I cannot remember how I reached Grandfather Nat. I must have climbed the stairs, and I fancy I ran into him on the landing; but I only remember his grim face, oddly grey under the eyes, as he sat on his bed and took the paper in his hand. I do not know even what I said, and I doubt if I knew then; the only words present to my mind were "all crew saved except first mate"; and very likely that was what I said.
My grandfather drew me between his knees, and I stood with his arm about me and his bowed head against my cheek. I noticed bemusedly that with his hair fresh-brushed the line between the grey and the brown at the back was more distinct than common; and when there was a sudden clatter in the bar below I wondered if Joe had smashed something, or if it were only a tumble of the pewters. So we were for a little; and then Grandfather Nat stood up with a sound between a sigh and a gulp, looking strangely askant at me, as though it surprised him to find I was not crying. For my part I was dimly perplexed to see that neither was he; though the grey was still under his eyes, and his face seemed pinched and older. "Come, Stevy," he said, and his voice was like a groan; "we'll have the house shut again."
I cannot remember that he spoke to me any more for an hour, except to ask if I would eat any breakfast, which I did with no great loss of appetite; though indeed I was trying very hard to think, hindered by an odd vacancy of mind that made a little machine of me.
Breakfast done, my grandfather sent Joe for a cab to take us to Blackwall. I was a little surprised at the unaccustomed conveyance, and rather pleased. When we were ready to go, we found Mr. Cripps and two other regular frequenters of the bar waiting outside. I think Mr. Cripps meant to have come forward with some prepared condolence; but he stopped short when he saw my grandfather's face, and stood back with the others. The four-wheeler was a wretched vehicle, reeking of strong tobacco and stale drink; for half the employment of such cabs as the neighbourhood possessed was to carry drunken sailors, flush of money, who took bottles and pipes with them everywhere.
Whether it was the jolting of the cab—Wapping streets were paved with cobbles—that shook my faculties into place; whether it was the association of the cab and the journey to Blackwall that reminded me of my mother's funeral; or whether it was the mere lapse of a little time, I cannot tell. But as we went, the meaning of the morning's news grew on me, and I realised that my father was actually dead, drowned in the sea, and that I was wholly an orphan; and it struck me with a sense of self-reproach that the fact afflicted me no more than it did. When my mother and my little brother had died I had cried myself sodden and faint; but now, heavy of heart as I was, I felt curiously ashamed that Grandfather Nat should see me tearless. True, I had seen very little of my father, but when he was at home he was always as kind to me as Grandfather Nat himself, and led me about with him everywhere; and last voyage he had brought me a little boomerang, and only laughed when I hove it through a window that cost him three shillings. Thus I pondered blinkingly in the cab; and I set down my calmness to the reflection that my mother would have him always with her now, and be all the happier in heaven for it; for she always cried when he went to sea.
So at last we came in sight of the old quay, and had to wait till the bridge should swing behind a sea-beaten ship, with her bulwarks patched with white plank, and the salt crust thick on her spars. I could see across the lock the three little front windows of our house, shut close and dumb; and I could hear the quick chanty from the quay, where the capstan turned:—
O, I served my time on the Black Ball Line,Hurrah for the Black Ball Line!From the South Sea north to the sixty-nine,Hurrah for the Black Ball Line!
O, I served my time on the Black Ball Line,Hurrah for the Black Ball Line!From the South Sea north to the sixty-nine,Hurrah for the Black Ball Line!
And somehow with that I cried at last.
The ship passed in, the bridge shut, and the foul old cab rattled till it stopped before the well-remembered door. The house had been closed since my mother was buried, Grandfather Nat paying the rent and keeping the key on my father's behalf; and now the door opened with a protesting creak and a shudder, and the air within was close and musty.
There were two letters on the mat, where they had fallen from the letter-flap, and both were from my father, as was plain from the writing. We carried them into the little parlour, where last we had sat with the funeral party, and my grandfather lifted the blind and flung open the window. Then he sat and put one letter on each knee.
"Stevy," he said, and again his voice was like a groan; "look at them postmarks. Ain't one Belize?"
Yes, one was Belize, the other La Guaira; and both for my mother.
"Ah, one's been lyin' here; the other must ha' come yesterday, by the same mail as brought the news." He took the two letters again, turned them over and over, and shook his head. Then he replaced them on his knees and rested his fists on his thighs, just above where they lay.
"I don't know as we ought to open 'em, Stevy," he said wearily. "I dunno, Stevy, I dunno."
He turned each over once more, and shut his fists again. "I dunno, I dunno.... Man an' wife, between 'emselves.... Wouldn't do it, living.... Stevy boy, we'll take 'em home an' burn 'em."
But to me the suggestion seemed incomprehensible—even shocking. I could see no reason for burning my father's last message home. "Perhaps there's a little letter for me, Gran'father Nat," I said. "He used to put one in sometimes. Can't we look? And mother used to read me her letters too."
My grandfather sat back and rubbed his hand up through his hair behind, as he would often do when in perplexity. At last he said, "Well, well, it's hard to tell. We should never know what we'd burnt, if we did.... We'll look, Stevy.... An' I'll read no further than I need. Come, the Belize letter's first.... Send I ain't doin' wrong, that's all."
He tore open the cover and pulled out the sheets of flimsy foreign note-paper, holding them to the light almost at arm's length, as long-sighted men do. And as he read, slowly as always, with a leathery forefinger following the line, the grey under the old man's eyes grew wet at last, and wetter. What the letter said is no matter here. There was talk of me in it, and talk of my little brother—or sister, as it might have been for all my father could know. And again there was the same talk in the second letter—the one from La Guaira. But in this latter another letter was enclosed, larger than that for my mother, which was in fact uncommonly short. And here, where the dead spoke to the dead no more, but to the living, was matter that disturbed my grandfather more than all the rest.
The enclosure was not for me, as I had hoped, but for Grandfather Nat himself; and it was not a simple loose sheet folded in with the rest, but a letter in its own smaller envelope, close shut down, with the words "Capn. Kemp" on the face. My grandfather read the first few lines with increasing agitation, and then called me to the window.
"See here, Stevy," he said, "it's wrote small, to get it in, an' I'm slow with it. Read it out quick as you can."
And so I read the letter, which I keep still, worn at the folds and corners by the old man's pocket, where he carried it afterward.
