Stephen was sound asleep, and the Hole in the Wall had closed its eyes for the night. The pale man had shuffled off, with his doubts and apprehensions, toward the Highway, and Mr. Cripps was already home in Limehouse. Only the half-drunken sailor was within hail, groping toward some later tavern, and Captain Nat, as he extinguished the lamps in the bar, could hear his song in the distance—
The grub was bad an' the pay was low,Leave her, Johnny, leave her!So hump your duds an' ashore you goFor it's time for us to leave her!
The grub was bad an' the pay was low,Leave her, Johnny, leave her!So hump your duds an' ashore you goFor it's time for us to leave her!
Captain Nat blew out the last light in the bar and went into the bar-parlour. He took out the cash-box, and stood staring thoughtfully at the lid for some seconds. He was turning at last to extinguish the lamp at his elbow, when there was a soft step without, and a cautious tap at the door.
Captain Nat's eyes widened, and the cash-box went back under the shelf. The tap was repeated ere the old man could reach the door and shoot back the bolts. This done, he took the lamp in his left hand, and opened the door.
In the black of the passage a man stood, tall and rough. Just such a figure Captain Nat had seen there before, less distinctly, and in a briefer glimpse; for indeed it was Dan Ogle.
"Well?" said Captain Nat.
"Good evenin', cap'en," Dan answered, with an uncouth mixture of respect and familiarity. "I jist want five minutes with you."
"O, you do, do you?" replied the landlord, reaching behind himself to set the lamp on the table. "What is it? I've a notion I've seen you before."
"Very like, cap'en. It's all right; on'y business."
"Then what's the business?"
Dan Ogle glanced to left and right in the gloom of the alley, and edged a step nearer. "Best spoke of indoors," he said, hoarsely. "Best for you an' me too. Nothin' to be afraid of—on'y business."
"Afraid of? Phoo! Come in, then."
Dan complied, with an awkward assumption of jaunty confidence, and Captain Nat closed the door behind him.
"Nobody to listen, I suppose?" asked Ogle.
"No, nobody. Out with it!"
"Well, cap'en, just now you thought you'd seen me before. Quite right; so you have. You see me in the same place—just outside that there door. An' I borrowed your boat."
"Umph!" Captain Nat's eyes were keen and hard. "Is your name Dan Ogle?"
"That's it, cap'en." The voice was confident, but the eye was shifty. "Now you know. A chap tried to do me, an' I put his light out. You went for me, an' chased me, but you stuck your hooks in the quids right enough." Dan Ogle tried a grin and a wink, but Captain Nat's frown never changed.
"Well, well," Dan went on, after a pause, "it's all right, anyhow. I outed the chap, an' you took care o' the ha'pence; so we helped each other, an' done it atween us. I just come along to-night to cut it up."
"Cut up what?"
"Why, the stuff. Eight hundred an' ten quid in notes, in a leather pocket-book. Though I ain't particular about the pocket-book." Dan tried another grin. "Four hundred an' five quid'll be good enough for me: though it ought to be more, seein' I got it first, an' the risk an' all."
Captain Nat, with a foot on a chair and a hand on the raised knee, relaxed not a shade of his fierce gaze. "Who told you," he asked presently, "that I had eight hundred an' ten pound in a leather pocket-book?"
"O, a little bird—just a pretty little bird, cap'en."
"Tell me the name o' that pretty little bird."
"Lord lumme, cap'en, don't be bad pals! It ain't a little bird what'll do any harm! It's all safe an' snug enough between us, an' I'm doin' it on the square, ain't I? I knowed about you, an' you didn't know about me; but I comes fair an' open, an' says it was me as done it, an' I on'y want a fair share up between pals in a job together. That's all right, ain't it?"
"Was it a pretty little bird in a bonnet an' a plaid shawl? A scraggy sort of a little bird with a red beak? The sort of little bird as likes to feather its nest with a cash-box—one as don't belong to it? Is that your pattern o' pretty little bird?"
"Well, well, s'pose it is, cap'en? Lord, don't be bad pals! I ain't, am I? Make things straight, an' I'll take careshedon't go a pretty-birdin' about with the tale. I'll guarantee that, honourable. You ain't no need be afraid o' that."
"D'ye think I look afraid?"
"Love ye, cap'en, why, I didn't mean that! There ain't many what 'ud try to frighten you. That ain't my tack. You're too hard a nut forthat, anybody knows." Dan Ogle fidgeted uneasily with a hand about his neck-cloth; while the other arm hung straight by his side. "But look here, now, cap'en," he went on; "you're a straight man, an' you don't round on a chap as trusts you. That's right ain't it?"
"Well?" Truly Captain Nat's piercing stare, his unwavering frown, were disconcerting. Dan Ogle had come confidently prepared to claim a share of the plunder, just as he would have done from any rascal in Blue Gate. But, in presence of the man he knew for his master, he had had to begin with no more assurance than he could force on himself; and now, though he had met not a word of refusal, he was reduced well-nigh to pleading. But he saw the best opening, as by a flash of inspiration; and beyond that he had another resource, if he could but find courage to use it.
"Well?" said Captain Nat.
"You're the sort as plays the square game with a man as trusts you, cap'en. Very well.I'vetrusted you. I come an' put myself in your way, an' told you free what I done, an' I ask, as man to man, for my fair whack o' the stuff. Bein' the straight man you are, you'll do the fair thing."
Captain Nat brought his foot down from the chair, and the knee from under his hand; and he clenched the hand on the table. But neither movement disturbed his steady gaze. So he stood for three seconds. Then, with an instant dart, he had Dan Ogle by the hanging arm, just above the wrist.
Dan sprang and struggled, but his wrist might have been chained to a post. Twice he made offer to strike at Captain Nat's face with the free hand, but twice the blow fainted ere it had well begun. Tall and powerful as he was, he knew himself no match for the old skipper. Pallid and staring, he whispered hoarsely: "No, cap'en—no! Drop it! Don't put me away! Don't crab the deal! D' y' 'ear——"
Captain Nat, grim and silent, slowly drew the imprisoned fore-arm forward, and plucked a bare knife from within the sleeve. There was blood on it, for his grip had squeezed arm and blade together.
"Umph!" growled Captain Nat; "I saw that in time, my lad"; and he stuck the knife in the shelf behind him.
"S'elp me, cap'en, I wasn't meanin' anythink—s'elp me I wasn't," the ruffian pleaded, cowering but vehement, with his neckerchief to his cut arm. "That's on'y where I carry it, s'elp me—on'y where I keep it!"
"Ah, I've seen it done before; but it's an awkward place if you get a squeeze," the skipper remarked drily. "Now you listen to me. You say you've come an' put yourself in my power, an' trusted me. So you have—with a knife up your sleeve. But never mind that—I doubt if you'd ha' had pluck to use it. You killed a man at my door, because of eight hundred pounds you'd got between you; but to get that money you had to kill another man first."
"No, cap'en, no——"
"Don't try to deny it, man! Why it's what's saving you! I know where that money come from—an' it's murder that got it. Marr was the man's name, an' he was a murderer himself; him an' another between 'em ha' murdered my boy; murdered him on the high seas as much as if it was pistol or poison. He was doin' his duty, an' it's murder, I tell you—murder, by the law of England! That man ought to ha' been hung, but he wasn't, an' he never would ha' been. He'd ha' gone free, except for you, an' made money of it. But you killed that man, Dan Ogle, an' you shall go free for it yourself; for that an' because I won't sell what you trusted me with about this other."
