"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." 66 "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 honor 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-bye," 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 sup. pose?" 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 innkeeper. Lived universally respected, and died lamented. Said with his last breath that he considered service the most honorable 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, 66 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 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." She This is merely in passing. 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?” O yes. When it's moonlight! Of course. O, 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. دو "To be sure, says Mr. Bucket. Now I "That makes a difference. "To be sure she did! I let her into the garden over the way." "And left her there. Certainly you | I don't deceive myself, my Lady was did. I saw you doing it." "I didn't see you," says Mercury. "Half-past nine." And if muffled in a loose black mantle, with a deep fringe to it?" Mr. Bucket must "Of course she was.' Of course she was. return to a little work he has to get on with up-stairs; 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? CHAPTER LIV. SPRINGING A MINE. 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. REFRESHED by sleep, Mr. Bucket rises | the game in his hand, but with a high betimes in the morning, and prepares reputation involved in his playing his for a field-day. Smartened up by the hand out to the last card, in a masterly aid of a clean shirt and a wet hair-way. Not in the least anxious or brush, 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 "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 is capable of. A gentleman can bear not, Miss Dedlock would be interested a shock, when it must come, boldly and 66 "Why, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," returns Mr. Bucket, with his head persuasively on one side, and his forefinger pendant at one ear like an ear-ring, we can't be too private, just at present. You will presently see that we can't be too private. A lady, under any 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." "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 ?" 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 Cæsar-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) "No, Sir Leicester Dedlock; not the being a probable move according to my 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 gentleman is, and what a gentleman 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, Iwithout 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 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 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 wretcheder 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 |