Dear Father,—Just a few lines private hoping they find you well. This is my hardest trip yet, and the queerest, and I write in case anything happens and I don't see you again. This is for yourself, you understand, and I have made it all cheerful to the Mrs., specially as she is still off her health, no doubt. Father, theJunowas not meant to come home this trip, and if ever she rounds Blackwall Point again it will be in spite of the skipper. He had his first try long enough back, on the voyage out, and it was then she was meant to go; for she was worse found than ever I saw a ship—even a ship of Viney's; and not provisioned for more than half the run out, proper rations. And I say it plain, and will say it as plain to anybody, that the vessel would have been piled up or dropped under and the insurance paid months before you get this if I had not pretty nigh mutinied more than once. He said he would have me in irons, but he shan't have the chance if I can help it. You know Beecher. Four times I reckon he has tried to pile her up, every time in the best weather and near a safe port—foreign. The men would have backed me right through—some of them did—but they deserted one after another all round the coast, Monte Video, Rio and Bahia, and small blame to them, and we filled up with half-breeds and such. The last of the ten and the boy went at Bahia, so that now I have no witness but the second mate, and he is either in it or a fool—I think a fool: but perhaps both. Not a man to back me. Else I might have tried to report or something, at Belize, though that is a thing best avoided of course. No doubt he has got his orders, so I am not to blame him, perhaps. But I have got no orders—not to lose the ship, I mean—and so I am doing my duty. Twice I have come up and took the helm from him, but that was with the English crew aboard. He has been quiet lately, and perhaps he has given the job up; at any rate I expect he won't try to pile her up again—more likely a quiet turn below with a big auger. He is still mighty particular about the long-boat being all right, and the falls clear, etc. If he does it I have a notion it may be some time when I have turned in; I can't keep awake all watches. And he knows I am about the only man aboard who won't sign whatever he likes before a consul. You know what I mean; and you know Beecher too. Don't tell the Mrs. of course. Say this letter is about a new berth or what not. No doubt it is all right, but it came in my head to drop you a line, on the off chance, and a precious long line I have made of it. So no more at present from—Your Affectionate Son,Nathaniel.P.S. I am in half a mind to go ashore at Barbadoes, and report. But perhaps best not. That sort of thing don't do.
Dear Father,—Just a few lines private hoping they find you well. This is my hardest trip yet, and the queerest, and I write in case anything happens and I don't see you again. This is for yourself, you understand, and I have made it all cheerful to the Mrs., specially as she is still off her health, no doubt. Father, theJunowas not meant to come home this trip, and if ever she rounds Blackwall Point again it will be in spite of the skipper. He had his first try long enough back, on the voyage out, and it was then she was meant to go; for she was worse found than ever I saw a ship—even a ship of Viney's; and not provisioned for more than half the run out, proper rations. And I say it plain, and will say it as plain to anybody, that the vessel would have been piled up or dropped under and the insurance paid months before you get this if I had not pretty nigh mutinied more than once. He said he would have me in irons, but he shan't have the chance if I can help it. You know Beecher. Four times I reckon he has tried to pile her up, every time in the best weather and near a safe port—foreign. The men would have backed me right through—some of them did—but they deserted one after another all round the coast, Monte Video, Rio and Bahia, and small blame to them, and we filled up with half-breeds and such. The last of the ten and the boy went at Bahia, so that now I have no witness but the second mate, and he is either in it or a fool—I think a fool: but perhaps both. Not a man to back me. Else I might have tried to report or something, at Belize, though that is a thing best avoided of course. No doubt he has got his orders, so I am not to blame him, perhaps. But I have got no orders—not to lose the ship, I mean—and so I am doing my duty. Twice I have come up and took the helm from him, but that was with the English crew aboard. He has been quiet lately, and perhaps he has given the job up; at any rate I expect he won't try to pile her up again—more likely a quiet turn below with a big auger. He is still mighty particular about the long-boat being all right, and the falls clear, etc. If he does it I have a notion it may be some time when I have turned in; I can't keep awake all watches. And he knows I am about the only man aboard who won't sign whatever he likes before a consul. You know what I mean; and you know Beecher too. Don't tell the Mrs. of course. Say this letter is about a new berth or what not. No doubt it is all right, but it came in my head to drop you a line, on the off chance, and a precious long line I have made of it. So no more at present from—Your Affectionate Son,
Nathaniel.
P.S. I am in half a mind to go ashore at Barbadoes, and report. But perhaps best not. That sort of thing don't do.
While I read, my grandfather had been sitting with his head between his hands, and his eyes directed to the floor, so that I could not see his face. So he remained for a little while after I had finished, while I stood in troubled wonder. Then he looked up, his face stern and hard beyond the common: and his was a stern face at best.
"Stevy," he said, "do you know what that means, that you've been a-readin'?"
I looked from his face to the letter, and back again. "It means—means ... I think the skipper sank the ship on purpose."
"It means Murder, my boy, that's what it means. Murder, by the law of England! 'Feloniously castin' away an' destroyin';' that's what they call the one thing, though I'm no lawyer-man. An' it means prison; though why, when a man follows orders faithful, I can't say; but well I know it. An' if any man loses his life thereby it's Murder, whether accidental or not; Murder an' the Rope, by the law of England, an' bitter well I know that too! O bitter well I know it!"
He passed his palm over his forehead and eyes, and for a moment was silent. Then he struck the palm on his knee and broke forth afresh.
"Murder, by the law of England, even if no more than accident in God's truth. How much the more then this here, when the one man as won't stand and see it done goes down in his berth? O, I've known that afore, too, with a gimlet through the door-frame; an' I know Beecher. But orders is orders, an' it's them as gives them as is to reckon with. I've took orders myself.... Lord! Lord! an' I've none but a child to talk to! A little child!... But you're no fool, Stevy. See here now, an' remember. You know what's come to your father? He's killed, wilful; murdered, like what they hang people for, at Newgate, Stevy, by the law. An' do you know who's done it?"
I was distressed and bewildered, as well as alarmed by the old man's vehemence. "The captain," I said, whimpering again.
"Viney!" my grandfather shouted. "Henry Viney, as I might ha' served the same way, an' I wish I had! Viney and Marr's done it; an' Marr's paid for it already. Lord, Lord!" he went on, with his face down in his hands and his elbows on his knees. "Lord! I see a lot of it now! It was what they made out o' the insurance that was to save the firm; an' when my boy put in an' stopped it all the voyage out, an' more, they could hold on no longer, but plotted to get out with what they could lay hold of. Lord! it's plain as print, plain as print! Stevy!" He lowered his hands and looked up. "Stevy! that money's more yours now than ever. If I ever had a doubt—if it don't belong to the orphan they've made—but there, it's sent you, boy, sent you, an' any one 'ud believe in Providence after that."
In a moment more he was back at his earlier excitement. "But it's Viney's done it," he said, with his fist extended before him. "Remember, Stevy, when you grow up, it's Viney's done it, an' it's Murder, by the law of England. Viney has killed your father, an' if it was brought against him it 'ud be Murder!"
"Then," I said, "we'll go to the police station and they will catch him."
My grandfather's hand dropped. "Ah, Stevy, Stevy," he groaned, "you don't know, you don't know. It ain't enough for that, an' if it was—if it was, I can't; I can't—not with you to look after. I might do it, an' risk all, if it wasn't for that.... My God, it's a judgment on me—a cruel judgment! My own son—an' just the same way—just the same way!... I can't, Stevy, not with you to take care of. Stevy, I must keep myself safe for your sake, an' I can't raise a hand to punish Viney. I can't, Stevy, I can't; for I'm a guilty man myself, by the law of England—an' Viney knows it! Viney knows it! Though it wasn't wilful, as God's my judge!"
Grandfather Nat ended with a groan, and sat still, with his head bowed in his hands. Again I remembered, and now with something of awe, my innocent question: "Did you ever kill a man, Grandfather Nat?"
Still he sat motionless and silent, till I could endure it no longer: for in some way I felt frightened. So I went timidly and put my arm about his neck. I fancied, though I was not sure, that I could feel a tremble from his shoulders; but he was silent still. Nevertheless I was oddly comforted by the contact, and presently, like a dog anxious for notice, ventured to stroke the grey hair.