Captain Nat turned and took the knife from the shelf. "Now see," he went on. "You've done justice on a murderer, little as you meant it; but don't you come tryin' to take away the orphan's compensation—not as much as a penny of it! Don't you touch the compensation, or I'll give you up! I will that! Just you remember when you're safe. The man lied as spoke to seein' you that night by the door; an' now he's gone back on it, an' so you've nothing to fear from him, an' nothing to fear from the police. Nothing to fear from anybody but me; so you take care, Dan Ogle!... Come, enough said!"
Captain Nat flung wide the door and pitched the knife into the outer darkness. "There's your knife; go after it!"
When Viney followed the limy man from Musky Mag's door he kept him well in view as far as the Hole in the Wall, and there waited. But when Grimes emerged, and Viney took up the chase, he had scarce made three-quarters of the way through the crooked lanes toward the Commercial Road, when, in the confusion and the darkness of the turnings, or in some stray rack of fog, the man of lime went wholly amissing. Viney hurried forward, doubled, and scoured the turnings about him. Drawing them blank, he hastened for the main road, and there consumed well nigh an hour in profitless questing to and fro; and was fain at last to seek out Blind George, and confess himself beaten.
But Blind George made a better guess. After Viney's departure in the wake of Grimes, he had stood patiently on guard in the black archway, and had got his reward. For he heard Musky Mag's feet descend her stairs; noted her timid pause at the door; and ear-watched her progress to the street corner. There she paused again, as he judged, to see that nobody followed; and then hurried out of earshot. He was no such fool as to attempt to dog a woman with eyes, but contented himself with the plain inference that she was on her way to see Dan Ogle, and that the man whom Viney was following had brought news of Dan's whereabouts; and with that he turned to the Highway and his fiddling. So that when he learned that the limy man had called at the Hole in the Wall, and had gone out of Viney's sight on his way east, Blind George was quick to think of Kemp's Wharf, and to resolve that his next walk abroad should lead him to the Lea bank.
The upshot of this was that, after some trouble, Dan Ogle and Blind George met on the Cop, and that Dan consented to a business interview with Viney. He was confident enough in any dealings with either of them so long as he cockered in them the belief that he still had the notes. So he said very little, except that Viney might come and make any proposal he pleased; hoping for some chance-come expedient whereby he might screw out a little on account.
And so it followed that on the morning after his unsuccessful negotiation with Captain Nat, Dan Ogle found himself face to face with Henry Viney at that self-same spot on the bank-side where he had talked with Blind George.
Dan was surly; first because it was policy to say little, and to seem intractable, and again because, after the night's adventure, it came natural. "So you're Viney, are you?" he said. "Well, I ain't afraid o' you. I know about you. Blind George told meyourgame."
"Who said anything about afraid?" Viney protested, the eternal grin twitching nervously in his yellow cheeks. "We needn't talk about being afraid. It seems to me we can work together."
"O, does it? How?"
"Well, you know, you can't change 'em."
"What?"
"O, damn it, you know what I mean. The money—the notes."
"O, that's what you mean, is it? Well, s'pose I can't?"
"Well—of course—if you can't—eh? If you can't, they might be so much rags, eh?"
"P'raps they might—ifI can't."
"But you know you can't," retorted the other, with a spasm of apprehension. "Else you'd have done it and—and got farther off."
"Well, p'raps I might. But that ain't all you come to say. Go on."
Viney thoughtfully scratched his lank cheek, peering sharply into Dan's face. "Things bein' what they are," he said, reflectively, "they're no more good to you than rags; not so much."
"All right. S'pose they ain't; you don't think I'm a-goin' to make you a present of 'em, do you?"
"Why no, I didn't think that. I'll pay—reasonable. But you must remember that they're no good to you at all—not worth rag price; so whatever you got 'ud be clear profit."
"Then how much clear profit will you give me?"
Viney's forefinger paused on his cheek, and his gaze, which had sunk to Dan Ogle's waistcoat, shot sharply again at his eyes. "Ten pounds," said Viney.
Dan chuckled, partly at the absurdity of the offer, partly because this bargaining for the unproducible began to amuse him. "Ten pound clear profit for me," he said, "an' eight hundred pound clear profit for you. That's your idea of a fair bit o' trade!"
"But it was mine first, and—and it's no good to you—you say so yourself!"
"No; nor no good to you neither—'cause why? You ain't got it!" Dan's chuckle became a grin. "If you'd ha' said a hundred, now——"
"What?"
"Why, then I'd ha' said four hundred. That's what I'd ha' said!"
"Four hundred? Why, you're mad! Besides I haven't got it—I've got nothing till I can change the notes; only the ten."
Dan saw the chance he had hoped for. "I'll make it dirt cheap," he said, "first an' last, no less an' no more. Will you give me fifty down for 'em when you've got 'em changed?"
"Yes, I will." Viney's voice was almost too eager.
"Straight? No tricks, eh?"
Viney was indignant at the suggestion. He scorned a trick.
"No hoppin' the twig with the whole lot, an' leavin' me in the cart?"
Viney was deeply hurt. He had never dreamed of such a thing.
"Very well, I'll trust you. Give us the tenner on account." Dan Ogle stuck out his hand carelessly; but it remained empty.
"I said I'd give fifty when they're changed," grinned Viney, knowingly.
"What? Well, I know that; an' not play no tricks. An' now when I ask you to pay first the ten you've got, you don't want to do it! That don't look like a chap that means to part straight and square, does it?"
Viney put his hand in his pocket. "All right," he said, "that's fair enough. Ten now an' forty when the paper's changed. Where's the paper?"
"O, I ain't got that about me just now," Dan replied airily. "Be here to-morrow, same time. But you can give me the ten now."
Viney's teeth showed unamiably through his grin. "Ah," he said; "I'll be here to-morrow with that, same time!"
"What?" It was Dan's honour that smarted now. "What? Won't trust me with ten, when I offer, free an' open, to trust you with forty? O, it's off then. I'm done. It's enough to make a man sick." And he turned loftily away.
Viney's grin waxed and waned, and he followed Dan with his eyes, thinking hard. Dan stole a look behind, and stopped.
"Look here," Viney said at last. "Look here. Let's cut it short. We can't sharp each other, and we're wasting time. You haven't got those notes."
Dan half-turned, and answered in a tone between question and retort. "O, haven't I?" he said.
"No; you haven't. See here; I'll give you five pounds if you'll show 'em to me. Only show 'em."
Dan was posed. "I said I hadn't got 'em about me," he said, rather feebly.
"No; nor can't get 'em. Can you? Cut it short."
Dan looked up and down, and rubbed his cap about his head. "I know where they are," he sulkily concluded.
"You know where they are, but you can't get 'em," Viney retorted with decision. "Can I get 'em?"
Dan glanced at him superciliously. "You?" he answered. "Lord, no."
"Can we get 'em together?"
Dan took to rubbing his cap about his head again, and staring very thoughtfully at the ground. Then he came a step nearer, and looked up. "Two might," he said, "if you'd see it through. With nerve."
Viney took him by the upper arm, and drew close. "We're the two," he said. "You know where the stuff is, and you say we can get it. We'll haggle no more. We're partners and we'll divide all we get. How's that?"
"How about Blind George?"
"Never mind Blind George—unless you want to make him a present.Idon't. Blind George can fish for himself. He's shoved out. We'll do it, and we'll keep what we get. Now where are the notes? Who's got them?"
