. What I am to be depends on you. So I recommend you, as
a friend, afore another half a blessed moment has passed over your
head, to go and sit down upon that sofy."

Mademoiselle complies, saying in a concentrated voice while that
something in her cheek beats fast and hard, "You are a devil."

"Now, you see," Mr. Bucket proceeds approvingly, "you're comfortable
and conducting yourself as I should expect a foreign young woman of
your sense to do. So I'll give you a piece of advice, and it's this,
don't you talk too much. You're not expected to say anything here,
and you can't keep too quiet a tongue in your head. In short, the
less you PARLAY, the better, you know." Mr. Bucket is very complacent
over this French explanation.

Mademoiselle, with that tigerish expansion of the mouth and her black
eyes darting fire upon him, sits upright on the sofa in a rigid
state, with her hands clenched--and her feet too, one might
suppose--muttering, "Oh, you Bucket, you are a devil!"

"Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," says Mr. Bucket, and from this
time forth the finger never rests, "this young woman, my lodger, was
her ladyship's maid at the time I have mentioned to you; and this
young woman, besides being extraordinary vehement and passionate
against her ladyship after being discharged--"

"Lie!" cries mademoiselle. "I discharge myself."

"Now, why don't you take my advice?" returns Mr. Bucket in an
impressive, almost in an imploring, tone. "I'm surprised at the
indiscreetness you commit. You'll say something that'll be used
against you, you know. You're sure to come to it. Never you mind what
I say till it's given in evidence. It is not addressed to you."

"Discharge, too," cries mademoiselle furiously, "by her ladyship! Eh,
my faith, a pretty ladyship! Why, I r-r-r-ruin my character by
remaining with a ladyship so infame!"

"Upon my soul I wonder at you!" Mr. Bucket remonstrates. "I thought
the French were a polite nation, I did, really. Yet to hear a female
going on like that before Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet!"

"He is a poor abused!" cries mademoiselle. "I spit upon his house,
upon his name, upon his imbecility," all of which she makes the
carpet represent. "Oh, that he is a great man! Oh, yes, superb! Oh,
heaven! Bah!"

"Well, Sir Leicester Dedlock," proceeds Mr. Bucket, "this intemperate
foreigner also angrily took it into her head that she had established
a claim upon Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, by attending on the occasion
I told you of at his chambers, though she was liberally paid for her
time and trouble."

"Lie!" cries mademoiselle. "I ref-use his money all togezzer."

"If you WILL PARLAY, you know," says Mr. Bucket parenthetically, "you
must take the consequences. Now, whether she became my lodger, Sir
Leicester Dedlock, with any deliberate intention then of doing this
deed and blinding me, I give no opinion on; but she lived in my house
in that capacity at the time that she was hovering about the chambers
of the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn with a view to a wrangle, and
likewise persecuting and half frightening the life out of an
unfortunate stationer."

"Lie!" cries mademoiselle. "All lie!"

"The murder was committed, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and you
know under what circumstances. Now, I beg of you to follow me close
with your attention for a minute or two. I was sent for, and the case
was entrusted to me. I examined the place, and the body, and the
papers, and everything. From information I received (from a clerk in
the same house) I took George into custody as having been seen
hanging about there on the night, and at very nigh the time of the
murder, also as having been overheard in high words with the deceased
on former occasions--even threatening him, as the witness made out.
If you ask me, Sir Leicester Dedlock, whether from the first I
believed George to be the murderer, I tell you candidly no, but he
might be, notwithstanding, and there was enough against him to make
it my duty to take him and get him kept under remand. Now, observe!"

As Mr. Bucket bends forward in some excitement--for him--and
inaugurates what he is going to say with one ghostly beat of his
forefinger in the air, Mademoiselle Hortense fixes her black eyes
upon him with a dark frown and sets her dry lips closely and firmly
together.

"I went home, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, at night and found this
young woman having supper with my wife, Mrs. Bucket. She had made a
mighty show of being fond of Mrs. Bucket from her first offering
herself as our lodger, but that night she made more than ever--in
fact, overdid it. Likewise she overdid her respect, and all that, for
the lamented memory of the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn. By the living
Lord it flashed upon me, as I sat opposite to her at the table and
saw her with a knife in her hand, that she had done it!"

