CHAPTER V.
A PAIR OF HANDCUFFS.
Thefellow had walked some way in the direction of the house after vaulting the fence, but now he turned and retraced his steps towards the spot where I was lying, with my legs drawn up to my body. As he stopped to bend over me, I let out with my left foot, as viciously as a kicking horse, taking him in the stomach, and with such force that he doubled up like a hinged draught-board, and lay quite still.
Then I leapt to my feet.
"Jones! Jim! Wilson!" I shouted, using, haphazard, the first names which came to my tongue. "Here they are! Over the fence as fast as you can, and we'll nab the two of 'em!"
As I spoke I kicked out a heel behind me, scraping it against the fence as if someone were endeavouring to clamber up on the other side.
"Fast as you can!" I yelled again, making noise enough for three, and rushingin the direction of the other man, shouting as I ran.
The dodge succeeded; for supposing, as I wished him to suppose, that he had walked into a police ambush, he made a bolt for the house, I after him, still yelling imaginary instructions to imaginary men.
No sooner was he gone than I whipped back to the other fellow, who I suppose had fainted from pain, for he lay quite still where he had fallen. But he was armed, as I knew, for I had heard the leader tell the two of them not to hesitate to shoot. I had run risks enough, and more than enough for my liking, on this eventful evening; so, partly to equip myself with a weapon, in case of the other man's discovering my ruse and returning, partly to disarm the gentleman on the ground, in the event of his recovering consciousness sufficiently to join in the pursuit of me, I slipped my hand into his pocket in search of fire-arms. The first thing on which I lighted was, strangely enough, a pair of handcuffs, and, under the impulse of the moment, I snapped them around the unconscious man's wrists. Then, having possessed myself of his weapon—an ugly revolver—I walked tothe fence and looked over it, in preparation to vault. The river washed almost to the fence's foot, and, but for the fact that a boat was fastened to a stake driven into the mud, my retreat would have been entirely cut off. Evidently Parker and Smudgy must have taken a boat from somewhere to get round to the back of the place. That, then, was what the leader had meant when he spoke of the "yard," and had urged them to "put their backs into it."
Oh, well! the boat which had served their purpose would serve mine. But stop a minute. No one was coming from the house, where I could still hear the besiegers battering at the kitchen door. It was a daring idea, this of mine! But why shouldn't I carry it out? To take a prisoner, instead of myself being taken prisoner or being murdered, would be to turn the tables on my enemies with a vengeance. The man was unconscious; he was handcuffed; and even if he proved to be heavy, I knew myself to be fairly strong.
Kneeling on one knee, I raised his insensible body so that his head and chest and trunk lay inertly over my left shoulder,where I could best bear the weight. The next thing to do was to get upon my feet. It was not easy of accomplishment, for the man was heavily built, and I, though tall, am somewhat slight. But I managed it at last, and staggered to the fence, upon which I hoisted my burden, where he lay for all the world like a straw-stuffed Guy Fawkes, his silly head and his body and shoulders lolling helplessly towards the river, his hips and legs hanging down limply on the side of the fence that faced the house. Then I scrambled over myself, muttering, "You come along o' me to Westminster, my pretty. A man who can hang both sides of a fence, as you can, is wasted outside of Parliament."
I hauled him over, a bit at a time, until at last I was able to lower him gently to the ground. Then I dragged him—through the water I am sorry to say—to the boat, and with no small difficulty contrived to tumble him in. This was the most troublesome part of the business, for the boat behaved as coyly as a girl when a sweetheart tries to snatch a first kiss—dodging this way and that, ducking and dipping, till the pair of us were like to be thrown headlong into the water. But I achievedmy purpose at last, and having lashed my captive's ankles together with the rope—the "painter" yachtsmen call it, do they not?—by which the boat had been fastened, I took up the oars and rowed out into mid-river.
By this time my captive was beginning to show signs of returning consciousness, his revival being accelerated, no doubt, by the wetting he had received in being dragged into the boat. Apparently he was still in pain from my kick, for he groaned feebly once or twice, and then moaned: "I feel sick."
"Yes," I said, "and you'll feel sicker before I've done with you."
It was brutal to speak thus to a man defenceless, and in pain; but I had been under a terrible strain that evening, and now that the danger was passed, the inevitable reaction had come, and none could have been more surprised than I was to find the reaction take the form of something like savagery. By nature I am by no means vindictive; but, remembering that this very man had gone round to the back of the opium den with the deliberate intention of murdering me, I took, I am ashamed to say, a crueland catlike pleasure in having him thus at my mercy, and in seeing him a prey to the same terrors which I had been compelled to endure. Police magistrates and His Majesty's judges may to-day replace the rude justice of the primæval forest; but in spite of the humanising and refining influence of civilisation, the beast in us dies hard.
"Where am I?" he inquired, trying to raise his head.
"You're clearly a man of very little originality," I said, still exulting savagely in having him at my mercy, instead of being—as earlier in the evening I was like to be—at his. "'Where am I?' is what they all say—whether on the stage, or in a novel, or in real life—on recovering from a faint. But, if you particularly wish to know where you are, I don't mind telling you. You are in a boat on the river Thames, somewhere off Limehouse; but you'll be in even less comfortable quarters before long, if I'm not much mistaken."
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Well," I said, "anyone listening to our conversation might think that I was 'A' and you were 'Q' in Mangnall's book ofQuestions and Answers. I should think you'd know who I was without having to make so many inquiries, Mr. Parker. I'm the man you and your friend Smudgy were told off to murder not so very many minutes ago. Now you are my prisoner, and with your very kind permission, or without it, I'm going to hand you over to the police."
"For God's sake don't do that!" he cried, trying to rise. This his handcuffed wrists and bound ankles prevented him from accomplishing; finding which, to my surprise and dismay, he fell back blubbering like a baby.
"Give me a chance, Mr. Grant," he begged. "I've gone against the law I know, but I've been drove to it, sir, drove to it by being out of work so long."
"Look here," I said; "tell me what you and the man you call the Dumpling and the other rascals are after, and if I find you've told me the truth and kept nothing back, I'll let you go. It is your only chance; and considering the way you'd have treated me, I think it is a very generous offer.
"There's a mystery, and it strikes me a very wicked and criminal mystery, aboutall this—that opium den with its crucible, and chemicals, and queer instruments in the kitchen, the Dumpling, the Chinamen, yourself, and the other men. I've got to know all about it, and to know it now and here, this night, and in this boat. Make a clean breast of it; tell me everything, and I'll let you go. Refuse, and I take you straight, handcuffed and tied up as you are, to the police. Come, no beating about the bush. Which is it to be? 'Yes' or 'No'?"
"I can't help myself," he answered. "You say you've got to know about the Dumpling and the house, and the rest of us, and what we're after, and that I've got to choose between telling and being handed over to the police. You swear, you take your Davy, you'll let me go free if I tell?"
"I swear it," I said. "Tell me all, and I swear to loose you and put you ashore free and unfollowed—when you've done."
"Very well," he replied sullenly, doggedly. "I'll tell. But the Dumpling"—with an oath—"will find me out and kill me if he gets to know that I've peached."
"We'll hope he doesn't hear," I said, settling myself down to listen, but pulling gently at the oars meantime.
Then Parker began his story.