Dan Ogle stood silent a moment, considering. He looked over the bank toward the London streets, down on the grass at his feet, and then up at an adventurous lark, that sang nearer and still nearer the town smoke. Last he looked at Viney, and make up his mind. "Who's got 'em?" he repeated; "Cap'en Nat Kemp's got 'em."
"What? Cap'en——"
"Cap'en Nat Kemp's got 'em."
Viney took a step backward, turned his foot on the slope, and sat back on the bank, staring at Dan Ogle. "Cap'en Nat Kemp?" he said. "Cap'en Nat Kemp?"
"Ay; Cap'en Nat Kemp. The notes, an' the leather pocket-book; an' the photo; an' the whole kit. Marr's photo, ain't it, with his mother?"
"Yes," Viney answered. "When he was a boy. He wasn't a particular dutiful son, but he always carried it: for luck, or something. But—Cap'en Kemp! Where didheget them?"
Dan Ogle sat on the bank beside Viney, facing the river, and there told him the tale he had heard from Mrs. Grimes. Also he told him, with many suppressions, just as much of his own last night's adventure at the Hole in the Wall as made it plain that Captain Nat meant to stick to what he had got.
Viney heard it all in silence, and sat for a while with his head between his hands, thinking, and occasionally swearing. At last he looked up, and dropped one hand to his knee. "I'd have it out of him by myself," he said, "if it wasn't that I want to lie low a bit."
Dan grunted and nodded. "I know," he replied, "TheJuno. I know about that."
Viney started. "What do you know about that?" he asked.
"Pretty well all you could tell me. I hear things, though I am lyin' up; but I heard before, too. Marr chattered like a poll-parrot."
Viney swore, and dropped his other hand. "Ay; so Blind George said. Well, there's nothing for me out of the insurance, and I'm going to let the creditors scramble for it themselves. There'd be awkward questions for me, with the books in the receiver's hands, and what not. So I'm not showing for a bit. Though," he added, thoughtfully, "I don't know that I mightn't try it, even now."
Dan's eyes grew sharp. "We're doin' this together, Mr. Viney," he said. "You'd better not go tryin' things without me; I mightn't like it. I ain't a nice man to try games on with; one's tried a game over this a'ready, mind."
"I'm trying no games," Viney protested. "Tell us your way, if you don't want to hear about mine."
Dan Ogle was sitting with his chin on his doubled fists, gazing thoughtfully at the muddy river. "My way's rough," he replied, "but it's thorough. An' it wipes off scores. I owe Cap'en Nat one."
Viney looked curiously at his companion. "Well?" he said.
"An' there'd be more in it than eight hundred an' ten. P'raps a lump more."
"How?" Viney's eyes widened.
"Umph." Dan was silent a moment. Then he turned and looked Viney in the eyes. "Are you game?" he asked. "You ain't a faintin' sort, are you? You oughtn't to be, seein' you was a ship's officer."
Viney's mouth closed tight. "No," he said; "I don't think I am. What is it?"
Dan Ogle looked intently in his face for a few seconds, and then said: "Only him an' the kid sleeps in the house."
Viney started. "You don't mean breaking in?" he exclaimed. "I won't do that; it's too—too——"
"Ah, too risky, of course," Dan replied, with a curl of the lip. "But I don't mean breakin' in. Nothing like it. But tell me first; s'pose breakin' inwasn'trisky; s'pose you knew you'd get away safe, with the stuff. Would you do it then?" And he peered keenly at Viney's face.
Viney frowned. "That don't matter," he said, "if it ain't the plan. S'pose I would?"
"Ha-ha! that'll do! I know your sort. Not that I blame you about the busting—it 'ud take two pretty tough 'uns to face Cap'en Nat, I can tell you. But now see here. Will you come with me, an' knock at his side door to-night, after the place is shut?"
"Knock? And what then?"
"I'll tell you. You know the alley down to the stairs?"
"Yes."
"Black as pitch at night, with a row o' posts holding up the house. Now when everybody's gone an' he's putting out the lights, you go an' tap at the door."
"Well?"
"You tap at the door, an' he'll come. You're alone—see? I stand back in the dark, behind a post. He never sees me. 'Good evenin',' says you. 'I just want a word with you, if you'll step out.' And so he does."
"And what then?"
"Nothing else—not for you; that's all your job. Easy enough, ain't it?"
Viney turned where he sat, and stared fixedly at his confederate's face. "And then—then—what——"
"Then I come on. He don't know I'm there—behind him."
Viney's mouth opened a little, but with no grin; and for a minute the two sat, each looking in the other's face. Then said Viney, with a certain shrinking: "No, no; not that. It's hanging, you know; it's hanging—for both."
Dan laughed—an ugly laugh, and short. "It ain't hanging forthat," he said; "it's hanging for gettin' caught. An' where's the chance o' that? We take our own time, and the best place you ever see for a job like that, river handy at the end an' all; an' everything settled beforehand. Safe a job as ever I see. Look at me. I ain't hung yet, am I? But I've took my chances, an' took 'em when it wasn't safe, like as this is."
Viney stared at vacancy, like a man in a brown study; and his dry tongue passed slowly along his drier lips.
"As for bein' safe," Dan went on, "what little risk there is, is forme. You're all right. We don't know each other. Not likely. How should you know I was hidin' there in the dark when you went to speak to Cap'en Nat Kemp? Come to that, it might ha' beenyououted instead o' your friend what you was talkin' so sociable with. An' there's more there than what's in the pocket-book. Remember that. There's a lump more than that."
Viney rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. "How do you know?" he asked, huskily.
"How do I know? How did I know about the pocket-book an' the notes? I ain't been the best o' pals with my sister, but she couldn't ha' been there all this time without my hearing a thing or two about Cap'en Nat; to say nothing of what everybody knows as knows anything about him. Money? O' course there's money in the place; no telling how much; an' watches, an' things, as he buys. P'raps twice that eight hundred, an' more."
Viney's eyes were growing sharper—growing eager. "It sounds all right," he remarked, a little less huskily. "Especially if there's more in it than the eight hundred. But—but—are you—you know—sure about it?"
"You leave that to me. I'll see after my department, an' yours is easy enough. Come, it's a go, ain't it?"
"But perhaps he'll make a row—call out, or something."
"He ain't the sort o' chap to squeal; an' if he was he wouldn't—not the way I'm goin' to do it. You'll see."
"An' there's the boy—what about him?"
"O, the kid? Upstairs. He's no account, after we've outed Cap'en Nat. No more'n a tame rabbit. An' we'll have all night to turn the place over, if we want it—though we shan't. We'll be split out before the potman comes: fifty mile apart, with full pockets, an' nobody a ha'porth the wiser."
Viney bit at his fingers, and his eyes lifted and sank, quick and keen, from the ground to Ogle's face, and back again. But it was enough, and he asked for no more persuasion. Willing murderers both, they set to planning details: what Viney should say, if it were necessary to carry the talk with Captain Nat beyond the first sentence or so; where they must meet; and the like. And here, on Viney's motion, a change was made as regarded time. Not this immediate night, but the night following, was resolved on for the stroke that should beggar the Hole in the Wall of money and of life. For to Viney it seemed desirable, first, to get his belongings away from his present lodgings, for plain reasons; so as to throw off Blind George, and so as to avoid flight from a place where he was known, on the very night of the crime. This it were well to do at once; yet, all unprepared as he was, he could not guess what delays might intervene; and so for all reasons Captain Nat and the child were reprieved for twenty-four hours.
