"Some have letters on the back," said the questioner. "Mine ain't that sort. What sort——"
Here Joe the potman dropped, or knocked over, something in the bar-parlour; and the stranger started.
"I think I'm wanted indoors," I said, moving off, glad of the interruption. "Good-bye!"
The florid stranger rose and walked off at once, with a parting smile. He turned at the corner, and went straight away, without so much as a look toward the entry where Mrs. Grimes was. I fancied he walked rather like a policeman.
Dan Ogle, blinded and broken, but silent and saving his revenge: Musky Mag, stricken and pitiable, but faithful even if to death: Henry Viney, desperate but fearful, and urgently needy: these three skulked at bay in dark holes by Blue Gate.
Sullen and silent to doggedness, Ogle would give no word to the hospital doctors of how his injury had befallen; and in three days he would brook confinement no longer, but rose and broke away, defiant of persuasion, to grope into the outer world by aid of Mag's arm. Blind George was about still, but had scarcely been near the Highway except at night, when, as he had been wont to boast, he was as good as most men with sound eyes. It was thought that he spent his days over the water, as would be the way of one feeling the need of temporary caution. It did not matter: that could rest a bit. Blind George should be paid, and paid bitter measure; but first the job in hand, first the scheme he had interrupted; first the money.
Here were doubt and difficulty. Dan Ogle's plan of murder and comprehensive pillage was gone by the board; he was next to helpless. It was plain that, whatever plan was followed, Viney must bear the active part; Dan Ogle raved and cursed to find his partner so unpractised a ruffian, so cautious and doubtful a confederate.
Mrs. Grimes made the matter harder, and it was plain that the thing must be either brought to a head or wholly abandoned, if only on her account. For she had her own idea, with her certain revenge on Captain Nat, and a contingent reward; furthermore, she saw her brother useless. And things were brought to a head when she would wait no more, but carried her intrigue to the police.
Nothing but a sudden move would do now, desperate as it might be; and the fact screwed Viney to the sticking-place, and gave new vigour to Ogle's shaken frame. After all, the delay had not been great—no more than a few days. Captain Nat suspected nothing, and the chances lay that the notes were still in hand, as they had been when Ogle's sister last saw them; for he could afford to hold them, and dispose of them at a later and safer time. The one danger was from this manœuvre of Mrs. Grimes: if the police thought well enough of her tale to act without preliminary inquiry, they might be at the Hole in the Wall with a search-warrant at any moment. The thing must be done at once—that very night.
Musky Mag had never left Dan's side a moment since she had brought him from the hospital; now she was thrust aside, and bidden to keep to herself. Viney took to pen, ink and paper; and the two men waited impatiently for midnight.
It was then that Viney, with Ogle at his elbow, awaited the closing of the Hole in the Wall, hidden in the dark entry, whence Mrs. Grimes had watched the plain-clothes policeman fishing for information a few hours earlier. The customers grew noisier as the hour neared; and Captain Nat's voice was heard enjoining order once or twice, ere at last it was raised to clear the bar. Then the company came out, straggling and staggering, wrangling and singing, and melted away into the dark, this way and that. Mr. Cripps went east, the pale pensioner west, each like a man who has all night to get home in; and the potman, having fastened the shutters, took his coat and hat, and went his way also.
There was but one other tavern in sight, and that closed at the same time as the Hole in the Wall; and since none nearer than Paddy's Goose remained open till one, Wapping Wall was soon dark and empty. There were diamond-shaped holes near the top of the shutters at the Hole in the Wall, and light was visible through these: a sign that Captain Nat was still engaged in the bar. Presently the light dulled, and then disappeared: he had extinguished the lamps. Now was the time—while he was in the bar-parlour. Viney came out from the entry, pulling Ogle by the arm, and crossed the street. He brought him to the court entrance, and placed his hand on the end post.
"This is the first post in the court," Viney whispered. "Wait here while I go. We both know what's to do."
Viney tip-toed to the bar-parlour door, and tapped. There was a heavy footstep within, and the door was flung open. There stood Captain Nat with the table-lamp in his hand. "Who's that?" said Captain Nat. "Come into the light."
Viney took a deep breath. "Me," he answered. "I'll come in; I've got something to say."
