Our own Penny-dreadful

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Title:     Our own Penny-dreadful
Author: Talbot Baines Reed [More Titles by Reed]

Preface.

I am always coming across old manuscripts. I am not sure of the date of the following, but I fancy it must have been written for a prize, which, strange to say, it failed to secure. The only conditions were that the story should have lots of "go" in it, that the incidents should be natural, the tone elevating, and the characters carefully studied.

I ask any of my readers if this does not fulfil all these conditions? I know when it was returned to me as "not quite the style we care about," I was extremely angry, and replied that I should very much like to see what style they did care about, if not this. They had not the common politeness to reply!

Another publisher to whom I submitted it actually wrote back that he was not in the habit of publishing "penny dreadfuls." I was never so insulted in all my life!

However, as a specimen of the kind of story some boys read, and some editors do _not_ publish, the reader shall have my "penny dreadful," and decide for himself whether it has not lots of "go," is not strictly true to nature, elevating in tone, and carefully studied. If it is not, then he had better not read it!

The Plaster Cast; Or Septimus Minor’s Million.

A Thrilling Story in Fifteen Chapters, by the Author of "Blugram Blunderbuss, or the Dog-Man."

 

Chapter I. THE MURDER!

The golden sun was plunging his magnificent head angrily into the sheen of the bronze Atlantic when Septimus Minor scaled the craggy path which leads from Crocusville to the towering cliff above.

The wind came and went in fitful gusts, which now and again carried Septimus off his feet, and sometimes lifted him a foot or two over the edge of the rugged cliff in time for another eddy to carry him back.

Nature this evening suited the gusty humour of Septimus Minor's breast.

"The crisis of my life approaches!" he said to himself, as a magnificent wave from below leapt eight hundred feet in the air, and fell, drenching him from head to foot. "I am fifteen years old next week, and something here,"--here he laid his right hand on his left side--"tells me I am a man."

As he spoke, another wave leapt skyward, and out of it emerged the form of a man.

"Yes!" cried Septimus. "Her father!"

Septimus was the youngest of seven children, most of whom were orphans. But we digress.

"Belay there--haul in your mainslacks, and splice your marline-spike. Where are you coming to?" cried Peeler, the coastguardsman--for such, we need hardly say, was the rank of the new arrival.

"How are you?" said Sep, in an off-hand way.

"Blooming," said the not altogether refined Peeler.

A gust of wind lifted them both up the twenty remaining yards of the cliff, and left them standing on a sheltered crag at the extreme brink.

"Spin us a yarn," said Sep.

The setting sun cast a lurid flash over the figures of that strangely assorted pair. The next moment it had set, and nothing was visible but the reflection of the end of Sep's cigar in the glass eye of his interlocutor.

Septimus Minor had lived in Crocusville ever since he could remember, and the coastguardsman some years longer. Hence Sep's request.

Mr Peeler was a fine specimen of his class. He wore a sou'wester and boots to match, and round his shoulders--

But why all this minute detail concerning one who is to disappear--if he had but known it!--before that howling night--

"Twas in '52 she grounded," said he, transferring something from his right cheek to his left. "Hang me on the Union Jack," (that was a nautical expression by which Peeler added solemnity to his statement) "if there was not exactly one million Spanish doubloons on board."

Sep whistled, but immediately checked himself, and sat down on the wind to hear the rest.

"Bust my buttons if mortal man knows where she lies!" continued Peeler, "save and except yours 'umbly. Stand by, my shaver, and cast your cock- eye on this bit of rag."

And he produced from his pocket a greasy piece of parchment with a map upon it.

"There," said he, laying his broad thumb on a red cross somewhere in the West Pacific, "there she lies--full of gold, my boy. Shiver my jury- masts if she don't."

The wind on which Sep was sitting lifted him to his feet, as he grasped the map and gazed with quivering excitement on the mysterious red mark.

He laughed sardonically, and the perspiration stood in beads on his brow. Then, pushing Peeler over the cliff, he put the map in his pocket, and walked on whistling in the night air to the cottage.