Thus in full terms the treaty was made. Dan Ogle, shrink as he might from Captain Nat face to face (as any ruffian in Blue Gate would), was as ready to stab him in the back for vengeance as for gain. For he was conscious that never in all his years of bullying and scoundrelism had he cut quite so poor a figure in face of any man as last night in face of Captain Nat. As to the gain, it promised to be large, and easy in the getting; and for his sister, now that she could help no more,—she could as readily be flung out of the business as Blind George. The opportunity was undeniable. A better place for the purpose than the alley leading to the head of Hole-in-the-Wall Stairs could never have been planned. Once the house was shut, and the potman gone, no more was needed than to see the next police patrol go by, and the thing was done. Here was the proper accomplice too: a man known to Captain Nat, and one with whom he would readily speak; and, in Ogle's eyes, the business was no more than a common stroke of his trade, with an uncommon prospect of profit. As for Viney, money was what he wanted, and here it could be made, as it seemed, with no great risk. It was surer, far, than going direct to Captain Nat and demanding the money under the old threat. That was a little outworn, and, indeed, was not so substantial a bogey as it might seem in the eyes of Captain Nat, for years remorseful, and now apprehensive for his grandchild's sake; for the matter was old, and evidence scarce, except Viney's own, which it would worse than inconvenience him to give. So that a large demand might break down; while here, as he was persuaded, was the certainty of a greater gain, which was the main thing. And if any shadow of scruple against direct and simple murder remained, it vanished in the reflection that not he, but Ogle, would be the perpetrator, as well as the contriver. For himself, he would but be opening an innocent conversation with Kemp. So Viney told himself; and so desire and conscience are made to run coupled, all the world over, and all time through.
All being appointed, the two men separated. They stood up, they looked about them, over the Lea and over the ragged field; and they shook hands.
It was morning still, as Viney went away over the Cop; and, when he had vanished beyond the distant group of little houses, Dan Ogle turned and crept lazily into his shelter: there to make what dinner he might from the remnant of the food that Mag had brought him the evening before; and to doze away the time on his bed of dusty sacks, till she should bring more in the evening to come. He would have given much for a drink, for since his retreat to Kemp's Wharf the lime had penetrated clothes and skin and had invaded his very vitals. More particularly it had invaded his throat; and the pint or so of beer that Mag brought in a bottle was not enough to do more than aggravate the trouble. But no drink was there, and no money to buy one; else he might well have ventured out to a public-house, now that the police sought him no more. As for Grimes of the wharf (who had been growing daily more impatient of Dan's stay), he offered no better relief than a surly reference to the pump. So there was nothing for it but to sit and swear; with the consolation that this night should be his last at Kemp's Wharf.
Sunlight came with the afternoon, and speckled the sluggish Lea; then the shadow of the river wall fell on the water and it was dull again; and the sun itself grew duller, and lower, and larger, in the haze of the town. If Dan Ogle had climbed the bank, and had looked across the Cop now, he would have seen Blind George, stick in hand, feeling his way painfully among hummocks and ditches in the distance. Dan, however, was expecting nobody, and he no longer kept watch on all comers, so that Blind George neared unnoted. He gained the lime-strewn road at last, and walked with more confidence. Up and over the bank, and down on the side next the river, he went so boldly that one at a distance would never have guessed him blind; for on any plain road he had once traversed he was never at fault; and he turned with such readiness at the proper spot, and so easily picked his way to the shed, that Dan had scarce more warning than could bring him as far as the door, where they met.
"Dan!" the blind man said; "Dan, old pal! It's you I can hear, I'll bet, ain't it? Where are ye?" And he groped for a friendly grip.
Dan Ogle was taken by surprise, and a little puzzled. Still, he could do no harm by hearing what Blind George had to say; so he answered: "All right. What is it?"
Guided by the sound, Blind George straightway seized Dan's arm; for this was his way of feeling a speaker's thoughts while he heard his words. "He's gone," he said, "gone clean. Do you know where?"
Dan glared into the sightless eye and shook his captured arm roughly. "Who?" he asked.
"Viney. Did you let him have the stuff?"
"What stuff? When?"
"What stuff? That's a rum thing to ask. Unless—O!" George dropped his voice and put his face closer. "Anybody to hear?" he whispered.
"No."
"Then why ask what stuff? You didn't let him have it this morning, did you?"
"Dunno what you mean. Never seen him this morning."
Blind George retracted his head with a jerk, and a strange look grew on his face: a look of anger and suspicion; strange because the great colourless eye had no part in it. "Dan," he said, slowly, "them ain't the words of a pal—not of a faithful pal, they ain't. It's a damn lie!"
"Lie yourself!" retorted Dan, thrusting him away. "Let go my arm, go on!"
"I knew he was coming," Blind George went on, "an' I follered up, an' waited behind them houses other side the Cop. I want my whack, I do. I heared him coming away, an' I called to him, but he scuttled off. I know his step as well as what another man 'ud know his face. I'm a poor blind bloke, but I ain't a fool. What's your game, telling me a lie like that?"
He was standing off from the door now, angry and nervously alert. Dan growled, and then said: "You clear out of it. You come to me first from Viney, didn't you? Very well, you're his pal in this. Go and talk to him about it."
"I've been—that's where I've come from. I've been to his lodgings in Chapman Street, an' he's gone. Said he'd got a berth aboard ship—a lie. Took his bag an' cleared, soon as ever he could get back from here. He's on for doing me out o' my whack, arter I put it all straight for him—that's about it. You won't put me in the cart, Dan, arter all I done! Where's he gone?"
"I dunno nothing about him, I tell you," Dan answered angrily. "You sling your hook, or I'll make ye!"
"Dan," said the blind man, in a voice between appeal and threat; "Dan, I didn't put you away, when I found you was here!"
"Put me away? You? You can go an' try it now, if you like. I ain't wanted; they won't have me. An' if they would—how long 'ud you last, next time you went into Blue Gate? Or even if you didn't go, eh? How long would a man last, that had both his eyes to see with, eh?" And indeed Blind George knew, as well as Dan himself, that London was unhealthy for any traitor to the state and liberty of Blue Gate. "How long would he last? You try it."
"Who wants to try it? I on'y want to know——"
"Shut your mouth, Blind George, an' get out o' this place!" Ogle cried, fast losing patience, and making a quick step forward. "Go, or you'll be lame as well as blind, if I get hold o' ye!"
Blind George backed involuntarily, but his blank face darkened and twisted devilishly, and he gripped his stick like a cudgel. "Ah, I'm blind, ain't I? Mighty bold with a blind man, ain't ye? If my eyes was like yours, or you was blind as me, you'd——"
"Go!" roared Dan furiously, with two quick steps. "Go!"
The blind man backed as quickly, fiercely brandishing his stick. "I'll go—just as far as suits me, Dan Ogle!" he cried. "I ain't goin' to be done out o' what's mine! One of ye's got away, but I'll stick to the other! Keep off! I'll stick to ye till—keep off!"
As Dan advanced, the stick, flourished at random, fell on his wrist with a crack, and in a burst of rage he rushed at the blind man, and smote him down with blow on blow. Blind George, beaten to a heap, but cowed not at all, howled like a wild beast, and struck madly with his stick. The stick reached its mark more than once, and goaded Ogle to a greater fury. He punched and kicked at the plunging wretch at his feet: who, desperate and unflinching, with his mouth spluttering blood and curses, never ceased to strike back as best he might.