Soon then he dropped his hands and spoke. "I shouldn't ha' said it, Stevy; but I'm all shook an' worried, an' I talked wild. It was no need to say it, but there ain't a soul alive to speak to else, an' somehow I talk as it might be half to myself. But you know what about things I say—private things—don't you? Remember?" He sat erect again, and raised a forefinger warningly, even sternly. "Remember, Stevy!... But come—there's things to do. Give me the letter. We'll get together any little things to be kep', papers an' what not, an' take 'em home. An' I'll have to think about the rest, what's best to be done; sell 'em, or what. But I dunno, I dunno!"
In her den at the black stair-top in Blue Gate, Musky Mag lurked, furtive and trembling, after the inquests at the Hole in the Wall. Where Dan Ogle might be hiding she could not guess, and she was torn between a hundred fears and perplexities. Dan had been seen, and could be identified; of that she was convinced, and more than convinced, since she had heard Mr. Cripps's testimony. Moreover she well remembered at what point in her own evidence the police-inspector had handed the note to the coroner, and she was not too stupid to guess the meaning of that. How could she warn Dan, how help or screen him, how put to act that simple fidelity that was the sole virtue remaining in her, all the greater for the loss of the rest? She had no money; on the other hand she was confident that Dan must have with him the whole pocket-book full of notes which had cost two lives already, and now seemed like to cost the life she would so gladly buy with her own; for they had not been found on Kipps's body, nor in any way spoken of at the inquest. But then he might fear to change them. He could scarcely carry a single one to the receivers who knew him, for his haunts would be watched; more, a reward was offered, and no receiver would be above making an extra fifty pounds on the transaction. For to her tortured mind it seemed every moment more certain that the cry was up, and not the police alone, but everybody else was on the watch to give the gallows its due. She was uneasy at having no message. Doubtless he needed her help, as he had needed it so often before; doubtless he would come for it if he could, but that would be to put his head in the noose. How could she reach him, and give it? Even if she had known where he lay, to go to him would be to lead the police after her, for she had no doubt that her own movements would be watched. She knew that the boat wherein he had escaped had been found on the opposite side of the river, and she, like others, judged from that that he might be lurking in some of the waterside rookeries of the south bank; the more as it was the commonest device of those "wanted" in Ratcliff or Wapping to "go for a change" to Rotherhithe or Bankside, and for those in a like predicament on the southern shores to come north in the same way. But again, to go in search of him were but to share with the police whatever luck might attend the quest. So that Musky Mag feared alike to stay at home and to go abroad; longed to find Dan, and feared it as much; wished to aid him, yet equally dreaded that he should come to her or that she should go to him. And there was nothing to do, therefore, but to wait and listen anxiously; to listen for voices, or footsteps, even for creaks on the stairs; for a whistle without that might be a signal; for an uproar or a sudden hush that might announce the coming of the police into Blue Gate; even for a whisper or a scratching at door or window wherewith the fugitive might approach, fearful lest the police were there before him. But at evening, when the place grew dark, and the thickest of the gloom drew together, to make a monstrous shadow on the floor, where once she had fallen over something in the dark—then she went and sat on the stair-head, watching and dozing and waking in terror.
So went a day and a night, and another day. The corners of the room grew dusk again, and with the afternoon's late light the table flung its shadow on that same place on the floor; so that she went and moved it toward the wall.
As she set it down she started and crouched, for now at last there was a step on the stair—an unfamiliar step. A woman's, it would seem, and stealthy. Musky Mag held by the table, and waited.
The steps ceased at the landing, and there was a pause. Then, with no warning knock, the door was pushed open, and a head was thrust in, covered by an old plaid shawl; a glance about the room, and the rest of the figure followed, closing the door behind it; and, the shawl being flung back from over the bonnet, there stood Mrs. Grimes, rusty and bony, slack-faced and sour.
Mrs. Grimes screwed her red nose at the woman before her, jerked up her crushed bonnet, and plucked her rusty skirt across her knees with the proper virtuous twitch. Then said Mrs. Grimes: "Where's my brother Dan?"
For a moment Musky Mag disbelieved eyes and ears together. The visit itself, even more than the question, amazed and bewildered her. She had been prepared for any visitor but this. For Mrs. Grimes's relationship to Dan Ogle was a thing that exemplary lady made as close a secret as she could, as in truth was very natural. She valued herself on her respectability; she was the widow of a decent lighterman, of a decent lightering and wharf-working family, and she called herself "house-keeper" (though she might be scarce more than charwoman) at the Hole in the Wall. She had never acknowledged her lawless brother when she could in any way avoid it, and she had, indeed, bargained that he should not come near her place of employment, lest he compromise her; and so far from seeking him out in his lodgings, she even had a way of failing to see him in the street. What should she want in Blue Gate at such a time as this, asking thus urgently for her brother Dan? What but the reward? For an instant Mag's fears revived with a jump, though even as it came she put away the fancy that such might be the design of any sister, however respectable.
"Where's my brother Dan?" repeated Mrs. Grimes, abruptly.
"I—I don't know, mum," faltered Mag, husky and dull. "I ain't seen 'im for—for—some time."
"O, nonsense. I want 'im particular. I got somethink to tell 'im important. If you won't say where 'e is, go an' find 'im."
"I wish I could, mum, truly. But I can't."
"Do you mean 'e's left you?" Mrs. Grimes bridled high, and helped it with a haughty sniff.
"No, mum, not quite, in your way of speakin', I think, mum. But 'e's—'e's just gone away for a bit."
"Ho. In trouble again, you mean, eh?"
"O, no, mum, not there," Mag answered readily; for, with her, "trouble" was merely a genteel name for gaol. "Not there—not for a long while."
"Where then?"
"That's what I dunno, mum; not at all."
Mrs. Grimes tightened her lips and glared; plainly she believed none of these denials. "P'raps 'e's wanted," she snapped, "an' keepin' out o' the way just now. Is that it?"
This was what no torture would have made Mag acknowledge; but, with all her vehemence of denial, her discomposure was plain to see. "No, mum, not that," she declared, pleadingly. "Reely 'e ain't, mum—reely 'e ain't; not that!"
"Pooh!" exclaimed Mrs. Grimes, seating herself with a flop. "That's a lie, plain enough. 'E's layin' up somewhere, an' you know it. What harm d'ye suppose I'm goin' to do 'im? 'E ain't robbed me—leastways not lately. I got a job for 'im, I tell you—money in 'is pocket. If you won't tell me, go an' tell 'im; go on. An' I'll wait."
"It's Gawd's truth, mum, I don't know where 'e is," Mag protested earnestly. "'Ark! there's someone on the stairs! They'll 'ear. Go away, mum, do. I'll try an' find 'im an' tell 'im—s'elp me I will! Go away—they're comin'!"
In truth the footsteps had reached the stair-top, and now, with a thump, the door was thrust open, and Blind George appeared, his fiddle under his arm, his stick sweeping before him, and his white eye rolling at the ceiling.
"Hullo!" he sung out. "Lady visitors! Or is it on'y one? 'Tain't polite to tell the lady to go away, Mag! Good afternoon, mum, good afternoon!" He nodded and grinned at upper vacancy, as one might at a descending angel; Mrs. Grimes, meanwhile, close at his elbow, preparing to get away as soon as he was clear past her. For Blind George's keenness of hearing was well known, and she had no mind he should guess her identity.
"Good afternoon, mum!" the blind man repeated. "Havin' tea?" He advanced another step, and extended his stick. "What!" he added, suddenly turning. "What! Table gone? What's this? Doin' a guy? Clearin' out?"
