The Dark Clue by James Wilson

persuade her that I should have sooner died than violate her child.
    â€˜I didn’t do nothin’! ‘E didn’t do nothin’!’ screamed the girl, suddenly darting out from behind me, and lifting up her dress. “Ere, ‘ave a look if you don’t believe me!’
    And, without a word, the woman did so, barely pausing long enough to tug the blanket a few inches across the gap, and so afford her daughter a scrap of modesty.
    At length, she grunted and stepped back. She said nothing, but looked at me; and for the first time I saw a doubt in her eyes, and she seemed somehow smaller, like a kite that has lost the wind, and begun to sag. For a moment, I felt, I had the advantage, and at once determined to make the best of it.
    â€˜I will not insult you by offering you more money,’ I said, ‘but Sarah has a shilling, which she earned fairly, by bringing me here; and I think you would do well to spend it on the doctor; for that is a bad cough, and should be treated.’
    And before she had time to reply, or to tell the girl to give the shilling back again, I left, shutting the door behind me, and made my way back through the court, exciting no more than some whispering, and a derisive laugh, from the boys. A few moments later I was in the Strand – which, with its street-vendors, and gas-lamps, and crowds of cheerful theatre-goers, seemed like the waking world after an oppressive dream.
    Forgive me, my darling, if what I have described distresses you; but – as you may imagine – it troubled me, and we have agreed that we must have no secrets from each other. I am haunted not merely by the thought of that poor child and her mother, and the knowledge that, quite unintentionally, I have brought more care into their already over-burdened lives, but also by the nagging question of why Ruskin should have suggested I go toMaiden Lane at all. Surely he must have known – as I know myself, if I pause to reflect upon it – that after almost sixty years it is almost inconceivable I should find someone who remembers the Turners? Yet what, otherwise (save only malice; and I hesitate to believe he would be so cruel to a man who has done him no harm) could have prompted him to send me to a stinking slum, from which all traces of the family have been long since obliterated?
    My one hope is that I shall find the answer when I see Turner’s pictures – in which case, I shall know it soon enough, for Marian and I go to Marlborough House on Monday.
    My love to you always,
    Walter
    XII
    Letter from Michael Gudgeon to Walter Hartright,
15th August, 185-
    Box Cottage, Storry, East Sussex,
August
    Dear Mr. Hartright,
    Lord, yes! – I remember Turner, though the journey I took with him must have been almost forty years ago now. If I were to draw up an inventory of my memories, I should list them under the following chief heads:
    1. Being very cold.
    2. Being very wet.
    3. Being sick in a boat.
    4. Being footsore and saddle-sore in about equal measure.
    5. Being ill-housed and ill-fed.
    6. Being well housed and well fed.
    7. Not giving a damn about any of the above; for my companion was a Great Genius, and I a lusty, impudent, carefree young fellow.
    8. Turner very silent when sober.
    9. Turner very boisterous when drunk.
    I fear I cannot furnish you with a long memoir, for my hand isrheumatic (my poor long-suffering wife, indeed, is taking this letter down to my dictation); and nowadays I do not go about much. My friends, however, are good enough to call upon me here; and if you think it worth the time and expense to do likewise, I should be delighted to welcome you as one of them, and to tell you all I can recall.
    Yours very truly,
    Michael Gudgeon
    XIII
    From the diary of Marian Halcombe, 16th August, 185–
    Marlborough House is not, I am sure, the most magnificent palace in the world: a long, plain red-brick building in the Palladian style, it hangs back a little from Pall