At the noise Grimes came hurrying from his office. For a moment he stood astonished, and then he ran and caught Dan by the arm. "I won't have it!" he cried. "If you want to fight you go somewhere else. You—why—why, damme, the man's blind!"
Favoured by the interruption, Blind George crawled a little off, smearing his hand through the blood on his face, breathless and battered, but facing his enemy still, with unabashed malevolence. For a moment Ogle turned angrily on Grimes, but checked himself, and let fall his hands. "Blind?" he snarled. "He'll be dead too, if he don't keep that stick to hisself; that's what he'll be!"
The blind man got on his feet, and backed away, smearing the grisly face as he went. "Ah! hold him back!" he cried, with a double mouthful of oaths. "Hold him hack for his own sake! I ain't done with you, Dan Ogle, not yet! Fight? Ah, I'll fight you—an' fight you level! I mean it! I do! I'll fight you level afore I've done with you! Dead I'll be, will I? Not afore you, an' not afore I've paid you!" So he passed over the bank, threatening fiercely.
"Look here," said Grimes to Ogle, "this ends this business. I've had enough o' you. You find some other lodgings."
"All right," Ogle growled. "I'm going: after to-night."
"I dunno why I was fool enough to let you come," Grimes pursued. "An' when I did, I never said your pals was to come too. I remember that blind chap now; I see him in Blue Gate, an' I don't think much of him. An' there was another chap this morning. Up to no good, none of ye; an' like as not to lose me my job. So I'll find another use for that shed, see?"
"All right," the other sulkily repeated. "I tell ye I'm going: after to-night."
Once he had cut clear from his lodgings without delay and trouble, Viney fell into an insupportable nervous impatience, which grew with every minute. His reasons for the day's postponement now seemed wholly insufficient: it must have been, he debated with himself, that the first shock of the suggestion had driven him to the nearest excuse to put the job off, as it were a dose of bitter physic. But now that the thing was resolved upon, and nothing remained to do in preparation, the suspense of inactivity became intolerable, and grew to torment. It was no matter of scruple or compunction; of that he never dreamed. But the enterprise was dangerous and novel, and, as the vacant hours passed, he imagined new perils and dreamed a dozen hangings. Till at last, as night came on, he began to fear that his courage could not hold out the time; and, since there was now no reason for delay, he ended with a resolve to get the thing over and the money in his pockets that same night, if it were possible. And with that view he set out for the Cop....
Meantime no nervousness troubled his confederate; for him it was but a good stroke of trade, with a turn of revenge in it; and the penniless interval mattered nothing—could be slept off, in fact, more or less, since there was nothing else to do.
The sun sank below London, and night came slow and black over the marshes and the Cop. Grimes, rising from the doorstep of his office, knocked the last ashes from his pipe and passed indoors. Dan Ogle, sitting under the lee of his shed, found no comfort in his own empty pipe, and no tobacco in his empty pocket. He rose, stretched his arms, and looked across the Lea and the Cop. He could see little or nothing, for the dark was closing on him fast. "Blind man's holiday," muttered Dan Ogle; and he turned in for a nap on his bed of sacks.
A sulky red grew up into the darkening western sky, as though the extinguished sun were singeing all the world's edge. So one saw London's nimbus from this point every night, and saw below it the scattered spangle of lights that were the suburban sentries of the myriads beyond. The Cop and the marshes lay pitch-black, and nothing but the faint lap of water hinted that a river divided them.
Here, where an hour's habit blotted the great hum of London from the consciousness, sounds were few. The perseverance of the lapping water forced a groan now and again from the moorings of an invisible barge lying by the wharf; and as often a ghostly rustle rose on the wind from an old willow on the farther bank. And presently, more distinct than either, came a steady snore from the shed where Dan Ogle lay....
A rustle, that was not of any tree, began when the snore was at its steadiest; a gentle rustle indeed, where something, some moving shadow in the black about it, crept over the river wall. Clearer against a faint patch, which had been white with lime in daylight, the figure grew to that of a man; a man moving in that murky darkness with an amazing facility, address, and quietness. Down toward the riverside he went, and there stooping, dipped into the water some small coarse bag of cloth, that hung in his hand. Then he rose, and, after a listening pause, turned toward the shed whence came the snore.
With three steps and a pause, and three steps more, he neared the door: the stick he carried silently skimming the ground before him, his face turned upward, his single eye rolling blankly at the sky that was the same for him at night or noon; and the dripping cloth he carried diffused a pungent smell, as of wetted quick-lime. So, creeping and listening, he reached the door. Within, the snore was regular and deep.
Nothing held the door but a latch, such as is lifted by a finger thrust through a hole. He listened for a moment with his ear at this hole, and then, with infinite precaution, inserted his finger, and lifted the latch....
Up by the George Tavern, beyond Stepney, Henry Viney was hastening along the Commercial Road to call Dan Ogle to immediate business. Ahead of him by a good distance, Musky Mag hurried in the same direction, bearing food in a saucer and handkerchief, and beer in a bottle. But hurry as they might, here was a visitor well ahead of both....
The door opened with something of a jar, and with that there was a little choke in the snore, and a moment's silence. Then the snore began again, deep as before. Down on his knees went Dan Ogle's visitor, and so crawled into the deep of the shed.
He had been gone no more than a few seconds, when the snore stopped. It stopped with a thump and a gasp, and a sudden buffeting of legs and arms; and in the midst arose a cry: a cry of so hideous an agony that Grimes the wharf-keeper, snug in his first sleep fifty yards away, sprang erect and staring in bed, and so sat motionless for half a minute ere he remembered his legs, and thrust them out to carry him to the window. And the dog on the wharf leapt the length of its chain, answering the cry with a torrent of wild barks.
Floundering and tumbling against the frail boards of the shed, the two men came out at the door in a struggling knot: Ogle wrestling and striking at random, while the other, cunning with a life's blindness, kept his own head safe, and hung as a dog hangs to a bull. His hands gripped his victim by ear and hair, while the thumbs still drove at the eyes the mess of smoking lime that clung and dripped about Ogle's head. It trickled burning through his hair, and it blistered lips and tongue, as he yelled and yelled again in the extremity of his anguish. Over they rolled before the doorway; and Ogle, snatching now at last instead of striking, tore away the hands from his face.
"Fight you level, Dan Ogle, fight you level now!" Blind George gasped between quick breaths. "Hit me now you're blind as me! Hit me! Knock me down! Eh?"
Quickly he climbed to his feet, and aimed a parting blow with the stick that hung from his wrist. "Dead?" he whispered hoarsely. "Not afore I've paid you! No!"
He might have stayed to strike again, but his own hands were blistered in the struggle, and he hastened off toward the bank, there to wash them clear of the slaking lime. Away on the wharf the dog was yelping and choking on its chain like a mad thing.
Screaming still, with a growing hoarseness, and writhing where he lay, the blinded wretch scratched helplessly at the reeking lime that scorched his skin and seared his eyes almost to the brain. Grimes came running in shirt and trousers, and, as soon as he could find how matters stood, turned and ran again for oil. "Good God!" he said. "Lime in his eyes! Slaking lime! Why—why—it must be the blind chap! It must! Fight him level, he said—an' he's blinded him!..."
There was a group of people staring at the patients' door of the Accident Hospital when Viney reached the spot. He was busy enough with his own thoughts, but he stopped, and stared also, involuntarily. The door was an uninteresting object, however, after all, and he turned: to find himself face to face with one he well remembered. It was the limy man he had followed from Blue Gate to the Hole in the Wall, and then lost sight of.