"No, George," Mag answered. "I only moved the table over to the wall. 'Ere it is—come an' feel it." She made a quick gesture over his shoulder, and Mrs. Grimes hurried out on tip-toe.
But at the first movement Blind George turned sharply. "There she goes," he said, making for the door. "She don't like me. Timid little darlin'! Hullo, my dear!" he roared down the stairs. "Hullo! you never give me a kiss! I know you! Won't you say good-bye?"
He waited a moment, listening intently; but Mrs. Grimes scuttled into the passage below without a word, and instantly Blind George supplemented his endearments with a burst of foul abuse, and listened again. This expedient succeeded no better than the first, and Mrs. Grimes was gone without a sound that might betray her identity.
Blind George shut the door. "Who was that?" he asked.
"Oh, nobody partic'lar," Mag answered with an assumption of indifference. "On'y a woman I know—name o' Jane. What d'you want?"
"Ah, now you're come to it." Blind George put his fiddle and bow on the table and groped for a chair. "Fust," he went on, "is there anybody else as can 'ear? Eh? Cracks or crannies or peepholes, eh? 'Cause I come as a pal, to talk private business, I do."
"It's all right, George; nobody can hear. What is it?"
"Why," said the blind man, catching her tight by the arm, and leaning forward to whisper; "it's Dan, that's what it is. It's Dan!"
She was conscious of a catching of the breath and a thump of the heart; and Blind George knew it too, for he felt it through the arm.
"It's Dan," he repeated. "So now you know if it's what you'd like listened to."
"Go on," she said.
"Ah. Well, fust thing, all bein' snug, 'ere's five bob; catch 'old." He slid his right hand down to her wrist, and with his left pressed the money into hers. "All right, don't be frightened of it, it won't 'urt ye! Lord, I bet Dan 'ud do the same for me if I wanted it, though 'e is a bit rough sometimes. I ain't rich, but I got a few bob by me; an' if a pal ain't to 'ave 'em, who is? Eh? Who is?"
He grinned under the white eye so ghastly a counterfeit of friendly good-will that the woman shrank, and pulled at the wrist he held.
"Lord love ye," he went on, holding tight to the wrist, "I ain't the bloke to round on a pal as is under a cloud. See what I might 'a' done, if I'd 'a' wanted. I might 'a' gone an' let out all sorts o' things, as you know very well yerself, at the inquest—both the inquests. But did I? Not me. Not a bit of it.Thatain't my way. No; I lay low, an' said nothing. What arter that? Why, there's fifty quid reward offered, fifty quid—a fortune to a pore bloke like me. An' all I got to do is to go and say 'Dan Ogle' to earn it—them two words an' no more. Ain't that the truth? D'y' hear, ain't that the truth?"
He tugged at her wrist to extort an answer, and the woman's face was drawn with fear. But she made a shift to say, with elaborate carelessness, "Reward? What reward, George? I dunno nothin' about it."
"Gr-r-r!" he growled, pushing the wrist back, but gripping it still. "That ain't 'andsome, not to a pal it ain't; not to a faithful pal as comes to do y' a good turn. You know all about it well enough; an' you needn't think as I don't know too. Blind, ain't I? Blind from a kid, but not a fool! You ought to know that by this time—not a fool. Look 'ere!"—with another jerk at the woman's arm—"look 'ere. The last time I was in this 'ere room there was me an' you an' Dan an' two men as is dead now, an' post-mortalled, an' inquested an' buried, wasn't there? Well, Dan chucked me out. I ain't bearin' no malice for that, mind ye—ain't I just give ye five bob, an' ain't I come to do ye a turn? I was chucked out, but ye don't s'pose I dunno what 'appened arter I was gone, do ye? Eh?"
The room was grown darker, and though the table was moved, the shadow on the floor took its old place, and took its old shape, and grew; but it was no more abhorrent than the shadowy face with its sightless white eye close before hers, and the hand that held her wrist, and by it seemed to feel the pulse of her very mind. She struggled to her feet.
"Let go my wrist," she said. "I'll light a candle. You can go on."
"Don't light no candle on my account," he said, chuckling, as he let her hand drop. "It's a thing I never treat myself to. There's parties as is afraid o' the dark, they tell me—I'm used to it."
She lit the candle, and set it where it lighted best the place of the shadow. Then she returned and stood by the chair she had been sitting in. "Go on," she said again. "What's this good turn you want to do me?"
"Ah," he replied, "that's the pint!" He caught her wrist again with a sudden snatch, and drew her forward. "Sit down, my gal, sit down, an' I'll tell ye comfortable. What was I a-sayin'? Oh, what 'appened arter I was gone; yes. Well, that there visitor was flimped clean, clean as a whistle; but fust—eh?—fust!" Blind George snapped his jaws, and made a quick blow in the air with his stick. "Eh? Eh? Ah, well, never mind! But now I'll tell you what the job fetched. Eight 'undred an' odd quid in a leather pocket-book, an' a silver watch! Eh? I thought that 'ud make ye jump. Blind, ain't I? Blind from a kid,—but not a fool!"
"Well now," he proceeded, "so far all right. If I can tell ye that, I can pretty well tell ye all the rest, can't I? All about Bob Kipps goin' off to sell the notes, an' Dan watchin' 'im, bein' suspicious, an' catchin' 'im makin' a bolt for the river, an'—eh?" He raised the stick in his left hand again, but now point forward, with a little stab toward her breast. "Eh? Eh? Like that, eh? All right—don't be frightened. I'm a pal, I am. It served that cove right, I say, playin' a trick on a pal. I don't play a trick on a pal. I come 'ere to do 'im a good turn, I do. Don't I?—Well, Dan got away, an' good luck to 'im. 'E got away, clear over the river, with the eight 'undred quid in the leather pocket-book. An' now 'e's a-layin' low an' snug, an' more good luck to 'im, says I, bein' a pal. Ain't that right?"
Mag shuffled uneasily. "Go on," she said, "if you think you know such a lot. You ain't come to that good turn yet that you talk so much about."
"Right! Now I'll come to it. Now you know I know as much as anybody—more'n anybody 'cept Dan, p'rhaps a bit more'n what you know yourself; an' I kep' it quiet when I might 'a' made my fortune out of it; kep' it quiet, bein' a faithful pal. An' bein' a faithful pal an' all I come 'ere with five bob for ye, bein' all I can afford, 'cos I know you're a bit short, though Dan's got plenty—got a fortune. Why should you be short, an' Dan got a fortune? On'y 'cos you want a pal as you can trust, like me! That's all. 'E can't come to you 'cos o' showin' 'isself.Youcan't go to 'im 'cos of being watched an' follered. So I come to do ye both a good turn goin' between, one to another. Where is 'e?"
Mag was in some way reassured. She feared and distrusted Blind George, and she was confounded to learn how much he knew: but at least he was still ignorant of the essential thing. So she said, "Knowin' so much more'n me, I wonder you dunno that too. Any'owIdon't."
"What?Youdunno. Dunno where 'e is?"
"No, I don't; no more'n you."
"O, that's all right—all right for anybody else; but not for a pal like me—not for a pal as is doin' y' a good turn. Besides, it ain't you on'y; it's 'im. 'Ow'll 'e get on with the stuff? 'E won't be able to change it, an' 'e'll be as short as you, an' p'rhaps get smugged with it on 'im. That 'ud never do; an' I can get it changed. What part o' Rotherhithe is it, eh? I can easy find 'im. Is it Dockhead?"