Mademoiselle is hardly audible in straining through her teeth and
lips the words, "You are a devil."

"Now where," pursues Mr. Bucket, "had she been on the night of the
murder? She had been to the theayter. (She really was there, I have
since found, both before the deed and after it.) I knew I had an
artful customer to deal with and that proof would be very difficult;
and I laid a trap for her--such a trap as I never laid yet, and such
a venture as I never made yet. I worked it out in my mind while I was
talking to her at supper. When I went upstairs to bed, our house
being small and this young woman's ears sharp, I stuffed the sheet
into Mrs. Bucket's mouth that she shouldn't say a word of surprise
and told her all about it. My dear, don't you give your mind to that
again, or I shall link your feet together at the ankles." Mr. Bucket,
breaking off, has made a noiseless descent upon mademoiselle and laid
his heavy hand upon her shoulder.

"What is the matter with you now?" she asks him.

"Don't you think any more," returns Mr. Bucket with admonitory
finger, "of throwing yourself out of window. That's what's the matter
with me. Come! Just take my arm. You needn't get up; I'll sit down by
you. Now take my arm, will you? I'm a married man, you know; you're
acquainted with my wife. Just take my arm."

Vainly endeavouring to moisten those dry lips, with a painful sound
she struggles with herself and complies.

"Now we're all right again. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, this case
could never have been the case it is but for Mrs. Bucket, who is a
woman in fifty thousand--in a hundred and fifty thousand! To throw
this young woman off her guard, I have never set foot in our house
since, though I've communicated with Mrs. Bucket in the baker's
loaves and in the milk as often as required. My whispered words to
Mrs. Bucket when she had the sheet in her mouth were, 'My dear, can
you throw her off continually with natural accounts of my suspicions
against George, and this, and that, and t'other? Can you do without
rest and keep watch upon her night and day? Can you undertake to say,
'She shall do nothing without my knowledge, she shall be my prisoner
without suspecting it, she shall no more escape from me than from
death, and her life shall be my life, and her soul my soul, till I
have got her, if she did this murder?' Mrs. Bucket says to me, as
well as she could speak on account of the sheet, 'Bucket, I can!' And
she has acted up to it glorious!"

"Lies!" mademoiselle interposes. "All lies, my friend!"

"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, how did my calculations come out
under these circumstances? When I calculated that this impetuous
young woman would overdo it in new directions, was I wrong or right?
I was right. What does she try to do? Don't let it give you a turn?
To throw the murder on her ladyship."

Sir Leicester rises from his chair and staggers down again.

"And she got encouragement in it from hearing that I was always here,
which was done a-purpose. Now, open that pocket-book of mine, Sir
Leicester Dedlock, if I may take the liberty of throwing it towards
you, and look at the letters sent to me, each with the two words
'Lady Dedlock' in it. Open the one directed to yourself, which I
stopped this very morning, and read the three words 'Lady Dedlock,
Murderess' in it. These letters have been falling about like a shower
of lady-birds. What do you say now to Mrs. Bucket, from her spy-place
having seen them all 'written by this young woman? What do you say to
Mrs. Bucket having, within this half-hour, secured the corresponding
ink and paper, fellow half-sheets and what not? What do you say to
Mrs. Bucket having watched the posting of 'em every one by this young
woman, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet?" Mr. Bucket asks, triumphant
in his admiration of his lady's genius.

Two things are especially observable as Mr. Bucket proceeds to a
conclusion. First, that he seems imperceptibly to establish a
dreadful right of property in mademoiselle. Secondly, that the very
atmosphere she breathes seems to narrow and contract about her as if
a close net or a pall were being drawn nearer and yet nearer around
her breathless figure.