Grimes recognised Viney at once as Ogle's visitor of the morning. "That's a pal o' yourn just gone in there," he said.
Viney was taken aback. "A pal?" he asked. "What pal?"
"Ogle—Dan Ogle. He's got lime in his eyes, an' blinded."
"Lime? Blinded? How?"
"I ain't goin' to say nothing about how—I dunno, an' 'tain't my business. He's got it, anyhow. There's a woman in there along of him—his wife, I b'lieve, or something. You can talk to her about it, if you like, when she comes out. I've got nothing to do with it."
Grimes had all the reluctance of his class to be "mixed up" in any matter likely to involve trouble at a police-court; and what was more, he saw himself possibly compromised in the matter of Ogle's stay at the Wharf. But Viney was so visibly concerned by the news that soon the wharf-keeper relented a little—thinking him maybe no such bad fellow after all, since he was so anxious about his friend. "I've heard said," he added presently in a lower tone, "I've heard said it was a blind chap done it out o' spite; but of course I dunno; not to say myself; on'y what I heard, you see. I don't think they'll let you in; but you might see the woman. They won't let her stop long, 'specially takin' on as she was."
Indeed it was not long ere Musky Mag emerged, reluctant and pallid, trembling at the mouth, staring but seeing nothing. Grimes took her by the arm and led her aside, with Viney. "Here's a friend o' Dan's," Grimes said, not unkindly, giving the woman a shake of the arm. "He wants to know how he's gettin' on."
"What's 'nucleate?" she asked hoarsely, with a dull look in Viney's face. "What's 'nucleate? I heard a doctor say to let 'im rest to-night an' 'nucleate in the mornin'. What's 'nucleate?"
"Some sort o' operation," Grimes hazarded. "Did they say anything else?"
"Blinded," the woman answered weakly. "Blinded. But the pain's eased with the oil."
"What did he say?" interposed Viney, fullest of his own concerns. "Did he say someone did it?"
"He told me about it—whispered. But I shan't say nothing; nor him, not till he comes out."
"I say—he mustn't get talkin' about it," Viney said, anxiously. "It—it'll upset things. Tell him when you see him. Here, listen." He took her aside out of Grimes's hearing. "It wouldn't do," he said, "it wouldn't do to have anybody charged or anything just now. We've got something big to pull off. I say—I ought to see him, you know. Can't I see him? But there—someone might know me. No. But you must tell him. He mustn't go informing, or anything like that, not yet. Tell him, won't you?"
"Chargin'? Infornin'?" Mag answered, with contempt in her shaking voice. "'Course 'e wouldn't go informin', not Dan. Dan ain't that sort—'e looks arter hisself, 'e does; 'e don't go chargin' people. Not if 'e was dyin'."
Indeed Viney did not sufficiently understand the morals of Blue Gate: where to call in the aid of the common enemy, the police, was a foul trick to which none would stoop. In Blue Gate a man inflicted his own punishments, and to ask aid of the police was worse than mean and scandalous: it was weak; and that in a place where the weak "did not last," as the phrase went. It was the one restraint, the sole virtue of the place, enduring to death; and like some other virtues, in some other places, it had its admixture of necessity; for everybody was "wanted" in turn, and to call for the help of a policeman who might, as likely as not, begin by seizing oneself by the collar, would even have been poor policy: bad equally for the individual and for the community. So that to resort to the law's help in any form was classed with "narking" as the unpardonable sin.
"You're sure o' that, are you?" asked Viney, apprehensively.
"Sure? 'Course I'm sure. Dunno what sort o' chap you take 'im for.'E'sno nark. An' besides—'e can't. There's other things, an'——"
She turned away with a sigh that was near a sob, and her momentary indignation lapsed once more into anxious grief.
Viney went off with his head confused and his plans in the melting-pot. Ogle's scheme was gone by the board, and alone he could scarce trust himself in any enterprise so desperate. What should he do now? Make what terms he might with Captain Nat? Need was pressing; but he must think.
I have said something of the change in my grandfather's habits after the news of the loss of theJunoand my father's death; something but not all. Not only was he abstracted in manner and aged in look, but he grew listless in matters of daily life, and even doubtful and infirm of purpose: an amazing thing in him, whose decision of character had made his a corner of the world in which his will was instant law. And with it, and through it all, I could feel that I was the cause. "It ain't the place for you, Stevy, never the place for you," he would say, wistful and moody; wholly disregarding my protests, which I doubt he even heard. "I've put one thing right," he said once, thinking aloud, as I sat on his knee; "but it ain't enough; it ain't enough." And I was sure that he was thinking of the watches and spoons.
As to that matter, people with valuables had wholly ceased from coming to the private compartment. But the pale man still sat in his corner, and Joe the potman still supplied the drink he neglected. His uneasiness grew less apparent in a day or so; but he remained puzzled and curious, though no doubt well enough content with this, the most patent example of Grandfather Nat's irresolution.
As for Mr. Cripps, that deliberate artist's whole practice of life was disorganised by Captain Nat's indifference, and he was driven to depend for the barest necessaries on the casual generosity of the bar. In particular he became the client of the unsober sailor I have spoken of already: the disciplinarian, who had roared confirmation of my grandfather's orders when the man of the silver spoons got his dismissal. This sailor was old in the ways of Wapping, as in the practice of soaking, it would seem, and he gave himself over to no crimp. Being ashore, with money to spend, he preferred to come alone to the bar of The Hole in the Wall, and spend it on himself, getting full measure for every penny. Beyond his talent of ceaselessly absorbing liquor without becoming wholly drunk, and a shrewd eye for his correct change, he exhibited the single personal characteristic of a very demonstrative respect for Captain Nat Kemp. He would confirm my grandfather's slightest order with shouts and threats, which as often as not were only to be quelled by a shout or a threat from my grandfather himself, a thing of instant effect, however. "Ay, ay, sir!" the man would answer, and humbly return to his pot. "Cap'en's orders" he would sometimes add, with a wink and a hoarse whisper to a chance neighbour. "Always 'bey cap'en's orders. Knowed 'em both, fatheran'son."
So that Mr. Cripps's ready acquiescence in whatever was said loudly, and in particular his own habit of blandiloquence, led to a sort of agreement between the two, and an occasional drink at the sailor's expense.
But, meantime, his chief patron was grown so abstracted from considerations of the necessities of genius, so impervious to hints, so deaf to all suggestion of grant-in-aid, that Mr. Cripps was driven to a desperate and dramatic stroke. One morning he appeared in the bar carrying the board for the sign; no tale of a board, no description or account of a board, no estimate or admeasurement of a board; but the actual, solid, material board itself.
By what expedient he had acquired it did not fully appear, and, indeed, with him, cash and credit were about equally scarce. But upon one thing he most vehemently insisted: that he dared not return home without the money to pay for it. The ravening creditor would be lying in wait at the corner of his street.
Mr. Cripps's device for breaking through Captain Nat's abstraction succeeded beyond all calculation. For my grandfather laid hands on Mr. Cripps and the board together, and hauled both straightway into the skippers' parlour at the back.
"There's the board," he said with decision, "an' there's you. Where's the paints an' brushes?"
Mr. Cripps's stock of paints was low, it seemed, or exhausted. His brushes were at home and—his creditor was at the corner of the street.
"If I could take the proceeds"—Mr. Cripps began; but Grandfather Nat interrupted. "Here's you, an' here's the board, an' we'll soon get the tools: I'll send for 'em or buy new. Here, Joe! Joe'll get 'em. You say what you want, an' he'll fetch 'em. Here you are, an' here you stick, an' do my signboard!"