"There or anywhere, for all I know. I tell ye, George, I dunno no more'n you. Let go my arm, go on."
But he gave it another pull—an angry one. "What? What?" he cried. "If Dan knowed as you was keepin' 'is ol' pal George from doin' 'im a good turn, what 'ud 'e do, eh? 'E'd give it you, my beauty, wouldn't 'e? Eh? Eh?" He twisted the arm, ground his teeth, and raised his stick menacingly.
But this was a little too much. He was a man, and stronger, but at any rate he was blind. She rose and struggled to twist her arm from his grasp. "If you don't put down that stick, George," she said, "if you don't put it down an' let go my arm, I'll give it you same as Bob Kipps got it—s'elp me I will! I'll give you the chive—I will! Don't you make me desprit!"
He let go the wrist and laughed. "Whoa, beauty!" he cried; "don't make a rumpus with a faithful pal! If you won't tell me I s'pose you won't, bein' a woman; whether it's bad for Dan or not, eh?"
"I tell you I can't, George; I swear solemn I dunno no more'n you—p'rhaps not so much. 'E ain't bin near nor sent nor nothing, since—since then. That's gospel truth. If I do 'ear from 'im I'll—well then I'll see."
"Will ye tell 'im, then? 'Ere, tell 'im this. Tell 'im he mustn't go tryin' to sell them notes, or 'e'll be smugged. Tell 'im I can put 'im in the way o' gettin' money for 'em—'ard quids, an' plenty on 'em. Tell 'im that, will ye? Tell 'im I'm a faithful pal, an' nobody can do it but me. I know things you don't know about, nor 'im neither. Tell 'im to-night. Will ye tell 'im to-night?"
"'Ow can I tell 'im to-night? I'll tell 'im right enough when I see 'im. I s'pose you want to make your bit out of it, pal or not."
"There y'are!" he answered quickly. "There y'are! If you won't believe in a pal, look at that! If I make a fair deal, man to man, with them notes, an' get money for 'em instead o' smuggin'—quids instead o' quod—I'll 'ave my proper reg'lars, won't I? An' proper reg'lars on all that, paid square, 'ud be more'n I could make playin' the snitch, if Dan'll be open to reason. See? You won't forget, eh?" He took her arm again eagerly, above the elbow. "Know what to say, don't ye? Best for all of us. 'E mustn't show them notes to a soul, till 'e sees me.I'ma pal.Igot the little tip 'ow to do it proper—see? Now you know. Gimme my fiddle. 'Ere we are. Where's the door? All right—don't forget!"
Blind George clumped down the black stair, and so reached the street of Blue Gate. At the door he paused, listening till he was satisfied of Musky Mag's movements above; then he walked a few yards along the dark street, and stopped.
From a black archway across the street a man came skulking out, and over the roadway to Blind George's side. It was Viney. "Well?" he asked eagerly. "What's your luck?"
Blind George swore vehemently, but quietly. "Precious little," he answered. "She dunno where 'e is. I thought at first it was kid, but it ain't. She ain't 'eard, an' she dunno. I couldn't catch hold o' the other woman, an' she got away an' never spoke. You see 'er again when she came out, didn't ye? Know 'er?"
"Not me—she kept her shawl tighter about her head than ever. An' if she hadn't it ain't likely I'd know her. What now? Stand watch again? I'm sick of it."
"So am I, but it's for good pay, if it comes off. Five minutes might do it. You get back, an' wait in case I tip the whistle."
Viney crept growling back to his arch, and Blind George went and listened at Mag's front door for a few moments more. Then he turned into the one next it, and there waited, invisible, listening still.
Five minutes went, and did not do it, and ten minutes went, and five times ten. Blue Gate lay darkling in evening, and foul shadows moved about it. From one den and another came a drawl and a yaup of drunken singing; a fog from the river dulled the lights at the Highway end, and slowly crept up the narrow way. It was near an hour since Viney and Blind George had parted, when there grew visible, coming through the mist from the Highway, the uncertain figure of a stranger: drifting dubiously from door to door, staring in at one after another, and wandering out toward the gutter to peer ahead in the gloom.
Blind George could hear, as well as another could see, that here was a stranger in doubt, seeking somebody or some house. Soon the man, middle-sized, elderly, a trifle bent, and all dusty with lime, came in turn to the door where he stood; and at once Blind George stepped full against him with an exclamation and many excuses.
"Beg pardon, guv'nor! Pore blind chap! 'Ope I didn't 'urt ye! Was ye wantin' anybody in this 'ouse?"
The limy man looked ahead, and reckoned the few remaining doors to the end of Blue Gate. "Well," he said, "I fancy it's 'ere or next door. D'ye know a woman o' the name o' Mag—Mag Flynn?"
"I'm your bloke, guv'nor. Know 'er? Rather. Up 'ere—I'll show ye. Lord love ye, she's an old friend o' mine. Come on.... I should say you'd be in the lime trade, guv'nor, wouldn't you? I smelt it pretty strong, an' I'll never forget the smell o' lime. Why, says you? Why, 'cos o' losin' my blessed sight with lime, when I was a innocent kid. Fell on a slakin'—bed, guv'nor, an' blinded me blessed self; so I won't forget the smell o' lime easy. Ain't you in the trade, now? Ain't I right?" He stopped midway on the stairs to repeat the question. "Ain't I right? Is it yer own business or a firm?"
"Ah well, I do 'ave to do with lime a good bit," said the stranger, evasively. "But go on, or else let me come past."
Blind George turned, and reaching the landing, thumped his stick on the door and pushed it open. "'Ere y'are," he sang out. "'Ere's a genelman come to see ye, as I found an' showed the way to. Lord love ye, 'e'd never 'a' found ye if it wasn't for me. But I'm a old pal, ain't I? A faithful old pal!"
He swung his stick till he found a chair, and straightway sat in it, like an invited guest. "Lord love ye, yes," he continued, rolling his eye and putting his fiddle across his knees; "one o' the oldest pals she's got, or 'im either."
The newcomer looked in a puzzled way from Blind George to the woman, and back again. "It's private business I come about," he said, shortly.
"All right, guv'nor," shouted Blind George, heartily, "Out with it! We're all pals 'ere! Old pals!"
"You ain't my old pal, anyhow," the limy man observed. "An' if the room's yours, we'll go an' talk somewheres else."
"Get out, George, go along," said Mag, with some asperity, but more anxiety. "You clear out, go on."
"O, all right, if you're goin' to be unsociable," said the fiddler, rising. "Damme,Idon't want to stay—not me. I was on'y doin' the friendly, that's all; bein' a old pal. But I'm off all right—I'm off. So long!"
He hugged his fiddle once more, and clumped down into the street. He tapped with his stick till he struck the curb, and then crossed the muddy roadway; while Viney emerged again from the dark arch to meet him.
"All right," said Blind George, whispering huskily. "It's business now, I think—business. You come on now. You'll 'ave to foller 'em if they come out together. If they don't—well, you must look arter the one as does."
When the limy man left Blue Gate he went, first, to the Hole in the Wall, there to make to Captain Kemp some small report on the wharf by the Lea. This did not keep him long, and soon he was on his journey home to the wharf itself, by way of the crooked lanes and the Commercial Road.
