jonas, meanwhile, in his miserly soul, had been wishing that his old father would hurry and die. he wanted the money and he wanted to marry mercy pecksniff, and to do both he preferred the old man out of his way. he thought of this and wished it so long that at last he began to think of helping the matter along.[pg 309]
his father kept in a drawer some cough lozenges which he constantly used. jonas at last bought some poison from a dissipated man who needed money badly, and made some lozenges like them. these he put in his father's drawer instead of the others.
his father, however, and chuffey, the old clerk, noticed that the lozenges were not the same, and they guessed what jonas had done. the shock of discovering that his own son had tried to murder him proved the old man's death. he made chuffey promise not to betray jonas, then fell in a fit and never spoke again.
jonas naturally thought the poison had done the work, and was at first in dreadful fear of discovery. he made a fine funeral, with four-horse coaches, velvet trappings and silver plate, so that people would think he loved his father, and not till the body was buried did he forget his dread.
chuffey, however, seemed to go almost daft. he would walk and cry and wring his hands and talk so strangely about his master's death that jonas feared he would cause suspicion that all was not right. so he hired a nurse to come and keep him in his room.
this nurse went by the name of "sairey" gamp. she was a fat old woman, with a red face, a husky voice and a moist eye, which often turned up so as to show only the white. wherever she went she carried a faded umbrella with a round white patch[pg 310] on top, and she always smelled of whisky. mrs. gamp was fond of talking of a certain "mrs. harris," whom she spoke of as a dear friend, but whom nobody else had ever seen. when she wanted to say something nice of herself she would put it in the mouth of mrs. harris. she was always quoting, "i says to mrs. harris," or "mrs. harris says to me." people used to say there was no such person at all, but this never failed to make mrs. gamp very angry.
she was a cruel nurse, and her way of making a sick man swallow a dose of medicine was by choking him till he gasped and then putting the spoon down his throat.
such was the guardian jonas chose to keep old chuffey quiet in london, while he himself courted pecksniff's daughter at her father's house. and it was not very long before he proposed to mercy and they were married.
if pecksniff had searched london he could not have found a worse man for his daughter to marry. but pecksniff cared for nothing but money, and, as jonas was now rich, he pretended great love for his new son-in-law and went around with his hands clasped and his eyes lifted to heaven in pious thankfulness. as for jonas, he began to treat mercy brutally and soon she was miserable.
jonas, meanwhile, had fallen in with a very prosperous individual. this was none other than montague tigg, the bold, jaunty, swaggering,[pg 311] shabby-genteel tigg, who had once been glad to beg a coin from any one he knew. now he had changed in both appearance and name. his face was covered with glossy black whiskers, his clothes were the costliest and his jewelry the most expensive. he was known now as "mr. tigg montague," and was president of the great "anglo-bengalee company."
the anglo-bengalee company was a business which pretended to insure people's lives. it had fine offices with new furniture, new paper and a big brass plate on the door. it looked most solid and respectable, but it was really a trap, for tigg and its other officers were only waiting until they had taken in enough money to run away with it to a foreign country. jonas, sharp as he was, was deceived into believing it an honest enterprise. he came there to get his wife's life insured, and so he met tigg.
tigg, however, knowing jonas of old, knew he had a great deal of money of his own, and thought, too, that he might influence mr. pecksniff, now his father-in-law. tigg flattered jonas accordingly, telling him what a sharp man he was and offered to make him a director in the company. he assured jonas that there would be enormous profits and showed him how, by putting his own money into it, he could cheat other people out of much more. this idea tickled jonas and he agreed.
having got thus far, tigg hired a spy named[pg 312] nadgett to see if he could discover whether jonas had ever committed any crime, the knowledge of which would put him in their power. nadgett began his work, got on the right side of sairey gamp, the nurse, found out that old chuffey was locked up for fear he might talk, and soon had a suspicion that jonas had been concerned in his father's death.
as an experiment tigg boldly charged him with it one day, and knew in an instant, by the way jonas's face whitened with fear, that he had stumbled on the truth. he then told jonas he not only must put into the company more of his own money, but must persuade pecksniff to do likewise.
jonas dared not now refuse. he thought of escaping to some other country, but wherever he turned he found tigg's spies watching, and at last, he determined on a second murder to hide the first—the murder of tigg, who knew his secret.
tigg did not forget his plan to ensnare pecksniff. to do this he took jonas by carriage from london to salisbury and, mile by mile, as they sped, the latter laid his plans. near their destination accident came near assisting him. in the storm the carriage was upset and tigg was thrown under the horses' feet. jonas lashed the struggling horses, hoping they would trample and kill his companion, but the driver pulled him out just in time.
they finally reached the blue dragon inn, and there, the next day, jonas brought pecksniff to[pg 313] dine with tigg, and the latter told the architect all about his wonderful company. though pecksniff pretended he took the idea as a joke, yet the thought of cheating other people for big profits was very attractive to him. before the evening was over he had fallen into the trap and had promised next day to give tigg his money.
jonas, his part of the bargain finished, hurried back to london. there, after telling mercy not to disturb him, as he expected to sleep all next day, he locked himself into his room. when it was dark he dressed himself in a rough suit that he had prepared for disguise, let himself out by a rear way and took the stage back again to the village where he had left tigg with pecksniff.
he lay in wait in a wood through which tigg passed after his last call on the architect, and there he killed him with a club. then he went swiftly back to london and let himself into his room again, thinking no one had noticed his absence.
but there had been an eye at the shutter of the window in the house opposite that did not fail to observe jonas when he went and when he came. and this eye belonged to nadgett, the spy.