He went in side-foremost, with his back against the door-post, and Captain Nat turned slowly, each man watching the other. Then the landlord put the lamp on the table, and shut the door. "Well," he said, "I'll hear you say it."
There was something odd about Captain Nat's eyes: something new, and something that Viney did not like. Hard and quiet; not anger, it would seem, but some-thing indefinable—and worse. Viney braced himself with another inspiration of breath.
"First," he said, "I'm alone here, but I've left word. There's a friend o' mine not far off, waiting. He's waiting where he can hear the clock strike on Shadwell Church, just as you can hear it here; an' if I'm not back with him, safe an' sound, when it strikes one, he's going to the police with some papers I've given him, in an envelope."
"Ah! An' what papers?"
"Papers I've written myself. Papers with a sort of private log in them—not much like the one they showed 'em at Lloyd's—of the loss of theFlorenceyears enough ago, when a man named Dan Webb was killed. Papers with the names of most of the men aboard, an' hints as to where to find some of 'em: Bill Stagg, for instance, A. B. They may not want to talk, but they can be made."
Captain Nat's fixed look was oddly impassive. "Have you got it on the papers," he said, in a curiously even voice, as though he recited a lesson learned by rote; "have you got it on the papers that Dan Webb had got at the rum, an' was lost through bein' drunk?"
"No, I haven't; an' much good it 'ud do ye if I had. Drunk or sober he died in that wreck, an' not a man aboard but knew all about that. I've told you, before, what it is by law: Murder. Murder an' the Rope."
"Ay," said Captain Nat in the same even voice, though the tones grew in significance as he went on. "Ay, you have; an' you made me pay for the information. Murder it is, an' the Rope, by the law of England."
"Well, I want none of your money now; I want my own. I'll go back an' burn those papers—or give 'em to you, if you like—an' you'll never see me again, if you'll do one thing—not with your money."
"What?"
"Give me my partner's leather pocket-book and my eight hundred and ten pounds that was in it. That's first an' last of my business here to-night, an' all I've got to say."
For a moment Captain Nat's impassibility was disturbed, and he looked sharply at Viney. "Ha!" he said, "what's this? Partner's pocket-book? Notes? What?"
"I've said it plain, an' you understand me. Time's passing, Cap'en Kemp, an' you'd better not waste it arguing; one o'clock'll strike before long. The money I came an' spoke about when they found Marr in the river; you had it all the time, an' you knew it. That's what I want: nothing o' yours, but my own money. Give me my own money, an' save your neck."
Captain Nat compressed his lips, and folded his arms. "There was a woman knew about this," he said slowly, after a pause, "a woman an' a man. They each took a try at that money, in different ways. They must be friends o' yours."
"Time's going, Cap'en Kemp, time's going! Listen to reason, an' give me what's my own. I want nothing o' yours; nothing but my own. To save you; and—and that boy. You've got a boy to remember: think o' the boy!"
Captain Nat stood for a little, silent and thoughtful, his eyes directed absently on Viney, as though he saw him not; and as he stood so the darkness cleared from his face. Not that moment's darkness only, but all the hardness of years seemed to abate in the old skipper's features, so that presently Captain Nat stood transfigured.
"Ay," he said at last, "the boy—I'll think o' the boy, God bless him! You shall have your money, Viney: though whether it ought to be yours I don't know. Viney, when you came in I was ready to break you in pieces with my bare hands—which I could do easy, as you know well enough." He stretched forth the great knotted hands, and Viney shrank before them. "I was ready to kill you with my hands, an' would ha' done it, for a reason I'll tell you of, afterwards. But I've done evil enough, an' I'll do no more. You shall have your money. Wait here, an' I'll fetch it."
"Now, no—no tricks, you know!" said Viney, a little nervously, as the old man turned toward the staircase door.
"Tricks?" came the answer. "No. An end of all tricks." And Captain Nat tramped heavily up the stair.
My grandfather was uncommonly silent all that day, after his interview with Conolly. He bade me good night when I went to bed, and kissed me; but he said no more, though he sat by my bed till I fell asleep, while Joe attended the bar.
I had a way, now and again, of waking when the bar was closed—perhaps because of the noise; and commonly at these times I lay awake till Grandfather Nat came to bed, to bid him good night once more. It was so this night, the night of nights. I woke at the shouting and the stumbling into the street, and lay while the bar was cleared, and the doors banged and fastened.
