Outside the police court, Philip drew as invigorating a breath of fresh air as the atmosphere of Clerkenwell permitted. He knew that an inspector of police and a couple of constables were gazing at him curiously through an office window, and the knowledge quickened his wits.
It was worth even more than his liberty to realize that, in all reasonable probability, his meteor was safe as yet. The police had failed in their quest; whom else had he to fear? The company had informed his mother that her tenancy of Johnson's Mews would not be disturbed before the thirty-first. Of course, her death was known to the firm, but their written promise to her was verbally confirmed to Philip by the manager. It was now the twenty-fifth. He had five clear days, perhaps six, in which to make all his arrangements. The forced seclusion of the prison had helped him in one way—it gave him a program, a detailed plan. Each step had been carefully thought out, and Isaacstein's office was the first stage in the campaign.
A prowling hansom passed. Philip whistled.
"Where's the fare?" demanded the cabman, angrily, looking up and down the street.
"Drive me to Holborn Viaduct, quick," said the boy, with his foot on the step.
Cabby eyed him with scorn.
"What's the gyme?" he growled. "D'yer tyke me for a mug, or what?"
"Oh, don't talk so much," cried Philip, impatiently. "Are you afraid I won't pay you? See! If you lose no more time, I will give you this," and he held up a two-shilling piece for the cabman's edification.
It is difficult to surprise your true Cockney whip. The man carefully folded the evening paper he had been reading, stuffed it under the strap which held his rug and cape, and chirruped to his horse:
"Kim up, lazy bones! We've got a millionaire crossin'-sweeper inside. What, ho! Any bloomin' perfession is better'n drivin' a keb."
The run was shorter than Philip anticipated, but, true to his promise, he proffered the two shillings.
The cabman looked at him. Something in the boy's face seemed to strike him as curious, and, notwithstanding Philip's rags, his skin was scrupulously clean.
"Gow on," he cried. "I'll make yer a present of that trip. 'Ope it'll giv yer a fresh stawt in the world. Kim up, will yer!" And the hansom swung away into the traffic, leaving the boy standing on the pavement on the north side of the viaduct. He made a mental note of the cab's number. It was easy to remember—three 8's and a 9—and walked on toward Hatton Garden.
Meanwhile the cabman, after varying luck, drove to his yard, changed horses, secured a fare to a theater, and joined the Haymarket rank while he took a meal in the cabmen's shelter.
"What's to-day's bettin' on the National?" he asked a friend.
The evening paper was passed and he cast an eye over its columns. Suddenly he rapped out a string of expressions that amazed his companions.
"What's the matter, Jimmie? Missed a twenty to one chance at Lincoln?"
"Great Scott! I thought he'd lift the roof off."
"Go easy, mate. There's lydies outside."
But the cabman still swore and gazed round-eyed at the sheet. And this is what he read:
"The boy, Philip Morland, whose possession of a collection of meteoric diamonds of great value has created so much sensation, was brought up on remand to-day at the Clerkenwell Police Court, and released. Mr. Abingdon thought fit to hear the case in camera, so this ragged urchin is wandering about London again with a pocketful of gems. He was last seen entering a cab in the neighborhood of the police court, and inquiry by our representative at the Hatton Garden offices of Mr. Isaacstein, the diamond merchant, whose name has figured in connection with the case, elicited the information that Morland called there about 3 P.M. Mr. Isaacstein positively refused to make any further statement for publication, but it is probable that developments in this peculiar and exciting affair will take place at any moment."
"The boy, Philip Morland, whose possession of a collection of meteoric diamonds of great value has created so much sensation, was brought up on remand to-day at the Clerkenwell Police Court, and released. Mr. Abingdon thought fit to hear the case in camera, so this ragged urchin is wandering about London again with a pocketful of gems. He was last seen entering a cab in the neighborhood of the police court, and inquiry by our representative at the Hatton Garden offices of Mr. Isaacstein, the diamond merchant, whose name has figured in connection with the case, elicited the information that Morland called there about 3 P.M. Mr. Isaacstein positively refused to make any further statement for publication, but it is probable that developments in this peculiar and exciting affair will take place at any moment."