 

Chapter II. THE SMILE

"My own Velvetina!"

"Sep, my pet!"

"Can it really be?"

"Even so."

A silence, during which a pair of tangled eyelashes are dim with humid dew. Then--

"Did you meet daddy on the cliff, pet?"

He turned ashy white, even in the darkness, and recoiled several yards at the unexpected inquiry.

"Where?" at last he gasped, prevaricatingly.

"Then you saw him not!" cried she, "and he is out alone on this wild night; and only his thin socks on."

"Really?" replies Sep, "let me go and look for him."

He crushed her lily hand lovingly in his own and went. But he turned to the left at the end of the lane, and with scarcely half a dozen bounds reached the railway station, grasping the map and murmuring to himself, "My Velvy!" all the way.

Any one who could have seen that happy boy's face at the window of the second-class carriage, as the train steamed majestically out of the station, would scarcely have dreamed of the deep meaning concealed beneath that ingenuous smile.

Smile on, Septimus, yet beware! The sleuth-hound is already on the track!

 

Chapter III. THE SLEUTH-HOUND

Solomon Smellie, of Scotland Yard, had yet his way to make in the world. He was not exactly young, for time had already thinned the luxuriant growth of his hair, nor was he without encumbrance, for he had fifteen children. Yet he was an active and intelligent officer, and had once detected something--he forgot what. But that is not to the point.

What brought him, walking on this particular evening, to the foot of the beetling cliffs?

Ask the howling wind, which ever and anon flattened him against the chalk or drove him miles inland up some cavernous cave. Be that as it may, he walked.

"I wish I could detect something in all this," said he, pulling himself together, and glancing scornfully into the darkness.

As he did so, Captain Peeler's corpse alighted gracefully on the sand at his feet.

"Ah, ha!" said he, "this looks like business. Now let me think. How comes this here?"

There were no footsteps in the sand beside his own, therefore the miscreant or miscreants must have escaped in some other direction.

"Aha!" said he, presently looking up. "They may be up there."

And he leapt actively to the beetling summit.

"Better and better," said he, looking round him and observing a hoof mark in the yielding clay, of which he promptly took a plaster cast. "Another link, ha, ha! the murderer was a horseman!"

And he sat down and wrote a lucid report on the whole case for his sergeant.

Solomon Smellie was in luck assuredly! Scarcely had he concluded his literary labour, when, at a distance, he perceived a twinkling light.

"Ha, ha!" said he, "now see how the real artist in crime works. Yonder is a light. The murderer cannot have gone that way. Therefore he has gone this."

And he stepped into the railway station just as Sep's train steamed out.

"Too late, this time," muttered he, between his teeth. "But time will show--time will show!" Never did man speak a truer word!

 

Chapter IV. THE STOWAWAYS

The "Harnessed Mule" was a splendid vessel of a hundred and fifty tons; and as she sailed past the Nore like a floating queen flapping her white wings in the breeze, she reminded the beholders that England still rules the waves.

Her crew consisted of a skipper, four men, and a boy.

Was that all?

Who is this lurking figure in the forward hold, who, with a complacent smile on his lips, gazes on a crumpled map, and ever and anon sharpens a gimlet?

There is a stowaway on board the "Harnessed Mule."

One? There are two.

For in the stern hold lurks another figure, also smiling, as the wind plays through the thin hair on the top of his head, and mutters to himself--

"Ha! ha! Time will show."

Sail on, O "Harnessed Mule." You carry a weighty freight inside you. Who will reach the goal first?

 

Chapter V. THE WRECK OF THE "HARNESSED MULE"

Latitude 80 degrees 25 minutes, longitude 4 degrees 6 minutes--a hot, breathless day. The "Harnessed Mule" glides swiftly over the unruffled blue. The crew loll about, listening to the babbling of the boiling ocean, and now and then lazily extinguishing the flames which break up from the tropically heated planks. It is a typical Pacific day.

