“We are not headed for the East End, Mr. Skettles,” replied Harry. “And furthermore, it is no business of yours just what direction we are going.”
“What insolence!” declared Skettles. “To come into this neighbourhood in your dirty, diseased rags and display such extraordinary contempt for your betters. Turn your steps in the direction of the East End, Apricoteater, or I will summon a deputy sheriff to turn them for you.”
“Yes, and do be so good as to tell me where we shall go in that neighborhood, since you and your brother-in-law Pupker turned my family out of the mews.”
“That was you? My, but don’t all of you fruit-gipsies look alike!”
“Ignore the man,” said Harry to his older brother, sensing that Sol wanted to say something as well, on behalf of his family. Sol, heeding his brother’s bidding, checked himself as the two men continued to lead their blood troop in the direction of their own choosing.
It so happened, that to Skettles’ delight, there was a deputy sheriff in the vicinity of his chemist’s shop coming just that moment down the lane. Skettles signalled him with a wave of the hand, though he need not have done it. The deputy, a man nearly as young as his new employer Boldwig, had already made up his mind to learn the reason for the Scadgers’ packlike presence in the West End, since it was common knowledge that gatherings of the destitute in any number generally represented a blot upon the face of any upstanding neighbourhood.
“Deputy Gradgrind,” said Skettles, “perhaps you may wish to inform this filthy tribe of the location of that bridge which takes one out of the West End. As you can clearly see, they haven’t a clew as to how to gain it.”
Before the deputy could oblige the apothecary, Harry stopt. All those behind him stopt as well. Harry spoke up: “We have no intention of going to the East End. There are lodgings for us here in the West End and so here in the West End we shall stay.”
Skettles shook his head in sheer and utter astonishment over what he had just heard. At the same time his eye fell upon Susan Fagin, standing amongst the Scadger wives. “Miss Fagin, do you become a charity worker when not about your healing rounds within our local hospitals?”
“I am whatever you may wish to think of me,” said Susan, “for I care little for your opinion.”
“Upon my word, girl, does your mother know what has become of you?”
Susan hadn’t time to answer (even should she have wished to) for at just that moment Deputy Gradgrind drew out his billy club, which had been fixed upon his belt, and held it aloft in a threatening stance. To Harry he said, “Leave this vicinity, sir — you and all your clan. March yourselves to the bridge, or I will have every one of you put under arrest.”
Harry Scadger squared his shoulders and bridled his chin. “We are free men. We have done nothing wrong. Our orchard home has been burnt to the ground. We are going to our new lodgings.”
“There is no place in the West End that would take you, or do you intend to commandeer a bivouac for yourself? You will go to workhouses in the East End or you will go to the gaol. What be your choice?”
“We have made known our intention, Deputy, and we will not waver from it. Now, you have tried our patience long enough, so we will be on our way.”
“Take another step and I will strike you with this truncheon,” said the young deputy in a bluff, defiant voice.
“And my brothers and I will strike you down with our twelve fists,” struck in Solomon, who as leader of the clan could remain silent no longer.
“That is a bargain that does not favour me,” said the young deputy sheriff, restoring his billy club to its slot on his belt. Then, reaching inside his coat, he continued, “but let us try this arrangement and see if it doesn’t work better to my benefit.” The deputy drew out a pistol — similar to that used by Sheriff Boldwig three days earlier. “Go to the East End without delay, or I will shoot, and I will not stop shooting until every member of your stinking clan be dead.”
“Capital!” cheered Skettles with a couple of applauding claps of the hands.
“What has come over you, Gradgrind?” asked Harry, taking a step toward the deputy, even though there should be a gun aimed directly at his chest. “That you should turn your back on one of your own to do the bidding of the Bashaws? What are they paying you to debase yourself in this manner?”
“They? I’m upholding the law, you jolterhead. And I have no idea what you mean by ‘one of my own.’”
“Your own cousin Violetta who married my brother Zephaniah. Is she now dead to you?”
The dark-eyed and olive-skinned Violetta stepped forward from the cluster of Scadger wives so that the deputy could better see her face.
“I did not recognise you,” said he. “You are now so thin, your cheeks so gaunt. As children we once played together and now I would not know you for anything but a tatterdemalion indigent.”
“Yet that is what I am, cousin,” said Violetta, pulling tight the draggled shawl draping her bony shoulders. “But let us pass. Pray let us pass, dear cousin.”
The young deputy shook his head. “I cannot. I uphold the law. And I will not hesitate to shoot you as well, should the lot of you not go as I have ordered.”
“Then shoot me first,” said Sol, his look hardened and his brow set. With that, the oldest member of the Scadger clan augmented his provocation by advancing forthwith upon the deputy. Deputy Gradgrind took a step back and then another as if he had suddenly lost his nerve along with his authority.
“You can’t do it,”said Sol in sober assessment.“I knew that you couldn’t.”
Then Gradgrind did something quite authoritative; he accepted Sol Scadger’s dare and fired his gun directly into that man’s chest. As the loud cracking report of the shot echoed throughout the lane, the air was pierced as well by the screams of some of the wives. Solomon’s own wife Nell did not scream. Instead she fell insentient into the arms of her sister-in-law Barbara, who watched in horror as the oldest of the Scadger clan clutched at his fast-crimsoning breast and then fell to the ground. Susan Fagin rushed to his side. Solomon Scadger’s eyes remained open, but all life had fled from them.
“Right through his very heart,” said Susan somberly and clinically, though her own eyes were filling with silent tears. Deputy Gradgrind did not lower his gun. He kept it trained on the other five men, each of whom wore seething expressions of murderous revenge.
No one moved with one exception: Susan Fagin, who went to the medical bag, which Harry had a moment before set down next to his feet. She unbuckled the straps and opened the bag, even as Harry said to her in a low, crippled voice,“There’s nothing that can be done for him. Can you not see that he is already dead?”
“There is at least one small thing that I can do in his memory,” said Susan. And then she did her small thing; she pulled the Taser from the bag, engaged it as she had seen Nurse Wolf do, and shot the deputy with it, the electrified wire striking the young man in his chest at very nearly the same spot where his bullet had entered the body of Solomon Scadger. Gradgrind fell forward, just as Solomon had fallen, crying out in anguish from the pain of the voltaic attack.
The pistol having dropt from the deputy’s hand, Melchisedech Scadger swept it up from the ground. “See if there are other bullets on his person,” Harry instructed his brother. Gradgrind, stunned by the electric shock and unable to move, put up no struggle. Mel retrieved a box of bullets from one of the deputy’s coat pockets.