As the villain folded his arms tight together, and muttered curses on himself in the impotence of baffled malice, Mr. Brownlow turned to the terrified group beside him, and explained that the Jew, who had been his old accomplice and confidant, had a large reward for keeping Oliver ensnared: of which some part was to be given up, in the event of his being rescued: and that a dispute on this head had led to their visit to the country house for the purpose of identifying him.
“The locket and ring?” said Mr. Brownlow, turning to Monks.
“I bought them from the man and woman I told you of, who stole them from the nurse, who stole them from the corpse,” answered Monks without raising his eyes. “You know what became of them.”
Mr. Brownlow merely nodded to Mr. Grimwig, who disappearing with great alacrity, shortly returned, pushing in Mrs. Bumble, and dragging her unwilling consort after him.
“Do my hi’s deceive me!” cried Mr. Bumble, with ill-feigned enthusiasm, “or is that little Oliver? Oh O-li-ver, if you know’d how I’ve been a-grieving for you—’
“Hold your tongue, fool,” murmured Mrs. Bumble.
“Isn’t natur, natur, Mrs. Bumble?” remonstrated the workhouse master. “Can’t I be supposed to feel—I as brought him up porochially—when I see him a-setting here among ladies and gentlemen of the very affablest description! I always loved that boy as if he’d been my—my—my own grandfather,” said Mr. Bumble, halting for an appropriate comparison. “Master Oliver, my dear, you remember the blessed gentleman in the white waistcoat? Ah! he went to heaven last week, in a oak coffin with plated handles, Oliver.”
“Come, sir,” said Mr. Grimwig, tartly; “suppress your feelings.”
“I will do my endeavours, sir,” replied Mr. Bumble. “How do you do, sir? I hope you are very well.”
This salutation was addressed to Mr. Brownlow, who had stepped up to within a short distance of the respectable couple. He inquired, as he pointed to Monks.
“Do you know that person?”
“No,” replied Mrs. Bumble flatly.
“Perhaps you don’t?” said Mr. Brownlow, addressing her spouse.
“I never saw him in all my life,” said Mr. Bumble.
“Nor sold him anything, perhaps?”
“No,” replied Mrs. Bumble.
“You never had, perhaps, a certain gold locket and ring?” said Mr. Brownlow.
“Certainly not,” replied the matron. “Why are we brought here to answer to such nonsense as this?”
Again Mr. Brownlow nodded to Mr. Grimwig; and again that gentleman limped away with extraordinary readiness. But not again did he return with a stout man and wife; for this time, he led in two palsied women, who shook and tottered as they walked.
“You shut the door the night old Sally died,” said the foremost one, raising her shrivelled hand, “but you couldn’t shut out the sound, nor stop the chinks.”
“No, no,” said the other, looking round her and wagging her toothless jaws. “No, no, no.”
“We heard her try to tell you what she’d done, and saw you take a paper from her hand, and watched you too, next day, to the pawnbroker’s shop,” said the first.
“Yes,” added the second, “and it was a “locket and gold ring.’ We found out that, and saw it given you. We were by. Oh! we were by.”
“And we know more than that,” resumed the first, “for she told us often, long ago, that the young mother had told her that, feeling she should never get over it, she was on her way, at the time that she was taken ill, to die near the grave of the father of the child.”
“Would you like to see the pawnbroker himself?” asked Mr. Grimwig with a motion towards the door.
“No,” replied the woman; “if he—she pointed to Monks—”has been coward enough to confess, as I see he has, and you have sounded all these hags till you have found the right ones, I have nothing more to say. I did sell them, and they’re where you’ll never get them. What then?”
“Nothing,” replied Mr. Brownlow, “except that it remains for us to take care that neither of you is employed in a situation of trust again. You may leave the room.”