The “Softy” had been born and bred, and had lived his life, in such a narrow radius, that the uprooting of one of the oaks in Mellish Park could scarcely be a slower or more painful operation than the severing of those ties of custom which held the boorish hanger-on to the neighbourhood of the household in which he had so long been an inmate. But now that his occupation at Mellish Park was forever gone, and his patron, the trainer, dead, he was alone in the world, and had need to look out for a fresh situation.
But he seemed rather slow to do this. He was not a very prepossessing person, it must be remembered, and there were not very many services for which he was fitted. Although upwards of forty years of age, he was generally rather loosely described as a young man who understood all about horses; and this qualification was usually sufficient to procure for any individual whatever some kind of employment in the neighbourhood of Doncaster. The “Softy” seemed, however, rather to keep aloof from the people who knew and could have recommended him; and when asked why he did not seek a situation, gave evasive answers, and muttered something to the effect that he had saved a little bit of money at Mellish Park, and had no need to come upon the parish if he was out of work for a week or two.
John Mellish was so well known as a generous paymaster, that this was a matter of surprise to no one. Steeve Hargraves had no doubt had pretty pickings in that liberal household. So the “Softy” went his way unquestioned, hanging about the town in a lounging, uncomfortable manner, sitting in some public-house taproom half the day and night, drinking his meagre liquor in a sullen and unsocial style peculiar to himself, and consorting with no one.
He made his appearance at the railway station one day, and groped helplessly through all the timetables pasted against the walls: but he could make nothing of them unaided, and was at last compelled to appeal to a good-tempered-looking official who was busy on the platform.
“I want th’ Liverpool trayuns,” he said, “and I can find naught about ’em here.”
The official knew Mr. Hargraves, and looked at him with a stare of open wonder.
“My word, Steeve,” he said laughing, “what takes you to Liverpool? I thought you’d never been further than York in your life?”
“Maybe I haven’t,” the “Softy” answered sulkily; “but that’s no reason I shouldn’t go now. I’ve heard of a situation at Liverpool as I think’ll suit me.”
“Not better than the place you had with Mr. Mellish.”
“Perhaps not,” muttered Mr. Hargraves, with a frown darkening over his ugly face; “but Mellish Park be no pleace for me now, and arnt been for a long time past.”
The railway official laughed.
The story of Aurora’s chastisement of the half-witted groom was pretty well known amongst the townspeople of Doncaster; and I am sorry to say there were very few members of that sporting community who did not admire the mistress of Mellish Park something more by reason of this little incident in her history.
Mr. Hargraves received the desired information about the railway route between Doncaster and Liverpool, and then left the station.
A shabby-looking little man, who had also been mating some inquiries of the same official who had talked to the “Softy,” and had consequently heard the above brief dialogue, followed Stephen Hargraves from the station into the town. Indeed, had it not been that the “Softy” was unusually slow of perception, he might have discovered that upon this particular day the same shabby-looking little man generally happened to be hanging about any and every place to which he, Mr. Hargraves, betook himself. But the cast-off retainer of Mellish Park did not trouble himself with any such misgivings. His narrow intellect, never wide enough to take in many subjects at a time, was fully absorbed by other considerations; and he loitered about with a gloomy and preoccupied expression in his face, that by no means enhanced his personal attractions.
It is not to be supposed that Mr. Joseph Grimstone let the grass grow under his feet after his interview with John Mellish and Talbot Bulstrode. He had heard enough to make his course pretty clear to him, and he went to work quietly and sagaciously to win the reward offered to him.
There was not a tailor’s shop in Doncaster or its vicinity into which the detective did not make his way. There was not a garment confectionée by any of the civil purveyors upon whom he intruded that Mr. Grimstone did not examine; not a drawer of odds and ends which he did not ransack, in his search for buttons by “Crosby, maker, Birmingham.” But for a long time he made his inquisition in vain. Before the day succeeding that of Talbot’s arrival at Mellish Park was over, the detective had visited every tailor or clothier in the neighbourhood of the racing metropolis of the north, but no traces of “Crosby, maker, Birmingham,” had he been able to find. Brass waistcoat-buttons are not particularly affected by the leaders of the fashion in the present day, and Mr. Grimstone found almost every variety of fastening upon the waistcoats he examined, except that one special style of button, a specimen of which, out of shape and bloodstained, he carried deep in his trousers-pocket.
He was returning to the inn at which he had taken up his abode, and where he was supposed to be a traveller in the Glenfield starch and sugarplum line, tired and worn out with a day’s useless work, when he was attracted by the appearance of some ready-made