The stowaway in the forward hold lies prone, conning his map, and marking the gradual approach of the "Harnessed Mule" to the red cross marked there. Frequently he is compelled to raise himself into a sitting position to give vent to the merriment which possesses him.

"This is better than Latin prose," says he to himself. "How jolly I feel!"

Could he but have guessed that through an adjoining crack another figure was drinking in every word he uttered, and taking it down in official shorthand, he would have spoken in less audible tones!

Yes. The second stowaway is Solomon Smellie, of Scotland Yard, and he has the plaster cast in his pocket.

"This must be about the spot," says Sep, comparing his chart with the figures on the mariner's compass. "Here goes."

Two vigorous turns of the gimlet, and the "Harnessed Mule" rears on her beam ends, and, with one stupendous lurch, goes to the bottom.

"That's all right," says Sep, as he hauls himself to the summit of a mountain of naked rock, which rises sheer out of the sea on all sides to a height of a thousand feet.

The words are scarcely out of his mouth when his face turns livid, and he trembles violently from head to foot, as he perceives standing before him Solomon Smellie, the detective of Scotland Yard.

 

Chapter VI. THE RENCONTRE

"This is an unexpected pleasure," says Solomon.

"Delighted, I'm sure," says Septimus, craftily.

Then they talk of the weather, eyeing one another like practised fencers in a death struggle.

"Ha! ha!" thinks Sep; "he has heard of the sunken doubloons."

"Ha! ha!" thinks Solomon. "If he only knew I had that plaster cast in my pocket!"

"Are you making a long stay here?" says the former naively.

"Depends," is the dark, laconic reply.

"Sorry I must leave you for a little," says Sep. "An appointment."

And he takes a magnificent header from the cliff into the very spot where the wrecked gold-ship lies buried.

When, after a couple of hours, he rose to the surface for breath, Sep was relieved to find himself alone.

"Peeler was right," said he to himself, flinging back the matted hair from his noble brow. "My fortune is made."

And he dived again.

In the damp cabin of the sunk ship stood the gaunt form of many a brave mariner, faithful to his post even in death. Seth gave them a passing glance, and shuddered a little as he met their glassy eyes. He was about to rise to the surface with the remainder of his booty, when the figure nearest the door fell against him.

Turning on him, a cold perspiration suffused our hero from head to foot, and his hair rose like porcupine quills on his head.

It was not a corpse, but Solomon Smellie, the detective of Scotland Yard.

Sep had barely time to close to the cabin door, and strike out with his precious bags for the surface. He felt he had had a narrow escape of detection, and that the sooner he sought a change of climate the better.

As for Solomon, it would have needed a strong door to keep him from his prey.

"Ha, ha!" said he, "the chain grows link by link. Two and two make four. Patience, Solomon, and you will be famous yet."

 

Chapter VII. THE FETE AND THE FRACAS

It was the most brilliant ball which had ever been given in the English capital.

The very waiters sparkled with diamonds!

The gorgeous suite of apartments, several miles in length, were ablaze with all that wealth and beauty in electric light could effect.

Coote and Tinney's band was in attendance.

Down the sparkling avenues of lustres whirled the revellers in all the ecstasy of the hilarious dance.

Peals of laughter and the rustling of fans combined to make the scene the most gorgeous ever witnessed in this or any other metropolis.

The host of the princely revel was a mysterious young foreign nobleman, known by the name of the Duc de Septimominorelli, and reputed to be the richest man in Europe.

What makes this evening's entertainment particularly brilliant is the fact that it is to be graced by the dazzling presence of the peerless Donna Velvetina Peeleretta, who, as every one knows, is shortly to wear the diamond tiara of the house of Septimominorelli.

In other words, she and the Duc are betrothed.

The festivities are at their height, and the Duc for the fifth time is leading his charming _fiancee_ to the supper-room, when the venerable butler announces, in a voice that attracts universal attention, a new arrival.

"Monsieur le Marquis de Smellismelli!"

If possible the Marquis was more magnificently attired even than the Duc, and went through the salutation with the easy grace of a man who had often appeared in Court.