My grandfather seemed to stay uncommonly long; and presently, as the night grew stiller, I was aware of voices joined in conversation below. I wondered greatly who could be talking with Grandfather Nat at this hour, and I got out of bed to listen at the stair-head. It could not be Bill Stagg, for the voices were in the bar-parlour, and not in the store-place behind; and it was not Joe the potman, for I had heard him go, and I knew his step well. I wondered if Grandfather Nat would mind if I went down to see.
I was doubtful, and I temporised; I began to put on some clothes, listening from time to time at the stair-head, in hope that I might recognise the other voice. But indeed both voices were indistinct, and I could not distinguish one from the other. And then of a sudden the stairfoot door opened, and my grandfather came upstairs, heavy and slow.
I doubted what he might say when he saw my clothes on, but he seemed not to notice it. He brought a candle in from the landing, and he looked strangely grave—grave with a curious composure. He went to the little wall-cupboard at his bed-head, and took out the cash-box, which had not been downstairs since the pale man had ceased work. "Stevy, my boy," he said, "have you said your prayers?"
"Yes, grandfather."
"An' didn't forget Gran'father Nat?"
"No, grandfather, I never forget you."
"Good boy, Stevy." He took the leather pocket-book from the box, and knelt by my side, with his arm about me. "Stevy," he said, "here's this money. It ain't ours, Stevy, neither yours nor mine, an' we've no right to it. I kept it for you, but I did wrong; an' worse, I was leadin' you wrong. Will you give it up, Stevy?"
"Why, yes, grandfather." Truly that was an easy enough thing to say; and in fact I was in some way pleased to know that my mother had been right, after all.
"Right, Stevy; be an honest boy always, and an honest man—better than me. Since I was a boy like you, I've gone a long way wrong, an' I've been a bad man, Stevy, a bad man some ways, at least. An' now, Stevy, I'm goin' away—for a bit. Presently, when I'm gone, you can go to the stairs an' call Bill Stagg—he'll come at once. Call Bill Stagg—he'll stay with you to-night. You don't mind Bill Stagg, do you?"
Bill Stagg was an excellent friend of mine, and I liked his company; but I could not understand Grandfather Nat's going away. Where was he going, and why, so late at night?
"Never mind that just now, Stevy. I'm going away—for a bit; an' whatever happens you'll always say prayers night an' mornin' for Gran'father Nat, won't you? An' be a good boy."
There was something piteous now in my grandfather's hard, grave face. "Don't go, grandfather," I pleaded, with my arm at his neck, "don't go! Grandfather Nat! You're not—not going to die, are you?"
"That's as God wills, my boy. We must all die some day."
I think he was near breaking down here; but at the moment a voice called up the stairs.
"Are you coming?" said the voice. "Time's nearly up!" And it frightened me more than I can say to know this second voice at last for Viney's.
But my grandfather was firm again at once. "Yes," he cried, "I'm coming!... No more to do, Stevy—snivelling's no good." And then Grandfather Nat put his hands clumsily together, and shut his eyes like a little child. "God bless an' save this boy, whatever happens. Amen," said Grandfather Nat.
Then he rose and took from the cash-box the watch that the broken-nosed man had sold. "There's that, too," he said musingly. "I dunno why I kep' it so long." And with that he shut the cash-box, and strode across to the landing. He looked back at me for a moment, but said nothing; and then descended the stairs.
Bewildered and miserably frightened, I followed him.
I could neither reason nor cry out, and I had an agonised hope that I was not really awake, and that this was just such a nightmare as had afflicted me on the night of the murder at our door. I crouched on the lower stairs, and listened....
"Yes, I've got it," said my grandfather, answering an eager question. "There it is. Look at that—count the notes."
I heard a hasty scrabbling of paper.
"Right?" asked my grandfather.
"Quite right," Viney answered; and there was exultation in his voice.
"Pack 'em up—put 'em safe in your pocket. Quite safe? There's the watch, too; I paid for that."
"Oh, the watch? Well, all right, I don't mind having that too, since you're pressing.... You might ha' saved a deal of trouble, yours an' mine too, if you'd done all this before."
