England -- Fiction; Gothic fiction; Inheritance and succession -- Fiction
Sir Richard says nothing. He follows Levi into a small inner room, which
had, perhaps, originally been a lady's boudoir, and had afterwards, one
might have conjectured, served as the treasury of cash and jewels of a
pawn-office; for its door was secured with iron bars, and two great
locks, and the windows were well barred with iron. There were two huge
iron safes in the room, built into the wall.
"I'll show you a beauty of a dresshing-ca-ashe," said Levi, rousing
himself; "I'll shell it a dead bargain, and give time for half, if you
knowsh any young shwell as wantsh such a harticle. Look here; it was
made for the Duchess of Horleans--all in gold, hemerald, and
brilliantsh."
And thus haranguing, he displayed its contents, and turned them over,
staring on them with a livid admiration. Sir Richard is not thinking of
the duchess's dressing-case, nor is he much more interested when Mr.
Levi goes on to tell him, "There'sh three executions against peersh out
thish week--two gone down to the country. Sholomonsh nobbled Lord
Bylkington's carriage outshide Shyner's at two o'clock in the morning,
and his lordship had to walk home in the rain;" and Levi laughs and
wriggles pleasantly over the picture. "I think he'sh coming," says Levi
suddenly, inclining his ear toward the door. He looked back over his
shoulder with an odd look, a little stern, at the young gentleman.
"Who?" asked the young man, a little uncertain, in consequence of the
character of that look.
"Your--that--your friend, of course," said Levi, with his eyes again
averted, and his ear near the door.
It was a moment of trepidation and of hope to Richard Arden. He hears
the steps of several persons in the next room. Levi opens a little bit
of the door, and peeps through, and with a quick glance towards the
baronet, he whispers, "Ay, it's him."
Oh, blessed hope! here comes, at last, a powerful friend to take him by
the hand, and draw him, in his last struggle, from the whirlpool.
Sir Richard glances towards the door through which the Jew is still
looking, and signing with his hand as, little by little, he opens it
wider and wider; and a voice in the next room, at sound of which Sir
Richard starts to his feet, says sharply, "Is all right?"
"All _right_," replies Levi, getting aside; and Mr. Longcluse entered
the room and shut the door.
His pale face looked paler than usual, his thin cruel lips were closed,
his nostrils dilated with a terrible triumph, and his eyes were fixed
upon Arden, as he held the fatal parchment in his hand.
Levi saw a scowl so dreadful contract Sir Richard Arden's face--was it
pain, or was it fury?--that, drawing back as far as the wall would let
him, he almost screamed, "It ain't me!--it ain't my fault!--I can't help
it!--I couldn't!--I can't!" His right hand was in his pocket, and his
left, trembling violently, extended toward him, as if to catch his arm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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