"Who is he?" asked every one.

"An old college friend," explained the Duc.

But his face was the colour of his handkerchief, and the place shook with the trembling of his limbs.

The marquis quickly made himself at home, and vied with his host in his eagerness to take the Donna Velvetina down to supper.

The Duc's face darkened visibly in proportion as that of his guest beamed; and to those who looked on, it was evident that a scene was imminent.

At length, when for the nineteenth time the lady accepted the arm of the gallant marquis, the Duc ground his teeth, and stepping up to his rival, pulled his nose.

The marquis in return flung the Duc the entire length of the apartments, and with folded arms calmly awaited the result.

"We fight, Monsieur le Marquis," ground out the smarting Duc.

"Rather!" replied the marquis, with a proud smile.

 

Chapter VIII. THE DUEL

It was a tragic end in that night's gay scene.

Guests whose carriages were not ordered till 4 a.m. stood shivering in the hall at 11 p.m.

Five hours to wait!

Meanwhile, on two special steamers the Duc de Septimominorelli and the Marquis de Smellismelli sought the shore of France.

On the lonely sands between Calais and Ushant the rivals stood face to face, at a hundred paces distance.

They had no seconds, so each loaded the other's weapon.

It could not have been the wind that made their knees tremble and their teeth chatter, for there was none. Neither could it have been the weight of the pistols which made their hands wave to and fro, for these were Boxer's eight-ounce Maxim Repeaters.

No; these two men were the subjects of deep physical emotion. The moment had come, and the Duc was about to drop his handkerchief, when the Marquis abruptly folded his arms and said, "Excuse me, we have met before, have we not? Ha, ha, Sep, my boy!"

At the sound of his voice, the so-called Duc flung his weapon two hundred yards in the air, and with the bound of a hunted tiger buried himself in the turmoil of the French capital.

There was no duel on those yellow sands after all.

 

Chapter IX. AFTERWARDS

The mysterious disappearance of the dazzling Duc de Septimominorelli created a profound impression throughout civilised Europe. The Donna Velvetina Peeleretta was inconsolable.

After a while she, too, went abroad.

 

Chapter X. THE SLEUTH-HOUND AGAIN

Many, many years flew past.

Solomon Smellie's youngest son had been twice Lord Mayor of London, and all London had forgotten the Duc de Septimominorelli and the peerless Donna Velvetina Peeleretta.

All? No, there was one exception.

An aged man in a back room of the Mansion House sometimes produced a plaster cast from the recesses of his pocket, and muttered to himself--

"A time will come--aha!"

 

Chapter XI. THE DESERT JOURNEY

A lonely traveller traversed the sandy desert wastes of Central Africa. He was ill-accoutred for so trying a journey, having only a cane to protect himself from the wild beasts, and patent-leather shoes on his feet. No one knew his name; and what made him more mysterious was that, although he spoke English, he paid for everything in Spanish doubloons half a century old!

What could his errand be, amid the typhoons and siroccos of that desolate continent?

For six weeks he had not moistened his parched lips with so much as a drop of water! And his only food had been dried elephant!

Yet he kept his eyes fixed on the mountain range twelve hundred leagues ahead of him; and as each day brought him fifty miles nearer (for he was evidently a practised walker), he murmured to himself, "I come, Velvetina!" and thought nothing of the fatigue.

The man's shoes were unequal to his spirit, and within a hundred miles of his goal he sunk crippled to the ground. The blinding sand swept over him in mountains, and the tropical sun made the end of the cane he carried red-hot.

Any other man in such a condition would have succumbed. Not so our mysterious traveller.

If he could not walk, he could roll. And he rolled.

 

Chapter XII. THREE CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON

On the summit of the topmost of those gigantic mountains, the peak of which is lost high in the depths of the cloudless sky, a female stands, and gazes southward.

Her fair form is mysteriously draped in white, and the parasol with which she shuts out the scorching sun from her face effectually conceals her features.

"He cometh--he cometh not," says she, weeping.

