James Smith's first wife laying any claim to him.After hearing that, she joined me in persuading him to do his duty, and said she pitied your mistress from the bottom of her heart.With her influence to back me, I had no great fear of our man changing his mind.I had the door watched that night, however, so as to make quite sure of him.The next morning he was ready to time when Icalled, and a quarter of an hour after that we were off together for the north road.We made the journey with post-horses, being afraid of chance passengers, you know, in public conveyances.On the way down, Mr.James Smith and I got on as comfortably together as if we had been a pair of old friends.I told the story of our tracing him to the north of Scotland, and he gave me the particulars, in return, of his bolting from Darrock Hall.
They are rather amusing, William; would you like to hear them?"I told Mr.Dark that he had anticipated the very question I was about to ask him.
"Well," he said, "this is how it was: To begin at the beginning, our man really took Mrs.Smith, Number Two, to the Mediterranean, as we heard.He sailed up the Spanish coast, and, after short trips ashore, stopped at a seaside place in France called Cannes.
There he saw a house and grounds to be sold which took his fancy as a nice retired place to keep Number Two in.Nothing particular was wanted but the money to buy it; and, not having the little amount in his own possession, Mr.James Smith makes a virtue of necessity, and goes back overland to his wife with private designs on her purse-strings.Number Two, who objects to be left behind, goes with him as far as London.There he trumps up the first story that comes into his head about rents in the country, and a house in Lincolnshire that is too damp for her to trust herself in; and so, leaving her for a few days in London, starts boldly for Darrock Hall.His notion was to wheedle your mistress out of the money by good behavior; but it seems he started badly by quarreling with her about a fiddle-playing parson--""Yes, yes, I know all about that part of the story," I broke in, seeing by Mr.Dark's manner that he was likely to speak both ignorantly and impertinently of my mistress's unlucky friend ship for Mr.Meeke."Go on to the time when I left my master alone in the Red Room, and tell me what he did between midnight and nine the next morning.""Did?" said Mr.Dark."Why, he went to bed with the unpleasant conviction on his mind that your mistress had found him out, and with no comfort to speak of except what he could get out of the brandy bottle.He couldn't sleep; and the more he tossed and tumbled, the more certain he felt that his wife intended to have him tried for bigamy.At last, toward the gray of the morning, he could stand it no longer, and he made up his mind to give the law the slip while he had the chance.As soon as he was dressed, it struck him that there might be a reward offered for catching him, and he determined to make that slight change in his personal appearance which puzzled the witnesses so much before the magistrate to-day.So he opens his dressing-case and crops his hair in no time, and takes off his whiskers next.The fire was out, and he had to shave in cold water.What with that, and what with the flurry of his mind, naturally enough he cut himself--""And dried the blood with his nightgown?" says I.
"With his nightgown," repeated Mr.Dark."It was the first thing that lay handy, and he snatched it up.Wait a bit, though; the cream of the thing is to come.When he had done being his own barber, he couldn't for the life of him hit on a way of getting rid of the loose hair.The fire was out, and he had no matches;so he couldn't burn it.As for throwing it away, he didn't dare do that in the house or about the house, for fear of its being found, and betraying what he had done.So he wraps it all up in paper, crams it into his pocket to be disposed of when he is at a safe distance from the Hall, takes his bag, gets out at the window, shuts it softly after him, and makes for the road as fast as his long legs will carry him.There he walks on till a coach overtakes him, and so travels back to London to find himself in a fresh scrape as soon as be gets there.An interesting situation, William, and hard traveling from one end of France to the other, had not agreed together in the case of Number Two.Mr.James Smith found her in bed, with doctor's orders that she was not to be moved.There was nothing for it after that but to lie by in London till the lady got better.Luckily for us, she didn't hurry herself; so that, after all, your mistress has to thank the very woman who supplanted her for clearing her character by helping us to find Mr.James Smith.""And, pray, how did you come by that loose hair of his which you showed before the justice to-day?" I asked.
"Thank Number Two again," says Mr.Dark."I was put up to asking after it by what she told me.While we were talking about the advertisement, I made so bold as to inquire what first set her thinking that her husband and the Mr.James Smith whom we wanted might be one and the same man.'Nothing,' says she, 'but seeing him come home with his hair cut short and his whiskers shaved off, and finding that he could not give me any good reason for disfiguring himself in that way.I had my suspicions that something was wrong, and the sight of your advertisement strengthened them directly.' The hearing her say that suggested to my mind that there might be a difficulty in identifying him after the change in his looks, and I asked him what he had done with the loose hair before we left London.It was found in the pocket of his traveling coat just as he had huddled it up there on leaving the Hall, worry, and fright, and vexation, having caused him to forget all about it.Of course I took charge of the parcel, and you know what good it did as well as I do.So to speak, William, it just completed this beautifully neat case.