In a word, the journalistic world was exceedingly wroth with both Mr. Abingdon and the Jew for balking it of a very readable bit of news. No effort would be spared to defeat their obvious purpose. Philip must be discovered by hook or by crook, and badgered incessantly until he divulged the secret of the meteor.
At last the cabman became lucid.
"I'm done," he groaned. "My brains are a fuzzball. 'Ere! Some one drink my beer. I'm goin' in fer cow-cow. I 'ad this young spark in my keb to-d'y an' didn't know it. 'E offered me two bob, 'e did, an' I stood 'im a drive as a treat, 'e looked sich a scarecrow."
"Who's next?" cried a raucous voice at the door.
"I am," roared the disappointed one.
"Well, look sharp. There's a hold gent a-wavin' 'is humbreller like mad——"
"Keep 'im. Don't let 'im go. I'll be there in 'arf a tick. Who knows! P'raps it's Rothschild."
Meanwhile Philip did not hesitate an instant once he reached Isaacstein's office. A new note in his character was revealing itself. Always resolute, fearless and outspoken, now he was confident. He pushed open the swing door with the manner of one who expects his fellows to bow before him. Was he not rich—able to command the services of men—why should he falter? He forgot his rags, forgot the difficulties and dangers that might yet beset his path, for in very truth he had achieved but little actual progress since he first entered that office five days earlier.
But he had suffered much since then, and suffering had strengthened him. Moreover, he had taken the measure of Isaacstein. There was a score to be wiped off before that worthy and he entered into amicable business relations.
The instant the immature Jew behind the grille set eyes on Philip, he bounded back from the window and gazed at him with a frightened look. Had this young desperado broken out of prison and come to murder them all?
"Help! help!" he shouted. "Murder!"
Clerks came running from the inner office, among them the elderly man who interfered in Philip's behalf on the last occasion.
"Make that idiot shut up," said Philip, calmly, "and tell Mr. Isaacstein I am here."
The office boy was silenced, and the excitement calmed down. Yes, the diamond merchant was in. If Philip would walk upstairs to the waiting room, his presence would be announced.
"Thank you," he said; "but kindly see that this urchin does not let others know I am here. I don't want a crowd to be gathered in the street when I come out."
Such cool impudence from a ragamuffin was intolerable, or nearly so. But Isaacstein ruled his minions with a rod of iron, and they would fain wait the little man's pleasure ere they ventured their wrath on the boy. Besides, they were afraid of Philip. Like most people in London, they had read the newspaper reports of the police court proceedings, and they were awed by his strangely incomprehensible surroundings.
So he was silently ushered upstairs, and soon he caught the thick-voiced order of Isaacstein:
"Show him in."
The Jew, however, dived into his private sanctum before Philip entered the general office. The boy found him there, seated at his table.
The duel began with questions:
"How did you get out so soon? You were remanded for a week."
"Are you going to send for a policeman?"
"Don't be rude, boy, but answer me."
"I am not here to satisfy your curiosity, Mr. Isaacstein. I have called simply on a matter of business. It is sufficient for you to know that Mr. Abingdon has set me at liberty and restored my property to me. Do you wish to deal with me or not?"
The diamond merchant tingled with anger. He was not accustomed to being browbeaten even by the representatives of the De Beers Company, yet here was a callow youngster addressing him in this outrageous fashion, betraying, too, an insufferable air of contempt in voice and manner. He glared at Philip in silent wrath for an instant.
The boy smiled. He took from his pocket the paper of diamonds and began to count them. The action said plainly:
"You know you cannot send me away. If I go to your trade rivals you will lose a magnificent opportunity. You are in my hands. No matter how rude I am to you, you must put up with it."
Nevertheless, the Jew made an effort to preserve his tottering dignity.
"Do you think," he said, "that you are behaving properly in treating a man of my position in such a way in his own office?"
In his own office—that was the sting of it.
The head of the firm of Isaacstein & Co., of London, Amsterdam and Kimberley, to be bearded in such fashion in his own particular shrine! Why, the thing was monstrous!
Philip looked him squarely in the eyes.