At length, in the remote horizon of the limitless desert, there arises a little cloud of dust.

Is it a panther seeking its prey? or a newspaper buffeted by the wind? or the mirage of the desert?

It is the revolving form of a rolling body; and as she discovers it she trembles like an aspen leaf.

"He comes," mutters she.

Another cloud of dust; not in the south, but in the east.

Can it be an optical delusion, or another revolving figure? Ever and anon the sun gleams on something bright, which looks like the end of a cane.

A sickening sensation comes over the watcher.

"They both come!" says she; and turns her eyes northward.

What! Is it another optical delusion, or is this yet one more cloud in the north, which, as it approaches, also takes the semblance of a revolving figure? Hot as the weather is, she shivers sensibly, and, closing her parasol, mutters, her lips as white as driven snow--

"They all come!"

 

Chapter XIII. THE WATCHER ON THE CAIRN

Twenty-four hours of agonising suspense, and then the revolving figures reach the base of the mountain, and commence simultaneously to roll up the side.

The female figure on the top gives a despairing glance around her, and drops senseless on the cairn.

At length, as the sun is setting in the only unoccupied horizon, she starts, rigid and stiff, and listens.

On either side of her approaches a dull grinding noise, mingled with heavy snorting, and the low muttering of voices.

She dares not look: it is terrible enough to hear!

So evenly do they approach, that at the same instant they reached the summit.

Then she rises majestically to her full height, spreads her arms, and utters a cry which is heard simultaneously at Cairo, at Zanzibar, and at Cape Town.

A terrible silence follows, broken only by the trembling of the mountain and the breathless panting of the three figures as each rears himself slowly to his feet.

The scene that followed may be more easily imagined than described.

 

Chapter XIV. ALL COMES OUT

It is time we went back to the scene on the cliff at Crocusville narrated in the opening chapter.

Peeler, the coastguardsman, after descending the cliff, resumed his ordinary avocations, and sent his daughter to a superior high school.

Hence her presence at the Duc's ball and on the desert mountain.

The Duc de Septimominorelli (for such was the mysterious traveller) recoiled several hundred yards on finding himself confronted not only by the aged father of his now middle-aged Velvetina, but by the form of his old opponent the Marquis de Smellismelli.

"Aha!" said the latter, producing his plaster cast. "How do you find yourself, Sep, my boy?"

"Hot," said Septimus, with characteristic coolness.

"Introduce me to the old gentleman," said the detective.

"Peeler," was the laconic reply.

It was Solomon's turn to turn inquiringly to the lady.

She only bowed.

"I wish very much I had known this before. I have wasted fifty years over you," said Solomon, in injured tones. "I must lose no more time if I am to detect anything. Good morning. Aha!

"Stay!" shouts Sep, in a voice of thunder. "It is I who have wasted fifty years running away from you. You owe me an apology, sirrah!"

The caitiff's face underwent a kaleidoscopic change as these terrible words rant? in his ears. With the bound of of a wounded antelope he sprang to the summit of the nearest mountain, and stood there with arms erect against the sky, like a statue of Ajax.

"He don't seem blooming, shiver my timbers if he do," said old Peeler.

"We shall not meet again," said Sep, grinding his teeth in his direction.

"Why should we be standing here in the sun?" said Velvetina. "Let us return to England."

They returned the same evening.

 

Chapter XV. OMNIA VINCIT AMOR

Septimus Minor and Velvetina Peeler were married quietly at the Crocusville Cathedral.

The bride was given away by her father, Captain Peeler, R.N.

The company was select and the presents were costly.

Amongst the latter none attracted more attention or curiosity than an excellent plaster cast of a horse's hoof, presented to the happy couple by the Marquis de Smellismelli and his grandson the Lord Mayor of London.

There were few knew its history; but it was eloquent in meaning for Mr and Mrs Septimus Minor, who have given it an honoured place on the mantelpiece of the second spare bedroom of their bijou residence in Pink Street.

[The end]
Talbot Baines Reed's short story: The Plaster Cast; Or Septimus Minor's Million

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