"There is no doubt that her ladyship was on the spot at the eventful
period," says Mr. Bucket, "and my foreign friend here saw her, I
believe, from the upper part of the staircase. Her ladyship and
George and my foreign friend were all pretty close on one another's
heels. But that don't signify any more, so I'll not go into it. I
found the wadding of the pistol with which the deceased Mr.
Tulkinghorn was shot. It was a bit of the printed description of your
house at Chesney Wold. Not much in that, you'll say, Sir Leicester
Dedlock, Baronet. No. But when my foreign friend here is so
thoroughly off her guard as to think it a safe time to tear up the
rest of that leaf, and when Mrs. Bucket puts the pieces together and
finds the wadding wanting, it begins to look like Queer Street."

"These are very long lies," mademoiselle interposes. "You prose great
deal. Is it that you have almost all finished, or are you speaking
always?"

"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," proceeds Mr. Bucket, who delights
in a full title and does violence to himself when he dispenses with
any fragment of it, "the last point in the case which I am now going
to mention shows the necessity of patience in our business, and never
doing a thing in a hurry. I watched this young woman yesterday
without her knowledge when she was looking at the funeral, in company
with my wife, who planned to take her there; and I had so much to
convict her, and I saw such an expression in her face, and my mind so
rose against her malice towards her ladyship, and the time was
altogether such a time for bringing down what you may call
retribution upon her, that if I had been a younger hand with less
experience, I should have taken her, certain. Equally, last night,
when her ladyship, as is so universally admired I am sure, come home
looking--why, Lord, a man might almost say like Venus rising from the
ocean--it was so unpleasant and inconsistent to think of her being
charged with a murder of which she was innocent that I felt quite to
want to put an end to the job. What should I have lost? Sir Leicester
Dedlock, Baronet, I should have lost the weapon. My prisoner here
proposed to Mrs. Bucket, after the departure of the funeral, that
they should go per bus a little ways into the country and take tea at
a very decent house of entertainment. Now, near that house of
entertainment there's a piece of water. At tea, my prisoner got up to
fetch her pocket handkercher from the bedroom where the bonnets was;
she was rather a long time gone and came back a little out of wind.
As soon as they came home this was reported to me by Mrs. Bucket,
along with her observations and suspicions. I had the piece of water
dragged by moonlight, in presence of a couple of our men, and the
pocket pistol was brought up before it had been there half-a-dozen
hours. Now, my dear, put your arm a little further through mine, and
hold it steady, and I shan't hurt you!"

In a trice Mr. Bucket snaps a handcuff on her wrist. "That's one,"
says Mr. Bucket. "Now the other, darling. Two, and all told!"

He rises; she rises too. "Where," she asks him, darkening her large
eyes until their drooping lids almost conceal them--and yet they
stare, "where is your false, your treacherous, and cursed wife?"

"She's gone forrard to the Police Office," returns Mr. Bucket.
"You'll see her there, my dear."

"I would like to kiss her!" exclaims Mademoiselle Hortense, panting
tigress-like.

"You'd bite her, I suspect," says Mr. Bucket.

"I would!" making her eyes very large. "I would love to tear her limb
from limb."

"Bless you, darling," says Mr. Bucket with the greatest composure,
"I'm fully prepared to hear that. Your sex have such a surprising
animosity against one another when you do differ. You don't mind me
half so much, do you?"

"No. Though you are a devil still."

"Angel and devil by turns, eh?" cries Mr. Bucket. "But I am in my
regular employment, you must consider. Let me put your shawl tidy.
I've been lady's maid to a good many before now. Anything wanting to
the bonnet? There's a cab at the door."

Mademoiselle Hortense, casting an indignant eye at the glass, shakes
herself perfectly neat in one shake and looks, to do her justice,
uncommonly genteel.

"Listen then, my angel," says she after several sarcastic nods. "You
are very spiritual. But can you restore him back to life?"

Mr. Bucket answers, "Not exactly."

"That is droll. Listen yet one time. You are very spiritual. Can you
make a honourable lady of her?"

"Don't be so malicious," says Mr. Bucket.

"Or a haughty gentleman of HIM?" cries mademoiselle, referring to Sir
Leicester with ineffable disdain. "Eh! Oh, then regard him! The poor
infant! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

"Come, come, why this is worse PARLAYING than the other," says Mr.
Bucket. "Come along!"

