University of Virginia Library

31. Chapter XXXI.
The Garroters.

WHEN Richmond left the house of Mordecai Kolephat,
a tumult of contending hopes and apprehensions
filled his bosom. The unhappy man had on that
day learned that he was a bankrupt beyond hope of
retrieval, and that legal steps were about to be taken by
his creditors through which his situation must ere long be
known to the world. Nearly all his means had been
staked at the gaming table, during a year past, and his
liabilities of “honor,” as he termed them, were quite as
large as those involved by his style of luxurious living.
Save only a small inalienable income settled upon Helen,
the selfish gamester had squandered, since his marriage,
the large estate yielded to his control by a too-confiding
wife; and now, in the future, he beheld but ruin, and
meditated but crime. The knowledge of his impending
bankruptcy had prompted him, months before, to weave
his web of dissimulation around Mordecai Kolephat's niece,
until now, under the influence of his specious temptings,
the wretched girl had promised to commit a deed from
the very thought of which her nature shrank as from a
serpent. But what recked the schemer Richmond?—
secure, as he believed himself, in Rebecca's love, and confident

that, even should his purpose be baulked, no peril
would threaten himself, from any divulgement of his complicity
by one who loved him with such regardlessness of
self. “But it will not fail!” he muttered to himself, as,
gathering his cloak about him, he traversed swiftly the
twilight streets. “One drop of that subtle fluid will
make the dotard sleep forever; and his recent sickness
must preclude all suspicion of other agency. Helen,”
mattered the gamester, in continuation, and pausing, as
if to ponder—“Helen may live or die—she stands not
between me and fortune; for once let the Jew's wealth
be Rebecca's, and—it is mine!”

Thus speculated Charles Richmond, with no feeling of
remorse for the crime he had plotted—no sentiment of
affection for the poor instrument he had chosen for its
execution. Alas! remorse and love were alike alien to
his breast—possessed as it had been, during years, by the
demons of avarice and pride. From the unprincipled
fortune-hunter, who had won a trusting woman's hand and
heart, to the arrogant husband, neglecting her who had
given him all; from the luxurious speadthrift, vying with
other fashionable men in splendor of equipage and elegance
of ménage, to the callons man of the world, living
only for self-gratification; from the desperate gamester to
the unscrupulous cheat, and from bankruptcy to premeditated
villainy—these were but natural transitions, sequences
of artificial life daily occurring in our midst, and
yet, too oft, unheeded!

Wrapped in his dark cogitations, Richmond sought
the gaming-house; but an excitement, such as play were

powerless to generate, already trembled through his nerves;
growing more intense, as he reflected upon the fearful
crime contemplated long, and now upon the eve of consummation.
The figure of the old man Kolephat, as he
had last beheld him, months since, resting on his cane at
the door of his mansion, and looking up and down the
street, with a melancholy scrutiny, as if seeking for the
child whom he mourned anew—the pale face of Rebecca,
as it had been uplifted to his own, when, falteringly, she
had received the poison from his hand—these images rose
to Richmond's fancy, present almost to his visual sense;
and more than once he dashed his palm across his eyes
as if to shut away the too-familiar lineaments of his victim
and his dupe. He threw himself upon one of the
soft couches in the gaming-saloon, striving to watch the
players, but he could not banish other forms and faces
crowding in between; he called for wine, and drank deep,
but the draughts were but fuel to the fever, which grew
fierce as the hours wore on; till, at length, perturbed
and impatient, he again rushed to the streets, wandering
he recked not whither. It was a fearful stake he risked
that evening—involving life and death; what marvel,
then, that the gaming-board and its surroundings offered
too poor excitement to his chafed spirit! He had flung
the die on which his soul was depending; the risk was
dishonor—destruction; the prize, wealth—perdition.

“To-morrow!” he muttered, as he strode upon his
way—“To-morrow will see the end of this!”

Ay, indeed! Charles Richmond! to-morrow will behold
the end of this!

The night was dark, and heavy clouds, precursors of a
coming storm, were hanging over the city; but, absorbed
in his uncertain reveries, the gamester took no note of the
direction whither his steps were tending, till, after traversing
many squares, a wet wind sweeping up from the
street, before him, suddenly blew his mantle apart, warning
him of proximity to the water-side. At the same
moment, a few drops dashing in his face intimated the
impending rain. The blast, too, gathering strength, now
began to moan through neighboring lanes and alleys, and
Richmond, shivering under its rawness, slackened his
pace, endeavoring to identify his locality. As he thus
paused, a dull gleam of light, struggling through the red-curtained
glass of a grocery at the nearest corner, caught
his glance, and, approaching it, he opened the rough door
and entered, at once, to shelter himself for a moment, and
inquire concerning his whereabouts.

