Bleak House: Chapter 22 Summary & Analysis

Mr. Tulkinghorn sits beside the open window in his office, underneath the painting of Allegory. The air is very hot and stuffy, and dust blows in from the street. He drinks a glass of fine wine, which he keeps in his cellar, and Mr. Snagsby sits opposite him at his desk. Mr. Snagsby tells Mr. Tulkinghorn that he has not told his wife where he is because she has a wild imagination and tends to become fixated on ideas once they are in her head.

Mr. Tulkinghorn offers Mr. Snagsby a glass of wine, and Mr. Snagsby repeats Jo’s statement for Mr. Tulkinghorn. When he is finished, Mr. Snagsby is startled to find that there is another man with them in the room. Mr. Tulkinghorn tells him that this man is a policeman named Mr. Bucket. Mr. Bucket asks Mr. Snagsby if he will come with him to Tom-all-Alone’s and help him find Jo. Mr. Snagsby hesitates but Mr. Bucket reassures him that he means Jo no harm and only wants to talk to him.

When Mr. Snagsby hears this, he agrees to go with the inspector. Mr. Bucket takes him aside and suggests that Mr. Snagsby is a worldly gentleman and, therefore, he expects Mr. Snagsby will keep little excursion to himself. There is a dispute over some inheritance, he says, that Jo may know something about. Mr. Snagsby agrees to keep quiet and the two men set off together. On the way out, Inspector Bucket asks Mr. Snagsby if he knows anyone with the name of Gridley, but Mr. Snagsby does not. Inspector Bucket says it is not important; it is only that he has a warrant for Gridley’s arrest.

The pair walk through the city, and when they reach Tom-all-Alone’s, another policeman joins them. Mr. Snagsby notices that Mr. Bucket never walks entirely in a straight line and that he makes himself appear inconspicuous. They move down into an unsanitary slum, and Mr. Snagsby draws back in horror as a cart passes which carries the bodies of people who have died of fever.

Eventually, they hear from one of Mr. Bucket’s many informants—who emerge now and then from dark street corners—that Jo (who is also known as “the Tough subject”) has gone to a doctor to fetch medicine for a woman who is ill. He will come back, however, so Mr. Bucket decides to wait. They enter a small apartment in which there are two men, both drunk, and two women, who lie on the floor. They call each other Liz and Jenny, and Jenny cradles Liz’s baby. The men tell Mr. Bucket that they have come from Hertfordshire to find work.

While they wait for Jo, Liz tells Jenny that, although she loves the child, she sometimes wishes it would die. Mr. Bucket sternly asks her what she means, and Liz sighs and tells him to look round the room. She believes the child has no hope of a good life or future. Mr. Snagsby, who has waited outside, coughs to tell Mr. Bucket that Jo has arrived and, once Jo has given the medicine to Liz, Mr. Bucket leads him and Mr. Snagsby back to Mr. Tulkinghorn’s apartment.

When they arrive and take Jo upstairs, he suddenly recoils and announces that “the lady” is there. A woman, veiled and dressed in black, stands in Mr. Tulkinghorn’s room. Mr. Bucket asks Jo how he knows it is the same woman, and Jo says that he recognizes the dress. The woman lifts her hand and Jo says that this is not the hand of the woman who paid him to go to the cemetery because she wears no rings.

Mr. Bucket pays Jo and sends him away. When he has gone, the woman lifts her veil—it is Mademoiselle Hortense. Mr. Tulkinghorn thanks her for her service and dismisses her too. Mr. Bucket confirms that Jo has been consistent in his story. He thanks Mr. Snagsby and allows him to go; Mr. Snagsby is worried that his wife will be anxious. When he returns home, still rather confused about the night’s events, he finds that Mrs. Snagsby has sent the police out looking for him and is sure he has been murdered.