He had left Blue Gate an hour and more when Musky Mag emerged from her black stairway, peering fearfully about the street ere she ventured her foot over the step. So she stood for a few seconds, and then, as one chancing a great risk, stepped boldly on the pavement, and, turning her back to the Highway, walked toward Back Lane. This was the nearer end of Blue Gate, and, the corner turned, she stopped short, and peeped back. Satisfied that she had no follower, she crossed Back Lane, and taking every corner, as she came to it, with a like precaution, threaded the maze of small, ill-lighted streets that lay in the angle between the great Rope Walk and Commercial Road. This wide road she crossed, and then entered the dark streets beyond, in rear of the George Tavern; and so, keeping to obscure parallel ways, sometimes emerging into the glare of the main road, more commonly slinking in its darker purlieus, but never out of touch with it, she travelled east; following in the main the later course of the limy man, who had left Blue Gate by its opposite end.
The fog, that had dulled the lights in Ratcliff Highway, met her again near Limehouse Basin; but, ere she reached the church, she was clear of it once more. Beyond, the shops grew few, and the lights fewer. For a little while decent houses lined the way: the houses of those last merchants who had no shame to live near the docks and the works that brought their money. At last, amid a cluster of taverns and shops that were all for the sea and them that lived on it, the East India Dock gates stood dim and tall, flanked by vast raking walls, so that one might suppose a Chinese city to seethe within. And away to the left, the dark road that the wall overshadowed was lined on the other side by hedge and ditch, with meadows and fields beyond, that were now no more than a vast murky gulf; so that no stranger peering over the hedge could have guessed aright if he looked on land or on water, or on mere black vacancy.
Here the woman made a last twist: turning down a side street, and coming to a moment's stand in an archway. This done, she passed through the arch into a path before a row of ill-kept cottages; and so gained the marshy field behind the Accident Hospital, the beginning of the waste called The Cop.
Here the great blackness was before her and about her, and she stumbled and laboured on the invisible ground, groping for pits and ditches, and standing breathless again and again to listen. The way was so hard as to seem longer than it was, and in the darkness she must needs surmount obstacles that in daylight she would have turned. Often a ditch barred her way; and when, after long search, a means of crossing was found, it was commonly a plank to be traversed on hands and knees. There were stagnant pools, too, into which she walked more than once; and twice she suffered a greater shock of terror: first at a scurry of rats, and later at quick footsteps following in the sodden turf—the footsteps, after all, of nothing more terrible than a horse of inquiring disposition, out at grass.
So she went for what seemed miles: though there was little more than half a mile in a line from where she had left the lights to where at last she came upon a rough road, seamed with deep ruts, and made visible by many whitish blotches where lime had fallen, and had there been ground into the surface. To the left this road stretched away toward the lights of Bromley and Bow Common, and to the right it rose by an easy slope over the river wall skirting the Lea, and there ended at Kemp's Wharf.
Not a creature was on the road, and no sound came from the black space behind her. With a breath of relief she set foot on the firmer ground, and hurried up the slope. From the top of the bank she could see Kemp's Wharf just below, with two dusty lighters moored in the dull river; and beyond the river the measureless, dim Abbey Marsh. Nearer, among the sheds, a dog barked angrily at the sound of strange feet.
A bright light came from the window of the little house that made office and dwelling for the wharf-keeper, and something less of the same light from the open door; for there the limy man stood waiting, leaning on the door-post, and smoking his pipe.
He grunted a greeting as Mag came down the bank. "Bit late," he said. "But it ain't easy over the Cop for a stranger."
"Where?" the woman whispered eagerly. "Where is he?"
The limy man took three silent pulls at his pipe. Then he took it from his mouth with some deliberation, and said: "Remember what I said? I don't want 'im 'ere. I dunno what 'e's done, an' don't want; but if 'e likes to come 'idin' about, I ain't goin' to play the informer. I dunno why I should promise as much as that, just 'cos my brother married 'is sister.Sheain't done me no credit, from what I 'ear now. Though she 'ad a good master, as I can swear; 'cos 'e's mine too."
"Where is he?" was all Mag's answer, again in an anxious whisper.
"Unnerstand?" the limy man went on. "I'm about done with the pair on 'em now, but I ain't goin' to inform. 'E come 'ere a day or two back an' claimed shelter; an' seein' as I was goin' up to Wappin' to-night, 'e wanted me to tell you where 'e was. Well, I've done that, an' I ain't goin' to do no more; see? 'E ain't none o' mine, an' I won't 'ave part nor parcel with 'im, nor any of ye. I keep myself decent, I do. I shan't say 'e's 'ere an' I shan't say 'e ain't; an' the sooner 'e goes the better 'e'll please me. See?"
"Yes, Mr. Grimes, sir; but tell me where he is!"
The limy man took his pipe from his mouth, and pointed with a comprehensive sweep of the stem at the sheds round about. "You can go an' look in any o' them places as ain't locked," he said off-handedly. "The dog's chained up. Try the end one fust."
Grimes the wharfinger resumed his pipe, and Mag scuffled off to where the light from the window fell on the white angle of a small wooden shelter. The place was dark within, dusted about with lime, and its door stood inward. She stopped and peered.
"All right," growled Dan Ogle from the midst of the dark. "Can't ye see me now y' 'ave come?" And he thrust his thin face and big shoulders out through the opening.
"O Dan!" the woman cried, putting out her hands as though she would take him by the neck, but feared repulse. "O Dan! Thank Gawd you're safe, Dan! I bin dyin' o' fear for you, Dan!"
"G-r-r-r!" he snorted. "Stow that! What I want's money. Got any?"
It was at a bend of the river-wall by the Lea, in sight of Kemp's Wharf, that Dan Ogle and his sister met at last. Dan had about as much regard for her as she had for him, and the total made something a long way short of affection. But common interests brought them together. Mrs. Grimes had told Mag that she knew of something that would put money in Dan's pocket; and, as money was just what Dan wanted in his pocket, he was ready to hear what his sister had to tell: more especially as it seemed plain that she was unaware—exactly—of the difficulty that had sent him into hiding.
So, instructed by Mag, she came to the Cop on a windy morning, where, from the top of the river-wall, one might look east over the Abbey Marsh, and see an unresting and unceasing press of grey and mottled cloud hurrying up from the flat horizon to pass overhead, and vanish in the smoke of London to the West. Mrs. Grimes avoided the wharf; for she saw no reason why her brother-in-law, her late employer's faithful servant, should witness her errand. She climbed the river-wall at a place where it neared the road at its Bromley end, and thence she walked along the bank-top.
Arrived where it made a sharp bend, she descended a little way on the side next the river, and there waited. Dan, on the look-out from his shed, spied her be-ribboned bonnet from afar, and went quietly and hastily under shelter of the river-wall toward where she stood. Coming below her on the tow-path, he climbed the bank, and brother and sister stood face to face; unashamed ruffianism looking shabby respectability in the eyes.
"Umph," growled Dan. "So 'ere y'are, my lady."
"Yes," the woman answered, "'ere I am; an' there you are—a nice respectable sort of party for a brother!"
"Ah, ain't I? If I was as respectable as my sister I might get a job up at the Hole in the Wall, mightn't I? 'Specially as I 'ear as there's a vacancy through somebody gettin' the sack over a cash-box!"