The grocery was of the usual type of those receptacles
of decayed provisions, drugged articles of daily use, and
poisoned alcoholic decoetions. A low ceiling, hung with
onion-bunches, mouldy codfish, and half-rotted hams; the
single window strewed with dirty clay pipes and broken
crockery ware; the shelves filled with samples of supposititious
tea, coffee, sugar, and flour; the counter thick
with greasy dirt; and at its extremity a few upright slats,
forming a bar, behind which were dispensed the fiery preparations
that, with fever, suffocation, filth, and poverty,
made up the daily and nightly torment of the poor who
thronged the neighborhood. At the present hour, some
half dozen devotees surrounded this squalid shrine of

Bacchus; men and youths seated about a stove, and
presenting, through an atmosphere of execrable tobacco
smoke, a variety of countenances that were far from prepossessing
the new-comer in favor of their owners. Richmond,
however, advanced across the wet floor, and
approaching one who wore a greenbaize coat, and whose
round cheek, thick lips, and bulging eyes, proclaimed
Tentonic origin, requested information regarding the
locality in which he found himself.

The man addressed, whether from stupidity or design,
stammered in his reply, but the voice of a man near him
responded to Richmond's question. This one was apparently
about fifty years of age, yellow-skinned, and villainously
low-browed, with tangled elf-locks depending on
his muscular neck; beside him sat a cadaverous-looking
youth, with greenish eyes, whom Emily Marvin or good
Mrs. Dumsey would have recognized at once as the coffinmaker's
lad, the pilferer of the orphan girl's purse; and
near this worthy was the bull-necked young man who had
figured with him in the fireman's conflict, and who wore
now, as on that occasion, a shirt of flaming red, with
large bone buttons on its bosom. Richmond glanced from
one to another of these personages, and could not fail to
be convinced that he had chanced upon suspicious company.
Nevertheless, he bowed, without apparent hesitation,
in acknowledging the answer given to his question
by the saffron-featured man, and then, rubbing his hands
before the stove, demanded if there were a coach to be
procured in the vicinity.

“Of course,” the yellow man replied, briskly, “gen'

elman have a coach? Dick or Jim 'll go and get you
one, sir.”

“I shall be obliged to you,” said Richmond, who was
desirous of leaving the place as quickly as possible; for a
certain personal uneasiness began to master his previous
nervousness.

“Dick! go for a wehicle!” called out the elder speaker,
upon which the red-shirted youth moved off, with alacrity,
and Richmond fancied that he detected an interchange of
looks between the round-faced vender of liquor and his
saffron-skinned guest. Nevertheless, at so early an hour
and in a populous neighborhood, the apprehension of
danger did not give the gamester much thought; though
he could not but notice that he had become an object of
close scrutiny to all the occupants of the shop, who, sitting,
or drinking at the bar, presented a sinister appearance
that augured not well for their characters. He felt
relieved, therefore, when Dick, returning, announced the
coach, which, after throwing a piece of silver to the lad,
and giving hasty directions to the driver, he entered, and
was driven rapidly away; unnoticing, however, that two
of his late companions ascended to the coach-box, and
took post, raining though it was, with the man who
guided the horses.

Seated in the carriage, Richmond's thoughts reverted to
the fearful matter which had before occupied them; and
again he became a prey to doubt and forebodings. With
Kolephat, now, and Rebecca, was mingled in his memory
the form of another whom he had long since wronged and
forgotten—the maiden who had earliest loved him, and

whose parting letter, the echo of a broken heart, had
been perused by the devoted Helen on that fatal morning
when she realized the full desolation of an unloved wife.
The face—pale, thoughtful, sorrowing—of that first martyr
to his selfishness—looked now upon him from the
murk of night, blended with the despairing lineaments of
Rebecca and the features of Kolephat, rigid in the ghastliness
of death. “Horrible!” gasped the murderer, striking
his forehead with his clenched hands; and then,
suddenly, the stopping of the coach and abrupt unclosing
of its door, startled his fevered brain, so that he sprang
up wildly in the darkness.

“Gen'l'man want to stop?” demanded a voice at the
open door. Richmond mechanically alighted from the
carriage, and was received in the embrace of muscular
arms, while simultaneously a hand was passed around his
neck, constricting his throat nearly to suffocation.

“Hah!” gasped the gamester—but further exclamation
was stifled; for a heavy blow fell upon his head, at the
same instant that another hand dragged him to the pavement.

“Down with him! finish him!” cried a hoarse voice,
which Richmond recognized as belonging to the yellow-faced
man whom he had seen at the grocery. The conviction
that he was in the grasp of ruffians, who had,
without doubt, accompanied the treacherous driver of the
coach, recalled the young man's faculties, and the love of
life, strong within him, caused him at once to resist with
all his strength. By a sudden and dexterous movement,
he contrived to release his right arm from the ruffian who

had seized it, and, leaning back against the carriage,
though the effort almost strangled him, he struck forward
full into the face of the man who clutched his throat,
whose fingers immediately left their hold. Then, gulping
a quick breath, he shouted loudly—

“Help!—murder!—help!”

“Stab him!” muttered one of the assailants, and the
words were followed by the lunge of a sharp blade, which
pierced the gamester's side. Another cry broke from
Richmond's lips, and then he felt himself dragged downwards,
prone upon the pavement.

“Another like that, Jim!” cried the yellow-visaged
man. “'Twill finish him!”

“I've dropped the knife,” returned the cadaverous
apprentice, with an oath; and then Richmond, as he
struggled in the gloom, felt a loaded whip-handle descending
again upon his forehead. His brain reeled, and his
sight became clouded at once; but, ere he sank into
insensibility, he was conscious of a short struggle above
his head, and heard the quick report of a pistol. Then
all grew dark around him.