"Yes, you're right; but I clear up all now. You've got the notes all quite safe, have you?"
"All safe." There was the sound of a slap on a breast-pocket.
"And the watch?"
"Ay; and the watch."
"Good!..."
I heard a bounce and a gasp of terror; and then my grandfather's voice again. "Come! Come, Viney! We'll be quits to the end. We're bad men both, an' we'll go to the police together. Bring your papers, Viney! Tell 'em about theFlorencean' Dan Webb, an' I'll tell 'em about theJunoan' my boy! I've got my witnesses—an' I'll find more—a dozen to your one! Come, Viney! I'll have justice done now, on both of us!"
I could stay no longer. Viney was struggling desperately, reasoning, entreating. I pushed open the staircase door, but neither seemed to note me. My grandfather had Viney by arm and collar, and was shaking him, face downward.
"I'll go halves, Kemp—I'll go halves," Viney gasped hoarsely. "Divide how you like—but don't, don't be a fool! Take five hundred! Think o' the boy!"
"I've thought of the boy, an' I've thought of his father! God'll mind the boy you've made an orphan! Come!"
My grandfather flung wide the door, and tumbled Viney up the steps into the court. The little table with the lamp on it rocked from a kick, and I saved it by sheer instinct, for I was sick with terror.
I followed into the court, and saw my grandfather now nearly at the street corner, hustling and dragging his prisoner. "Dan! Dan!" Viney was crying, struggling wildly. "Dan! I've got it! Draw him off me, Dan! Go for the kid an' draw him off! Go for the kid on the stairs!"
And I could see a man come groping between the wall and the posts, a hand feeling from one post to the next, and the stick in the other hand scraping the wall. I ran out to the farther side of the alley.
Viney's shout distracted my grandfather's attention, and I saw him looking anxiously back. With that Viney took his chance, and flung himself desperately round the end post. His collar went with a rip, and he ran. For a moment my grandfather stood irresolute, and I ran toward him. "I am safe here," I cried. "Come away, grandfather!"
But when he saw me clear of the groping man, he turned and dashed after Viney; while from the bar-parlour I heard a curse and a crash of broken glass. I vaguely wondered if Viney's confederate were smashing windows in the partition; and then I ran my hardest after Grandfather Nat.
Viney had made up the street toward the bridge and Ratcliff Highway, and Captain Nat pursued with shouts of "Stop him!" Breathless and unsteady, I made slow progress with my smaller legs over the rough cobble-stones, which twisted my feet all ways as I ran. But I was conscious of a gathering of other cries ahead, and I struggled on, with throbbing head and bursting heart. Plainly there were more shouts as I neared the corner, and a running of more men than two. And when the corner was turned, and the bridge and the lock before me, I saw that the chase was over.
Three bull's-eye lanterns were flashing to and fro, pointing their long rays down on the black dock-water, and the policemen who directed them were calling to dockmen on the dark quay, who cried back, and ran, and called again.
"Man in!" cried one and another, hurrying in from the Highway. "Fell off the lock." "No, he cut his lucky, an' headered in!" "He didn't, I tell ye!" "Yes, he did! Why, I see 'im!"
I could not see my grandfather; and for a moment my thumping heart stood still and sick with the fear that it was he who was drowning in the dock. Then a policeman swung his lantern across to the opposite side, and in the passing flash Grandfather Nat's figure stood hard and clear for an instant and no more. He was standing midway on the lock, staring and panting, and leaning on a stanchion.
With a dozen risks of being knocked into the dock by excited onlookers, I scrambled down to the lock and seized the first stanchion. It creaked and tottered in my hand, but I went forward, gripping at the swaying chain and keeping foothold on the slippery, uneven timbers I knew not how. Sometimes the sagging chain would give till I felt myself pitching headlong, only to be saved by the check of the stanchion against the side of the socket; and once the chain hung so low, where it had slipped through the next stanchion-eye, that I had no choice but to let go, and plunged in the dark for the next upright—it might have been to plunge into space. "Grandfather Nat! Grandfather Nat!"
I reached him somehow at last, and caught tight at his wrist. He was leaning on the stanchion still, and staring at the dark water. "Here I am, grandfather," I said, "but I am frightened. Stay with me, please!"