Mr. Cripps dared not struggle for his liberty, and indeed a promise of his meals at the proper hours reconciled him to my grandfather's defiance of Magna Charta. So the skipper's parlour became his studio; and there he was left in company with his materials, a pot of beer, and a screw of tobacco. I much desired to see the painting, but it was ruled that Mr. Cripps must not be disturbed. I think I must have restrained my curiosity for an hour at least, ere I ventured on tip-toe to peep through a little window used for the passing in and out of drinks and empty glasses. Here my view was somewhat obstructed by Mr. Cripps's pot, which, being empty, he had placed upside down in the opening, as a polite intimation to whomsoever it might concern; but I could see that Mr. Cripps's labours having proceeded so far as the selection of a convenient chair, he was now taking relaxation in profound slumber. So I went away and said nothing.
When at last he was disturbed by the arrival of his dinner, Mr. Cripps regained consciousness with a sudden bounce that almost deposited him on the floor.
"Conception," he gasped, rubbing his eyes, "conception, an' meditation, an' invention, is what you want in a job like this!"
"Ah," replied my grandfather grimly, "that's all, is it? Then common things like dinner don't matter. Perhaps Joe'd better take it away?"
But it seemed that Mr. Cripps wanted his dinner too. He had it; but Grandfather Nat made it clear that he should consider meditation wholly inconsistent with tea. So that, in course of the afternoon, Mr. Cripps was fain to paint the board white, and so earn a liberal interval of rest, while it dried. And at night he went away home without the price of the board, but, instead, a note to the effect that the amount was payable on application to Captain Kemp at the Hole in the Wall, Wapping. This note was the production, after three successive failures, of my own pen, and to me a matter of great pride and delight; so that I was sadly disappointed to observe that Mr. Cripps received it with emotions of a wholly different character.
Next morning Mr. Cripps returned to durance with another pot and another screw of tobacco. Grandfather Nat had business in the Minories in the matter of a distiller's account; and for this reason divers injunctions, stipulations, and warnings were entered into and laid upon Mr. Cripps before his departure. As for instance:—
It was agreed that Mr. Cripps should remain in the skipper's parlour.
Also (after some trouble) that no exception should be made to the foregoing stipulation, even in the event of Mr. Cripps feeling it necessary to go out somewhere to study a brick wall (or the hole in it) from nature.
Nor even if he felt overcome by the smell of paint.
Agreed, however: that an exception be granted in the event of the house being on fire.
Further: this with more trouble: that one pot of beer before dinner is enough for any man seriously bent on the pursuit of art.
Moreover: that the board must not be painted white again.
Lastly: that the period of invention and meditation be considered at an end; and that sleep on Mr. Cripps's part be regarded as an acknowledgment that meals are over for the day.
These articles being at length agreed and confirmed, and Mr. Cripps having been duly witnessed to make certain marks with charcoal on the white board, as a guarantee of good faith, Grandfather Nat and I set out for the Minories.
His moodiness notwithstanding, it was part of his new habit to keep me near him as much as possible, day and night, with a sort of wistful jealousy. So we walked hand in hand over the swing bridge, past Paddy's Goose, into the Highway, and on through that same pageant of romance and squalor. The tradesmen at their doors saluted Grandfather Nat with a subdued regard, as I had observed most people to do since the news ofJuno'swreck. Indeed that disaster was very freely spoken of, all along the waterside, as a deliberate scuttling, and it was felt that Captain Nat could lay his bereavement to something worse than the fair chance of the seas. Such things were a part of the daily talk by the Docks, and here all the familiar features were present; while it was especially noted that nothing had been seen of Viney since the news came. He meant to lie safe, said the gossips; since, as a bankrupt, he stood to gain nothing by the insurance.
One tradesman alone, a publican just beyond Blue Gate, greeted my grandfather noisily, but he was thoughtless with the pride of commercial achievement. For he was enlarging his bar, a large one already, by the demolition of the adjoining shop, and he was anxious to exhibit and explain his designs.
"Why, good mornin', Cap'en," cried the publican, from amid scaffold poles and brick-dust. "You're a stranger lately. See what I'm doin'? Here: come in here an' look. How's this, eh? Another pair o' doors just over there, an' the bar brought round like so, an' that for Bottle an' Jug, and throw the rest into Public Bar. Eh?"
The party wall had already been removed, and the structure above rested on baulks and beams. The bar was screened off now from the place of its enlargement by nothing but canvas and tarpaulin, and my grandfather and his acquaintance stood with their backs to this, to survey the work of the builders.
Waiting by my grandfather's side while he talked, I was soon aware that business was brisk in the bar beyond the canvas; and I listened idly to the hum of custom and debate. Suddenly I grew aware of a voice I knew—an acrid voice just within the canvas.
"Then if you're useless, I ain't," said the voice, "an' I shan't let it drop." And indeed it was Mrs. Grimes who spoke.
I looked up quickly at Grandfather Nat, but he was interested in his discussion, and plainly had not heard. Mrs. Grimes's declaration drew a growling answer in a man's voice, wholly indistinct; and I found a patch in the canvas, with a loose corner, which afforded a peep-hole.
Mrs. Grimes was nearest, with her back to the canvas, so that her skirts threatened to close my view. Opposite her were two persons, in the nearest of whom I was surprised to recognise the coarse-faced woman I had seen twice before: once when she came asking confused questions to Grandfather Nat about the man who sold a watch, and once when she fainted at the inquest, and Mrs. Grimes was too respectable to stay near her. The woman looked sorrowful and drawn about the eyes and cheeks, and she held to the arm of a tall, raw-boned man. His face was seamed with ragged and blistered skin, and he wore a shade over the hollows where now, peeping upward, I could see no eyes, but shut and sunken lids; so that at first it was hard to recognise the fellow who had been talking to this same coarse-faced woman by Blue Gate, when she left him to ask those questions of my grandfather; and indeed I should never have remembered him but that the woman brought him to my mind.
It was this man whose growling answer I had heard. Now Mrs. Grimes spoke again. "All my fault from the beginning?" she said. "O yes, I like that: because I wanted to keep myself respectable! My fault or not, I shan't wait any longer for you. If I ain't to have it, you shan't. An' if I can't get the money I can get something else."
The man growled again and swore, and beat his stick impotently on the floor. "You're a fool," he said. "Can't you wait till I'm a bit straight? You an' your revenge! Pah! When there's money to be had!"
"Not much to be had your way, it seems, the mess you've made of it; an' precious likely to do any better now, ain't you? An' as to money—well there's rewards given——"
Grandfather Nat's hand fell on my cap, and startled me. He had congratulated his friend, approved his plans, made a few suggestions, and now was ready to resume the walk. He talked still as he took my hand, and stood thus for a few minutes by the door, exchanging views with the publican on the weather, the last ships in, and the state of trade. I heard one more growl, louder and angrier than the others, from beyond the screen, and a sharper answer, and then there was a movement and the slam of a door; and I got over the step, and stretched my grandfather's arm and my own to see Mrs. Grimes go walking up the street.
When we were free of the publican, I told Grandfather Nat that I had seen Mrs. Grimes in the bar. He made so indifferent a reply that I said nothing of the conversation I had overheard; for indeed I knew nothing of its significance. And so we went about our business.