Mrs. Grimes glared and snapped. "I s'pose you got that from 'im," she said, jerking her head in the direction of the wharf. "Well, I ain't come 'ere to call names—I come about that same cash-box; at any rate I come about what's in it.... Dan, there's a pile o' bank notes in that box, that don't belong to Cap'en Nat Kemp no more'n they belong to you or me! Nor as much, p'raps, if you'll put up a good way o' gettin' at 'em!"
"You put up a way as wasn't a good un, seemin'ly," said Dan. "'Ow d'ye mean they don't belong to Kemp?"
"There was a murder at the Hole in the Wall; a week ago."
"Eh?" Dan's jaw shut with a snap, and his eye was full of sharp inquiry.
"A man was stabbed against the bar-parlour door, an' the one as did it got away over the river. One o' the two dropped a leather pocket-book full o' notes, an' the kid—Kemp's grandson—picked it up in the rush when nobody see it. I see it, though, afterward, when the row was over. I peeped from the stairs, an' I see Kemp open it an' take out notes—bunches of 'em—dozens!"
"Ah, you did, did ye?" Dan observed, staring hard at his sister. "Bunches o' bank notes—dozens. See a photo, too? Likeness of a woman an' a boy? 'Cos it was there."
Mrs. Grimes stared now. "Why, yes," she said. "But—but 'ow do you come to know? Eh?... Dan!... Was you—was you——"
"Never mind whether I was nor where I was. If it 'adn't been for you I'd a had them notes now, safe an' snug, 'stead o' Cap'en Nat. You lost me them!"
"I did?"
"Yes, you. Wouldn't 'ave me come to the Hole in the Wall in case Cap'en Nat might guess I was yer brother—bein' so much like ye! Like you! G-r-r-r! 'Ope I ain't got a face like that!"
"Ho yes! You're a beauty, Dan Ogle, ain't ye? But what's all that to do with the notes?" Mrs. Grimes's face was blank with wonder and doubt, but in her eyes there was a growing and hardening suspicion. "What's all that to do with the notes?"
"It's all to do with 'em. 'Cos o' that I let another chap bring a watch to sell, 'stead o' takin' it myself. An' 'e come back with a fine tale about Cap'en Nat offerin' to pay 'igh for them notes; an' so I was fool enough to let 'im take them too, 'stead o' goin' myself. But I watched 'im, though—watched 'im close. 'E tried to make a bolt—an'—an' so Cap'en Nat got the notes after all, it seems, then?"
"Dan," said Mrs. Grimes retreating a step; "Dan, it was you! It was you, an' you're hiding for it!"
The man stood awkward and sulky, like a loutish schoolboy, detected and defiant.
"Well," he said at length, "s'pose it was?Youain't got no proof of it; an' if you 'ad——What 'a' ye come 'ere for, eh?"
She regarded him now with a gaze of odd curiosity, which lasted through the rest of their talk; much as though she were convinced of some extraordinary change in his appearance, which nevertheless eluded her observation.
"I told you what I come for," she answered, after a pause. "About gettin' them notes away from Kemp—the old wretch!"
"Umph! Old wretch. 'Cos 'e wanted to keep 'is cash-box, eh? Well, what's the game?"
Mrs. Grimes in no way abated her intent gaze, but she came a little closer, with a sidling step, as if turning her back to a possible listener. "There was two inquests at the Hole in the Wall," she said; "two on the same day. There was Kipps, as lost the notes when Cap'en Kemp got 'em. An' there was Marr the shipowner—an' it was 'im as lost 'em first!"
She took a pace back as she said this, looking for its effect. But Dan made no answer. Albeit his frown grew deeper and his eye sharper, and he stood alert, ready to treat his sister as friend or enemy according as she might approve herself.
"Marr lost 'em first," she repeated, "an' I can very well guess how, though when I came here I didn't know you was in it. How did I know, thinks you, that Marr lost 'em first? I got eyes, an' I got ears, an' I got common sense; an' I see the photo you spoke of—Marr an' 'is mother, most likely; anyhow the boy was Marr, plain, whoever the woman was. It on'y wanted a bit o' thinkin' to judge what them notes had gone through. But I didn't dream you was so deep in it! Lor, no wonder Mag was frightened when I see 'er!"
Still Dan said nothing, but his eyes seemed brighter and smaller—perhaps dangerous.
So the woman proceeded quickly: "It's all right! You needn't be frightened of my knowin' things! All the more reason for your gettin' the notes now, if you lost 'em before. But it's halves for me, mind ye. Ain't it halves for me?"
Dan was silent for a moment. Then he growled, "We ain't got 'em yet."
"No, but it's halves when we do get 'em; or else I won't say another word. Ain't it halves?"
Dan Ogle could afford any number of promises, if they would win him information. "All right," he said. "Halves it is, then, when we get 'em. An' how are we goin' to do it?"
Mrs. Grimes sidled closer again. "Marr the shipowner lost 'em first," she said, "an' he was pulled out o' the river, dead an' murdered, just at the back o' the Hole in the Wall. See?"
"Well?"
"Don't see it? Kemp's got the pocket-book."
"Yes."
"Don't see it yet? Well; there's more. There's a room at the back o' the Hole in the Wall, where it stands on piles, with a trap-door over the water. The police don't know there's a trap-door there. I do."
Dan Ogle was puzzled and suspicious. "What's the good o' that?" he asked.
"I didn't think you such a fool, Dan Ogle. There's a man murdered with notes on him, an' a photo, an' a watch—you said there was a watch. He's found in the river just behind the Hole in the Wall. There's a trap-door—secret—at the Hole in the Wall, over the water; just the place he might 'a' been dropped down after he was killed. An' Kemp the landlord's got the notes an' the pocket-book an' the photo all complete; an' most likely the watch too, since you tell me he bought it; an' Viney could swear to 'em. Ain't all that enough to hang Cap'en Nat Kemp, if the police was to drop in sudden on the whole thing?"
Dan's mouth opened, and his face cleared a little. "I s'pose," he said, "you mean you might put it on to the police as it was Cap'en Nat did it; an' when they searched they'd find all the stuff, an' the pocket-book, an' the watch, an' the likeness, an' the trap-door; an' that 'ud be evidence enough to put 'im on the string?"
"Of course I mean it," replied Mrs. Grimes, with hungry spite in her eyes. "Of course I mean it! An' dearly I'd love to see it done, too! Cap'en Nat Kemp, with 'is money an' 'is gran'son 'e's goin' to make a gentleman of, an' all! ''Ope you'll be honest where you go next,' says Cap'en Kemp, 'whether you're grateful to me or not!' Honest an' grateful! I'll give 'im honest an' grateful!"
Dan Ogle grinned silently. "No," he said, "you won't forgive 'im, I bet, if it was only 'cos you began by makin' such a pitch to marry 'im!" A chuckle broke from behind the grin. "You'd rather hang him than get his cash-box now, I'll swear!"
Mrs. Grimes was red with anger. "I would that!" she cried. "You're nearer truth than you think, Dan Ogle! An' if you say too much you'll lose the money you're after, for I'll go an' do it! So now!"
Dan clicked his tongue derisively. "Thought you'd come to tell me how to get the stuff," he said. "'Stead o' that you tell me how to hang Cap'en Nat, very clever, an' lose it. I don't see that helps us."
"Go an' threaten him."