"You cannot do these things? Then you can do as you please with me.
It is but the death, it is all the same. Let us go, my angel. Adieu,
you old man, grey. I pity you, and I despise you!"

With these last words she snaps her teeth together as if her mouth
closed with a spring. It is impossible to describe how Mr. Bucket
gets her out, but he accomplishes that feat in a manner so peculiar
to himself, enfolding and pervading her like a cloud, and hovering
away with her as if he were a homely Jupiter and she the object of
his affections.

Sir Leicester, left alone, remains in the same attitude, as though he
were still listening and his attention were still occupied. At length
he gazes round the empty room, and finding it deserted, rises
unsteadily to his feet, pushes back his chair, and walks a few steps,
supporting himself by the table. Then he stops, and with more of
those inarticulate sounds, lifts up his eyes and seems to stare at
something.

Heaven knows what he sees. The green, green woods of Chesney Wold,
the noble house, the pictures of his forefathers, strangers defacing
them, officers of police coarsely handling his most precious
heirlooms, thousands of fingers pointing at him, thousands of faces
sneering at him. But if such shadows flit before him to his
bewilderment, there is one other shadow which he can name with
something like distinctness even yet and to which alone he addresses
his tearing of his white hair and his extended arms.

It is she in association with whom, saving that she has been for
years a main fibre of the root of his dignity and pride, he has never
had a selfish thought. It is she whom he has loved, admired,
honoured, and set up for the world to respect. It is she who, at the
core of all the constrained formalities and conventionalities of his
life, has been a stock of living tenderness and love, susceptible as
nothing else is of being struck with the agony he feels. He sees her,
almost to the exclusion of himself, and cannot bear to look upon her
cast down from the high place she has graced so well.

And even to the point of his sinking on the ground, oblivious of his
suffering, he can yet pronounce her name with something like
distinctness in the midst of those intrusive sounds, and in a tone of
mourning and compassion rather than reproach.

Bucket is an amiable man of good will but dogged in pursuit. At present he wanders far and wide, closely observing a multitude of people, places, and things. Bucket is an amiable man of good will but dogged in pursuit. At present he wanders far and wide, closely observing a multitude of people, places, and things. At Tulkinghorn's funeral, he sits behind the lattice blinds of a carriage and scans the crowd that has gathered in Lincoln's Inn Fields. After the funeral, he visits the Dedlocks, where he is always welcome. His conversation with Sir Leicester, Volumnia, and others is mostly small talk, but as he leaves, he questions the footman about Lady Dedlock's habits. He learns that on the night of the murder, she took a lone walk. The next morning, Bucket tells Sir Leicester that his wife is a suspect. Sir Leicester is dumbfounded when he learns of his wife's former lover, of her visit to his grave, and of the "bad blood" between her and Tulkinghorn. The Smallweeds, Snagsbys, and Chadbands arrive and bear the news that love letters to Captain Hawdon from "Honoria" were discovered at Krook's shop, read by Grandfather Smallweed, and then turned over to Tulkinghorn. All of the new arrivals hope to make money, one way or another out of Lady Dedlock's troubles and Tulkinghorn's death. Bucket dismisses them and then arrests Mlle. Hortense. He summarizes her relationship with Tulkinghorn and her appearance, in Lady Dedlock's clothes, before little Jo. Bucket's wife kept watch on Hortense and can prove that the French woman wrote letters accusing Lady Dedlock. Both George Rouncewell and Lady Dedlock visited Tulkinghorn on the night of the murder but both were blameless. Hortense later threw the murder weapon in a small lake; Bucket recovered the gun by having the lake dragged. All this is such a shock for Sir Leicester that he suffers a stroke.

At this point, the "detective story" aspect of the book reaches its completion. Still prompting the reader to read on, however, is  the unknown fate of Lady Dedlock. Bucket proves to be an intrepid sleuth, and though his main work is over, he will continue to play an active role in subsequent events. Both in defending his wife's honor and, afterward, in regarding her with compassion and without reproach, Sir Leicester shows hitherto unsuspected virtues, even as he succumbs to a stroke.