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                        DOROTHY'S DOUBLE

                         BY G. A. HENTY

AUTHOR OF 'RUJUB THE JUGGLER' 'IN THE DAYS OF THE MUTINY' 'THE CURSE OF
CARNE'S HOLD' ETC.


    IN THREE VOLUMES--VOL. I.

    London
    CHATTO & WINDUS PICCADILLY
    1894

    PRINTED BY
    SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
    LONDON




DOROTHY'S DOUBLE




PROLOGUE


A dark night on the banks of the Thames; the south-west wind, heavily
charged with sleet, was blowing strongly, causing little waves to lap
against the side of a punt moored by the bank. Its head-rope was tied
round a weeping willow which had shed most of its leaves, and whose
pendent boughs swayed and waved in the gusts, sending at times a shower
of heavy drops upon a man leaning against its trunk. Beyond stretched a
broad lawn with clumps of shrubs, and behind loomed the shadow of a
mansion, but so faintly that it might have passed unnoticed in the
darkness had it not been for some lights in the upper windows.

At times the man changed his position, muttering impatiently as the
water made its way down between his collar and neck and soaked through
his clothes to the shoulders.

'I must have been waiting an hour!' he exclaimed at last. 'If she
doesn't come soon I shall begin to think that something has prevented
her getting out. It will be no joke to have to come again to-morrow
night if it keeps on like this. It has been raining for the last three
days without a stop, and looks as if it would keep on as much longer.'

A few minutes later he started as he made out a figure in the darkness.
It approached him, and stopped ten yards away.

'Are you there?' a female voice asked.

'Of course I am,' he replied, 'and a nice place it is to be waiting in
for over an hour on such a night as this. Have you got it?'

'Yes.'

'That is all right. Well, chuck your bonnet down there, three or four
feet from the edge of the water.'

'And my cloak? I have brought that and a shawl, as you told me.'

'No; give it to me. Now get into the boat, and we will shove off.'

As soon as the woman had seated herself in the punt the man unfastened
the head-rope and stepped in; then, taking a long pole in his hand, he
let the boat drift down with the strong stream, keeping close to the
bank. Where the lawn ended there was a clump of bushes overhanging the
water. He caught hold of these, broke off two branches that dipped into
the stream, then, hauling the punt a little farther in, he took the
cloak the woman had handed to him and hitched it fast round a stump that
projected an inch or two above the swollen stream.

'That will do the trick,' he said. 'They will find it there when the
river falls.' Then he poled the boat out and let her drift again. 'You
have brought another bonnet, I see, Polly.'

'You don't suppose I was going to be such a fool as to leave myself
bareheaded on such a night as this,' she said sullenly.

'Well, there is no occasion to be bad-tempered; it has been a deal worse
for me than it has for you, waiting an hour and a half there, besides
being a good half-hour poling this tub up against the stream. I suppose
it went off all right?'

'Yes, there was no difficulty about it. I kicked up a row and pretended
to be drunk. Not too bad, or they would have turned me straight out of
the house, but I was told I was to go the first thing in the morning.
The rest was easy enough. I had only to slip down, get it, and be off,
but I had to wait some time at the door. I opened it about an inch or
two, and had to stand there listening until I was sure they were both
asleep. I am sorry I ever did it. I had half a mind to chuck it up three
or four times, but----'

'But you thought better of it, Polly. Well, you were perfectly right;
fifty pounds down and a pound a week regular, that ain't so bad you
know, especially as you were out of a place, and had no character to
show.'

'But mind,' she said threateningly, 'no harm is to come to it. I don't
know what your game is, but you promised me that, and if you break your
word I will peach, as true as my name is Polly Green. I don't care what
they do to me, but I will split on you and tell the whole business.'

'Don't you alarm yourself about nothing,' he said, good-temperedly. 'I
know what my game is, and that is enough for you. Why, if I wanted to
get rid of it and you too I have only to drive my heel through the side
of this rotten old craft. I could swim to shore easily enough, but when
they got the drags out to-morrow they would bring something up in them.
Here is the end of the island.'

A few pushes with the pole, and the punt glided in among several other
craft lying at the strand opposite Isleworth Church. The man helped the
woman with her burden ashore, and knotted the head-rope to that of the
boat next to it.

'That is how it was tied when I borrowed it,' he said; 'her owner will
never dream that she has been out to-night.'

