Gridley, who told her to sit down, which she did, first making a catch at her apron to dust the chair with, and then remembering that she had left that part of her costume at home. --Automatic movements, curious.
Mistress Kitty began telling in an undertone of the meeting between Mr. Bradshaw and Miss Badlam, and of the arrangements she made for herself as the reporter of the occasion. She then repeated to him, in her own way, that part of the conversation which has been already laid before the reader. There is no need of going over the whole of this again in Kitty's version, but we may fit what followed into the joints of what has been already told.
"He cahled her Cynthy, d' ye see, Mr. Gridley, an' tahked to her jist as asy as if they was two rogues, and she knowed it as well as he did. An' so, says he, I'm goin' away, says he, an' I'm goin' to be gahn siveral days, or perhaps longer, says he, an' you'd better kape it, says he.""Keep what, Kitty? What was it he wanted her to keep?" said Mr.
Gridley, who no longer doubted that he was on the trail of a plot, and meant to follow it. He was getting impatient with the "says he's" with which Kitty double-leaded her discourse.
"An' to be sure ain't I tellin' you, Mr. Gridley, jist as fast as my breath will let me? An' so, says he, you'd better kape it, says he, mixed up with your other paupers, says he," (Mr. Gridley started,)"an' thin we can find it in the garret, says he, whinever we want it, says he. An' if it all goes right out there, says he, it won't be lahng before we shall want to find it, says he. And I can dipind on you, says he, for we're both in the same boat, says he, an' you knows what I knows, says he, an' I knows what you knows, says be. And thin he taks a stack o' paupers out of his pocket, an' he pulls out one of 'em, an' he says to her, says he, that's the pauper, says he, an' if you die, says be, niver lose sight of that day or night, says he, for it's life an' dith to both of us, says he. An' thin he asks her if she has n't got one o' them paupers--what is 't they cahls 'em?--divilops, or some sich kind of a name--that they wraps up their letters in; an' she says no, she has n't got none that's big enough to hold it. So he says, give me a shate o' pauper, says he. An' thin he takes the pauper that she give him, an' he folds it up like one o' them--divilops, if that's the name of 'em; and thin he pulls a stick o' salin'-wax out of his pocket, an' a stamp, an' he takes the pauper an' puts it into th' other pauper, along with the rest of the paupers, an' thin he folds th' other pauper over the paupers, and thin he lights a candle, an' he milts the salin'-wax, and he sales up the pauper that was outside th' other paupers, an' he writes on the back of the pauper, an' thin he hands it to Miss Badlam.""Did you see the paper that he showed her before he fastened it up with the others, Kitty?""I did see it, indade, Mr. Gridley, and it's the truth I'm tellin' ye."
"Did you happen to notice anything about it, Kitty? ""I did, indade, Mr. Gridley. It was a longish kind of a pauper, and there was some blotches of ink on the back of it,--an' they looked like a face without any mouth, for, says I, there's two spots for the eyes, says I, and there's a spot for the nose, says I, and there's niver a spot for the mouth, says I"This was the substance of what Master Byles Gridley got out of Kitty Fagan. It was enough, yes, it was too much. There was some deep-laid plot between Murray Bradshaw and Cynthia Badlam, involving the interests of some of the persons connected with the late Malachi Withers; for that the paper described by Kitty was the same that he had seen the young man conceal in the Corpus Juris Civilis, it was impossible to doubt. If it had been a single spot an the back of it, or two, he might have doubted. But three large spots "blotches" she had called them, disposed thus *.* --would not have happened to be on two different papers, in all human probability.
After grave consultation of all his mental faculties in committee of the whole, he arrived at the following conclusion,--that Miss Cynthia Badlam was the depositary of a secret involving interests which he felt it his business to defend, and of a document which was fraudulently withheld and meant to be used for some unfair purpose.
And most assuredly, Master Gridley said to himself, he held a master-key, which, just so certainly as he could make up his mind to use it, would open any secret in the keeping of Miss Cynthia Badlam.
He proceeded, therefore, without delay, to get ready for a visit to that lady at The Poplars. He meant to go thoroughly armed, for he was a very provident old gentleman. His weapons were not exactly of the kind which a housebreaker would provide himself with, but of a somewhat peculiar nature.
Weapon number one was a slip of paper with a date and a few words written upon it. "I think this will fetch the document," he said to himself, "if it comes to the worst. Not if I can help it,--not if Ican help it. But if I cannot get at the heart of this thing otherwise, why, I must come to this. Poor woman!--Poor woman!"Weapon number two was a small phial containing spirits of hartshorn, sal volatile, very strong, that would stab through the nostrils, like a stiletto, deep into the gray kernels that lie in the core of the brain. Excellent in cases of sudden syncope or fainting, such as sometimes require the opening of windows, the dashing on of cold water, the cutting of stays, perhaps, with a scene of more or less tumultuous perturbation and afflux of clamorous womanhood.
So armed, Byles Gridley, A. M., champion of unprotected innocence, grasped his ivory-handled cane and sallied forth on his way to The Poplars.