On our way home we were brought to a stand at the swing bridge, which lay open to let through a ship. We were too late for the perilous lock; for already the capstans were going, and the ship's fenders were squeaking and groaning against the masonry. So we stood and waited till fore, main, and mizzen had crawled by; and then I was surprised to observe, foremost and most impatient among the passengers on the opposite side, Mr. Cripps.
The winches turned, and the bridge swung; and my surprise grew, when I perceived that Mr. Cripps made no effort to avoid Grandfather Nat, but hurried forward to meet him.
"Well," said my grandfather gruffly, "house on fire?"
"No, sir—no. But I thought——"
"Sign done?"
"No, Cap'en, not done exactly. But I just got curious noos, an' so I come to meet you."
"What's the news?"
"Not p'raps exactly as you might say noos, sir, but information—information that's been transpired to me this mornin'. More or less unique information, so to say,—uncommon unique; much uniquer than usual."
With these repetitions Mr. Cripps looked hard in my grandfather's eyes, as one does who wishes to break news, or lead up to a painful subject. "What's it all about?" asked Grandfather Nat.
"TheJuno."
"Well?"
"Shewasscuttled wilful, Cap'en Kemp, scuttled wilful by Beecher. It's more'n rumour or scandal: it's plain evidence."
My grandfather looked fixedly at Mr. Cripps. "What's the plain evidence?" he asked.
"That chap that's been so much in the bar lately," Mr. Cripps answered, his eyes wide with the importance of his discovery. "The chap that soaks so heavy, an' shouts at any one you order out. He was aboard theJunoon the voyage out, an' he deserted at Monte Video to a homeward bound ship."
"Then he doesn't know about the wreck." I thought my grandfather made this objection almost eagerly.
"No, Cap'en; but he deserted 'cos he said he preferred bein' on a ship as was meant to come back, an' one as had some grub aboard—him an' others. Beecher tried to pile 'em up time an' again; an' says the chap—Conolly's his name—says he, anything as went wrong aboard theJunowas Beecher's doin'; which was prophesied in the fo'c'sle a score o' times 'fore she got to Monte Video. An'—an' Conolly said more." Mr. Cripps stole another sidelong glance at Grandfather Nat. "Confidential to me this mornin', Conolly said more."
"What?"
"He said it was the first officer, your son, Cap'en, as prevented the ship bein' piled up on the voyage out, an' all but knocked Beecher down once. An' he said they was near fightin' half the time he was with 'em, an' he said—surprisin' solemn too—solemn as a man could as was half drunk—that after what he'd seen an' heard, anything as happened to the first mate was no accident, or anything like it. That's what he said, cap'en, confidential to me this mornin'."
We were walking along together now; and Mr. Cripps seemed puzzled that his information produced no more startling effect on my grandfather. The old man's face was pale and hard, but there was no sign of surprise; which was natural, seeing that this was no news, as Mr. Cripps supposed, but merely confirmation.
"He said there was never any skipper so partic'ler about the boats an' davits bein' kep' in order as Beecher was that trip," Mr. Cripps proceeded. "An' he kep' his own life-belt wonderful handy. As for the crew, they kep' their kit-bags packed all the time; they could see enough for that. An' he said there was some as could say more'n he could."
We came in view of the Hole in the Wall, and Mr. Cripps stopped short. "He don't know I'm tellin' you this," he said. "He came in the skipper's room with a drink, an' got talkin' confidential. He's very close about it. You know what sailors are."
Grandfather Nat frowned, and nodded. Indeed nobody knew better the common sailor-man's horror of complications and "land-shark" troubles ashore: of anything that might lead to his being asked for responsible evidence, even for his own protection. It gave impunity to three-quarters of the iniquity practised on the high seas.
"An' then o' course he's a deserter," Mr. Cripps proceeded. "So I don't think you'd better say I told you, cap'en—not to him. You can give information—or I can—an' then they'll make him talk, at the Old Bailey; an' they'll bring others."
Grandfather Nat winced, and turned away. Then he stopped again and said angrily: "Damn you, don't meddle! Keep your mouth shut, an' don't meddle."
Mr. Cripps's jaw dropped, and his very nose paled. "But—but——" he stammered, "but, Cap'en, it's murder! Murder agin Beecher an' Viney too! You'll do something, when it's your own son! Your own son. An' it's murder, Cap'en!"
My grandfather went two steps on his way, with a stifled groan. "Murder!" he muttered, "murder it is, by the law of England!"
Mr. Cripps came at his heels, very blank in the face. Suddenly my grandfather turned on him again, pale and fierce. "Shut your mouth, d'ye hear? Stow your slack jaw, an' mind your own business, or I'll——"
Grandfather Nat lifted his hand; and I believe nothing but a paralysis of terror kept Mr. Cripps from a bolt. Several people stopped to stare, and the old man saw it. So he checked his wrath and walked on.
"I'll see that man," he said presently, flinging the words at Mr. Cripps over his shoulder. And so we reached the Hole in the Wall.
Mr. Cripps sat speechless in the bar and trembled, while Grandfather Nat remained for an hour in the skipper's parlour with Conolly the half-drunken. What they said one to another I never learned, nor even if my grandfather persuaded the man to tell him anything; though there can be no doubt he did.
For myself, I moved uneasily about the bar-parlour, and presently I slipped out into the alley to gaze at the river from the stair-head. I was troubled vaguely, as a child often is who strives to analyse the behaviour of his elders. I stared some while at the barges and the tugs, and at Bill Stagg's boat with its cage of fire, as it went in and about among the shipping; I looked at the bills on the wall, where new tales of men and women Found Drowned displaced those of a week ago; and I fell again into the wonderment and conjecture they always prompted; and last I turned up the alley, though whether to look out on the street or to stop at the bar-parlour door, I had not determined.
As I went, I grew aware of a tall, florid man with thick boots and very large whiskers, who stood at the entry, and regarded me with a wide and ingratiating smile. I had some cloudy remembrance of having seen him before, walking in the street of Wapping Wall; and, as he seemed to be coming to meet me, I went on past the bar-parlour door to meet him.
"Ah!" he said with a slight glance toward the door, "you're a smart fellow, I can see." And he patted my head and stooped. "Now I've got something to show you. See there!"
He pulled a watch from his pocket and opened it. I was much interested to see that the inward part swung clear out from the case, on a hinge, exactly as I had seen happen with another watch on my first evening at the Hole in the Wall. "That's a rum trick, ain't it?" observed the stranger, smiling wider than ever.
I assented, and thanked him for the demonstration.
"Ah," he replied, "you're as clever a lad as ever I see; but I lay you never see a watch like that before?"
"Yes, I did," I answered heartily. "I saw one once."
"No, no," said the florid man, still toying with the watch, "I don't believe that—it's your gammon. Why, where did you see one?"
He shot another stealthy glance toward the bar-parlour door as he said it, and the glance was so unlike the smile that my sleeping caution was alarmed. I remembered how my grandfather had come by the watch with the M on the back; and I remember his repeated warnings that I must not talk.
"——Why, where did you see one?" asked the stranger.
"In a man's hand," I said, with stolid truth.
He looked at me so sharply through his grin that I had an uncomfortable feeling that I had somehow let out the secret after all. But I resolved to hold on tight.
"Ha! ha!" he laughed, "in a man's hand, of course! I knew you was a smart one. Mine hasn't got any letter on the back, you see."
"No," I answered with elaborate indifference; "no letter." And as I spoke I found more matter of surprise. For if I had eyes in my head—and indeed I had sharp ones—there was Mrs. Grimes in a dark entry across the street, watching this grinning questioner and me.