For a little while he still peered into the gloom. Then he turned and said quietly: "I've lost him, Stevy. He went over—here."
By the sweep of his hand I saw what had happened, though I could scarce realise the whole matter then and there. As I presently learnt, however, Viney was running full for the bridge, with Captain Nat shouting behind him, when he saw the lanterns of the three policemen barring the bridge as they came on their beat from the Highway. To avoid them he swung aside and made for the lock, with his pursuer hard at his heels. Now a lock of that sort joins in an angle or mitre at the middle, where the two sides meet like a valve, pointing to resist the tide; so that the hazardous path along the top turns off sharply midway. Flying headlong, with thought of nothing but the avenger behind him, Viney overran the angle, meeting the low chain full under his knees; and so was gone, with a yell and a splash.
Grandfather Nat took me by the collar, and turned me round. "We'll get back, Stevy," he said. "Go on, I'll hold you tight."
And so in the pitchy dark I went back along the way I had come, walking before my grandfather as I had done when first I saw that lock. The dockmen had flung random life-buoys, and now were groping with drags and hooks. Some judged that the man must have gone under like a stone; others thought it quite likely that a good swimmer might have got away quietly. And everybody wished to know who the man was, and why he was running.
To all such questions my grandfather made the same answer. "It was a man I wanted, wanted bad, for the police. You find him, dead or alive, an' I'll identify him, an' say the rest in the proper place; that's all." Only once he amplified this answer, and then he said: "You can judge he was as much afraid o' the police as he was o' me, or more. Look where he went, when he saw 'em on the bridge!" And again he repeated: "I'll say the rest when he's found, not before; an' nobody can make me."
He was calm and cool enough now, as I could feel as well as hear, for my hand was buried in his, while he pushed his way stolidly through the little crowd. As for myself, I could neither think, nor speak, nor laugh, nor cry, though dizzily conscious of an impulse to do all four at once. I had Grandfather Nat again, and now he would not go away; that I could realise; and I clung with all my might to as much of his hand as I could grip.
But I was to have neither time to gather my wits nor quiet to assort my emotions: for the full issue of that night was not yet. Even as we were pushing through the little crowd, and even as my grandfather parried question with answer, a new cry rose, and at the sound the crowd began to melt: for it was the cry of "Fire."
A single shout at first, and then another, and then a clamour of three together, and a beat of running feet. Men about us started off, and as we rounded the corner, one came running back on his tracks. "Cap'en Kemp, it's your house!" he cried. "Your house, Cap'en Kemp! The Hole in the Wall! The Hole in the Wall!"
Then was dire confusion. I was caught in a whir of running men, and I galloped and stumbled along as I might, dragging dependent from my grandfather's hand. Somewhere ahead a wavering light danced before my eyes, and there was a sudden outburst of loud cracks, as of a hundred carters' whips; and then—screams; screams without a doubt. Confusedly my mind went back to Viney's confederate, groping in at the bar-parlour door. What had he done? Smashed glass? Glass? It must have been the lamp: the lamp on the little table by the door, the lamp I had myself saved but ten minutes earlier!
Now we were opposite the Hole in the Wall, and the loud cracks were joined with a roar of flame. Out it came gushing at the crevices of doors and shutters, and the corners of doors and shutters shrivelled and curled to let out more, as though that bulging old wooden house were a bursting reservoir of long-pent fire that could be held in no more. And still there were the screams, hoarser and hoarser, from what part within was not to be guessed.
My grandfather stood me in a doorway, up two steps, and ran toward the court, but that was impassable. With such fearful swiftness had the fire sprung up and over the dry old timber on this side, where it had made its beginning, that already a painted board on the brick wall opposite was black and smoking and glowering red at the edges; and where I stood, across the road, the air was hot and painful to the eyes. Grandfather Nat ran along the front of the house to the main door, but it was blazing and bursting, and he turned and ran into the road, with his arm across his eyes. Then, with a suddenly increased roar, flames burst tenfold in volume and number from all the ground floor, and, where a shutter fell, all within glowed a sheer red furnace. The spirit was caught at last.