"Threaten Cap'en Nat?" exclaimed Dan, glaring contempt, and spitting it. "Oh yes, I see myself! Cap'en Nat ain't that sort o' mug. I'm as 'ard as most, but I ain't 'ard enough for a job like that: or soft enough, for that's what I'd be to try it on. Lor' lumme! Go an' ask any man up the Highway to face Cap'en Nat, an' threaten him! Ask the biggest an' toughest of 'em. Ask Jim Crute, with his ear like a blue-bag, that he chucked out o' the bar like a kitten, last week! 'Cap'en Nat,' says I, 'if you don't gimme eight hundred quid, I'll hit you a crack!' Mighty fine plan that! That 'ud get it, wouldn't it? Ah, it 'ud get something!"
"I didn't say that sort of threat, you fool! You've got no sense for anything but bashing. There's the evidence that 'ud hang him; go an' tell him that, and say heshallswing for it, if he doesn't hand over!"
Dan stared long and thoughtfully. Then his lip curled again. "Pooh!" he said. "I'm a fool, am I? O! Anyhow, whether I am or not, I'm a fool's brother. Threaten Cap'en Nat with the evidence, says you! What evidence? The evidence what he's got in his own hands! S'pose I go, like a mug, an' do it. Fust thing he does, after he's kicked me out, is to chuck the pocket-book an' the likeness on the fire, an' the watch in the river. Then he changes the notes, or sells 'em abroad, an' how do we stand then? Why, you're a bigger fool than I thought you was!... What's that?"
It was nothing but a gun on the marsh, where a cockney sportsman was out after anything he could hit. But Dan Ogle's nerves were alert, and throughout the conversation he had not relaxed his watch toward London; so that the shot behind disturbed him enough to break the talk.
"We've been here long enough," he said. "You hook it. I'll see about Cap'en Nat. Your way's no good. I'll try another, an' if that don't come off—well, then you can hang him if you like, an' welcome. But now hook it, an' shut your mouth till I've had my go. 'Nough said. Don't go back the way you come."
My father's death wrought in Grandfather Nat a change that awed me. He looked older and paler—even smaller. He talked less to me, but began, I fancied, to talk to himself. Withal, his manner was kinder than before, if that were possible; though it was with a sad kindness that distressed and troubled me. More than once I woke at night with candle-light on my face, and found him gazing down at me with a grave doubt in his eyes; whereupon he would say nothing, but pat my cheek, and turn away.
Early one evening as I sat in the bar-parlour, and my grandfather stood moodily at the door between that and the bar, a man came into the private compartment whom I had seen there frequently before. He was, in fact, the man who had brought the silver spoons on the morning when I first saw Ratcliff Highway, and he was perhaps the most regular visitor to the secluded corner of the bar. This time he slipped quietly and silently in at the door, and, remaining just within it, out of sight from the main bar, beckoned; his manner suggesting business above the common.
But my grandfather only frowned grimly, and stirred not as much as a finger. The man beckoned again, impatiently; but there was no favour in Grandfather Nat's eye, and he answered with a growl. At that the man grew more vehement, patted his breast pocket, jerked his thumb, and made dumb words with a great play of mouth.
"You get out!" said Grandfather Nat.
A shade of surprise crossed the man's face, and left plain alarm behind it. His eyes turned quickly toward the partition which hid the main bar from him, and he backed instantly to the door and vanished.
A little later the swing doors of the main bar were agitated, and an eye was visible between them, peeping. They parted, and disclosed the face of that same stealthy visitor but lately sent away from the other door. Reassured, as it seemed, by what he saw of the company present, he came boldly in, and called for a drink with an elaborate air of unconcern. But, as he took the glass from the potman, I could perceive a sidelong glance at my grandfather, and presently another. Captain Nat, however, disregarded him wholly; while the pale man, aware of he knew not what between them, looked alertly from one to the other, ready to abandon his long-established drink, or to remain by it, according to circumstances.
The man of the silver spoons looked indifferently from one occupant of the bar to the next, as he took his cold rum. There was the pale man, and Mr. Cripps, and a sailor, who had been pretty regular in the bar of late, and who, though noisy and apt to break into disjointed song, was not so much positively drunk as never wholly sober. And there were two others, regular frequenters both. Having well satisfied himself of these, the man of the silver spoons finished his rum and walked out. Scarce had the door ceased to swing behind him, when he was once more in the private compartment, now with a knowing and secure smile, a cough and a nod. For plainly he supposed there must have been a suspicious customer in the house, who was now gone.
Grandfather Nat let fall the arm that rested against the door frame. "Out you go!" he roared. "If you want another drink the other bar's good enough for you. If you don't I don't want you here. So out you go!"
The man was dumbfounded. He opened his mouth as though to say something, but closed it again, and slunk backward.
"Out you go!" shouted the unsober sailor in the large bar. "Out you go! You 'bey orders, see? Lord, you'd better 'bey orders when it's Cap'en Kemp! Ah, I know, I do!" And he shook his head, stupidly sententious.
But the fellow was gone for good, and the pale man was all eyes, scratching his cheek feebly, and gazing on Grandfather Nat.
"Out he goes!" the noisy sailor went on. "That's cap'en's orders. Cap'en's orders or mate's orders, all's one. Like father, like son. Ah, I know!'"
"Ah," piped Mr. Cripps, "a marvellous fine orficer Cap'en Kemp must ha' been aboard ship, I'm sure. Might you ever ha' sailed under 'im?"
"Me?" cried the sailor with a dull stare. "Me? Underhim?... Well no, not underhim. But cap'en's orders or mate's orders, all's one."
"P'raps," pursued Mr. Cripps in a lower voice, with a glance over the bar, "p'raps you've been with young Mr. Kemp—the late?"
"Him?" This with another and a duller stare. "Him? Um! Ah, well—never mind. Never you mind, see? You mind your own business, my fine feller!"
Mr. Cripps retired within himself with no delay, and fixed an abstracted gaze in his half-empty glass. I think he was having a disappointing evening; people were disagreeable, and nobody had stood him a drink. More, Captain Nat had been quite impracticable of late, and for days all approaches to the subject of the sign, or the board to paint it on, had broken down hopelessly at the start. As to the man just sent away, Mr. Cripps seemed, and no doubt was, wholly indifferent. Captain Nat was merely exercising his authority in his own bar, as he did every day, and that was all.
But the pale man was clearly uneasy, and that with reason. For, as afterwards grew plain, the event was something greater than it seemed. Indeed, it was nothing less than the end of the indirect traffic in watches and silver spoons. From that moment every visitor to the private compartment was sent away with the same peremptory incivility; every one, save perhaps some rare stranger of the better sort, who came for nothing but a drink. So that, in course of a day or two, the private compartment went almost out of use; and the pale man's face grew paler and longer as the hours went. He came punctually every morning, as usual, and sat his time out with the stagnant drink before him, till he received my grandfather's customary order to "drink up"; and then vanished till the time appointed for his next attendance. But he made no more excursions into the side court after sellers of miscellaneous valuables. From what I know of my grandfather's character, I believe that the pale man must have been paid regular wages; for Grandfather Nat was not a man to cast off a faithful servant, though plainly the man feared it. At any rate there he remained with his perpetual drink; and so remained until many things came to an end together.
There was a certain relief, and, I think, an odd touch of triumph in Grandfather Nat's face and manner that night as he kissed me, and bade me good-night. As for myself, I did not realise the change, but I had a vague idea that my grandfather had sent away his customer on my account; and for long I lay awake, and wondered why.