“Jeems” Bantom fortunately possessed the address of the knave for whom Lotte had worked without obtaining her earnings, and he went there direct. He quickly found that the place was shut up, and that the proprietor had “bolted.”
“The gal’s been done out of her wages,” he said, to himself, “and is afeard to come back. She’s a hiding of herself somewheres, an’ I must find her, else she’ll be goin’ and doin’ somethen foolish. I’d keep that gal jes’ the same as I would one of my own kids, rather than any harm should come to her--that I would; ’cos I’m sure she is honest, straightfor’ard, and hard-working. Ah! I’m blessed if ever I saw anyone, woman or man, work so hard as she did over them faddle-daddies wimmen will have, without carin’ a farden how many of their own blessed sort they kills in the makin’ on ‘em. I jes’ wish I could get hold o’ that cove that got the poor gal to do all that work, and then hooked it. I’d jes’ scrag him. I’d make a korps on him, or my name ain’t Jem Bantom.”
The chances are that if Mr. Bantom had fallen in with him, at the moment, he would have kept his word, or at least have so severely trounced him that his most intimate friends would, for a lengthened period, have been unable to recognise him.
Bantom was checked at the very place where he expected to obtain information. None of the persons living near to the house where Lotte had called for her money had seen her, and he had to start off to find a clue to her as best he could. He inquired at police-stations, at hospitals, and at cab-ranks, but without gaining any tidings of her; and the night had worn away when he returned to report his ill success.
“The poor young lonesome thing ’as drownded herself,” she cried, “all along o’ the cussed money she told me she owed us. She said she would!--she said she would.”
Poor Mrs. Bantom sobbed bitterly as she uttered the last words.
Bantom looked upon Lotte very much as he would upon a dog which he had picked up, brought home, found to possess good qualities, and had grown into a pet. He had found and brought Lotte home, and he felt a personal interest in her, which could not have been created in his breast under any other circumstances. When, therefore, he heard his wife’s surmise, he seized his hat, put it on his head, and, tired as he was, prepared to sally forth again.