And now I saw a sight that would come again in sleep months afterwards, and set me screaming in my bed. The cries, which had lately died down, sprang out anew amid the roar, nearer and clearer, with a keener agony; and up in the club-room, the room of the inquests—there at a window appeared the Groping Man, a dreadful figure. In no darkness now, but ringed about with bright flame I saw him: the man whose empty, sightless eye-pits I had seen scarce twelve hours before through a hole in a canvas screen. The shade was gone from over the place of the eyes, and down the seared face and among the rags of blistered skin rolled streams of horrible great tears, forced from the raw lids by scorching smoke. His clothes smoked about him as he stood—groping, groping still, he knew not whither; and his mouth opened and closed with sounds scarce human.
Grandfather Nat roared distractedly for a ladder, called to the man to jump, ran forward twice to the face of the house as though to catch him, and twice came staggering back with his hands over his face, and flying embers singeing his hair and his coat.
The blind man's blackened hands came down on the blazing sill, and leapt from the touch. Then came a great crash, with a single second's dulling of the whole blaze. For an instant the screaming, sightless, weeping face remained, and then was gone for ever. The floor had fallen.
The flames went up with a redoubled roar, and now I could hold my place no longer for the heat. People were flinging water over the shutters and doors of the houses facing the fire, and from the houses adjoining furniture was being dragged in hot haste. My grandfather came and carried me a few doors farther along the street, and left me with a chandler's wife, who was out in a shawl and a man's overcoat over a huddle of flannel petticoats.
Now the fire engines came, dashing through the narrow lanes with a clamour of hoarse cries, and scattering the crowd this way and that. The Hole in the Wall was past aid, and all the work was given to save its neighbours. For some while I could distinguish my grandfather among the firemen, heaving and hauling, and doing the work of three. The police were grown in numbers now, and they had cleared the street to beyond where I stood, so that I could see well enough; and in every break in the flames, in every changing shadow, I saw again the face of the Groping Man, even as I can see it now as I write.
Floor went upon floor, till at last the poor old shell fell in a heap amid a roar of shouts and a last leap of fire, leaving the brick wall of the next house cracking and black and smoking, and tagged with specks of dying flame. And then at last my grandfather, black and scorched, came and sat by me on a step, and put the breast of his coat about me.
And that was the end of the Hole in the Wall: the end of its landlord's doubts and embarrassments and dangers, and the beginning of another chapter in his history—his history and mine.
Little remains to say; for with the smoking sticks of the Hole in the Wall the tale of my early days burns itself out.
Viney's body was either never found or never identified. Whether it was discovered by some person who flung it adrift after possessing himself of the notes and watch: whether it was held unto dissolution by mud, or chains, or waterside gear: or whether indeed, as was scarce possible, it escaped with the life in it, to walk the world in some place that knew it not, I, at any rate, cannot tell. The fate of his confederate, at least, was no matter of doubt. He must have been driven to the bar by the fire he had raised, and there, bewildered and helpless, and cut off from the way he had come, even if he could find it, he must have scrambled desperately till he found the one open exit—the club-room stairs.
But of these enough. Faint by contrast with the vivid scenes of the night, divers disconnected impressions of the next morning remain with me: all the fainter for the sleep that clutched at my eyelids, spite of my anxious resolution to see all to the very end. Of a coarse, draggled woman of streaming face and exceeding bitter cry, who sat inconsolable while men raked the ruins for a thing unrecognisable when it was found. Of the pale man, who came staring and choking, and paler than ever, gasping piteously of his long and honest service, and sitting down on the curb at last, to meditate on my grandfather's promise that he should not want, if he would work. And of Mr. Cripps, at first blank and speechless, and then mighty loquacious in the matter of insurance. For works of art would be included, of course, up to twenty pounds apiece; at which amount of proceeds—with a discount to Captain Kemp—he would cheerfully undertake to replace the lot, and throw the signboard in.
Mrs. Grimes was heard of, though not seen; but this was later. She was long understood to have some bitter grievance against the police, whom she charged with plots and conspiracies to defeat the ends of justice; and I think she ended with a savage assault on a plain-clothes constable's very large whiskers, and twenty-one days' imprisonment.
The Hole in the Wall was rebuilt in brick, with another name, as I think you may see it still; or could, till lately. There was also another landlord. For Captain Nat Kemp turned to enlarging and improving his wharf, and he bought lighters, and Wapping saw him no more. As for me, I went to school at last.