'What next?' the woman asked.

'We have got to walk to Brentford. I have got a light trap waiting for
me there. It is a little crib I use sometimes, and they gave me the key
of the stable-door, so I can get the horse out and put him in the trap
myself. I said I was starting early in the morning, and they won't know
whether it is at two or five that I go out. I brought down a couple of
rugs, so you will be able to keep pretty dry, and I have got a
driving-coat for myself. We shall be down at Greenwich at that little
crib you have taken by six o'clock. You have got the key, I suppose?'

'Yes. The fire is laid, and we can have a cup of tea before you drive
back. Then I shall turn in for a good long sleep.'

An hour later they were driving rapidly towards London.




CHAPTER I


A slatternly woman was standing at the entrance of a narrow court in one
of the worst parts of Chelsea. She was talking to a neighbour belonging
to the next court, who had paused for a moment for a gossip in her
passage towards a public-house.

'Your Sal is certainly an owdacious one,' she said. 'I saw her yesterday
evening when you were out looking for her. I told her she would get it
hot if she didn't get back home as soon as she could, and she jest
laughed in my face and said I had best mind my own business. I told her
I would slap her face if she cheeked me, and she said, "I ain't your
husband, Mrs. Bell, and if you were to try it on you would find that I
could slap quite as hard as you can."'

'She is getting quite beyond me, Mrs. Bell. I don't know what to do with
her. I have thrashed her as long as I could stand over her, but what is
the good? The first time the door is open she just takes her hook and I
don't see her again for days. I believe she sleeps in the Park, and I
suppose she either begs or steals to keep herself. At the end of a week
maybe she will come in again, just the same as if she had only been out
for an hour. "How have you been getting on since I have been away?" she
will say. "No one to scrub your floor; no one to help you when you are
too drunk to find your bed," and then she laughs fit to make yer blood
run cold. Owdacious ain't no name for that wench, Mrs. Bell. Why, there
ain't a boy in this court of her own size as ain't afraid of her. She is
a regular tiger-cat, she is; and if they says anything to her, she just
goes for them tooth and nail. I shan't be able to put up with her ways
much longer. Well, yes; I don't mind if I do take a two of gin with
you.'

They had been gone but a minute or two when a man turned in at the
court. He looked about forty, was clean shaven, and wore a rough
great-coat, a scarlet and blue tie with a horseshoe pin, and tightly cut
trousers, which, with the tie and pin, gave him a somewhat horsey
appearance. More than one of the inhabitants of the court glanced
sharply at him as he came in, wondering what business he could have
there. He asked no questions, but went in at an open door, picked his
way up the rickety stairs to the top of the house, and knocked at a
door. There was no reply. He knocked again louder and more impatiently;
then, with a muttered oath, descended the stairs.

'Who are you wanting?' a woman asked, as he paused at a lower door.

'I am looking for Mrs. Phillips; she is not in her room.'

'I just saw her turn off with Mother Bell. I expect you will find them
at the bar of the Lion, lower down the street.'

With a word of thanks he went down the court, waited two or three
minutes near the entrance, and then walked in the direction of the
public-house. He had gone but a short distance, however, when he saw the
two women come out. They stood gossiping for three or four minutes, and
then the woman he was in search of came towards him, while the other
went on down the street.

'Hello, Mr. Warbles!' Mrs. Phillips exclaimed when she came near to him;
'who would have thought of seeing you? Why, it is a year or more since
you were here last, though I must say as your money comes every month
regular; not as it goes far, I can tell you, for that girl is enough to
eat one out of 'arth and 'ome.'

'Well, never mind that now,' he said impatiently, 'that will keep till
we get upstairs. I have been up there and found that you were out. I
want to have a talk with you. Where is the girl?'

'Ah, where indeed, Mr. Warbles; there is never no telling where Sal is;
maybe she is in the next court, maybe she is the other side of town. She
is allus on the move. I have locked up her boots sometimes, but it is no
odds to Sal. She would just as lief go barefoot as not.'

By this time they arrived at the door of the room, and after some
fumbling in her pocket the woman produced the key and they went in. It
was a poverty-stricken room; a rickety table and two chairs, a small bed
in one corner and some straw with a ragged rug thrown over it in
another, a kettle and a frying-pan, formed its whole furniture