"Mr. Isaacstein," he said, calmly, "have you forgotten that you caused me to be arrested as a thief and dragged, handcuffed, through the open streets by a policeman? I have spent five days in jail because of you. At the moment when I was praising your honesty you were conveying secret signals to your clerks in the belief that I was something worse than a pickpocket. Was your treatment of me so free from blame at our first meeting as to serve as a model at the second?"
The chair was creaking now continuously; the Jew swung from side to side during this lecture. He strove hard to restrain himself, but the feverish excitement of Saturday returned with greater intensity than ever. He jumped up, and Philip imagined for a second that robbery with violence was imminent.
"Confound it all, boy!" yelled the merchant, "what was I to do when a ragged loafer like you came in and showed me a diamond worth a thousand pounds and told me he had dozens, hundreds, more like it? Did you expect me to risk standing in the dock by your side? Who could have given fairer evidence in your behalf than I did? Who proved that you could not have stolen the stones? Whom have you to thank for being at liberty now, but the expert who swore that no such diamonds had been seen before in this world?"
Philip waited until the man's passion had exhausted itself. Then he went on coolly:
"That is your point of view, I suppose. Mine is that you could have satisfied yourself concerning all those points without sending me to prison. However, this discussion is beside the present question. Will you buy my diamonds?"
Isaacstein recovered his seat. He wiped his face vigorously, but the trading instinct conquered his fury.
"Yes," he snapped. "How much do you want for them?"
"I notice that their value steadily increases. The first time you saw this diamond"—and he held up the stone originally exhibited to the Jew—"you said it was worth six or seven hundred pounds. To-day you name a thousand. However, I will take your own valuation for this unimportant collection, and accept fifty thousand pounds."
"Oh, you will, will you! And how will you have it, in notes or gold?"
He could not help this display of cheap sarcasm. The situation was losing its annoyance; the humor of it was beginning to dawn on him. When his glance rested more critically on Philip, the boy's age, the poverty of his circumstances, the whole fantastic incongruity of the affair, forced his recognition.
Not unprepared for such a retort, Philip gathered the stones together, and twisted the ends of the paper. Evidently the parcel was going back into his pocket. He glanced at a clock, too, which ticked solemnly over the office door.
"Here, what are you doing?" cried Isaacstein.
"Going to some one who will deal with me in a reasonable manner. It is not very late yet. I suppose there are plenty of firms like yours in Hatton Garden, or I can go back to Mr. Wilson——"
"Sit down. Sit down," growled the Jew, vainly striving to cloak his nervousness by a show of grim jocosity. "I never saw such a boy in my life. You are touchy as gunpowder. I was only joking."
"I am not joking, Mr. Isaacstein. Your price is my price—fifty thousand pounds."
"Do you think I carry that amount of money in my purse?" demanded Isaacstein, striving desperately to think out some means whereby he could get Philip into more amiable mood, when, perchance, the true story of the gems might be revealed.
"No," was the answer. "Even if you gave it to me I should not take it away. I want you to advance, say fifty pounds, to-day. I require clothes—and other things. Then, to-morrow, you can bring me to a bank, and pay a portion of the purchase price to my credit, giving me at the same time a written promise to pay the remainder within a week, or a month—any reasonable period, in fact."
The diamond merchant was quickly becoming serious, methodical, as he listened. This business-like proposal was the one thing needed to restore his bewildered faculties.
"Tell me, boy," he said, "who has been advising you?"
"No one."
"Do you mean to say you came here to-day to trade with me without consulting any other person?"
"I certainly told Mr. Abingdon I was coming, and I feel that I can always return to him for any advice if I am in a difficulty, but the offer I have just made is my own."
Watching Isaacstein's face was an interesting operation to Philip. Under ordinary conditions he might as well expect to find emotion depicted in a pound of butter as in that oily countenance, with its set expression molded by years of sharp dealings. But to-day the man was startled out of all the accustomed grooves of business. He was confronted with a problem so novel that his experience was not wide enough to embrace it.
So Philip caught a gleam of resentment at the introduction of the magistrate's name, and he instantly resolved to see Mr. Abingdon again at the earliest opportunity.
"Oh, he treated you kindly to-day, did he?" snarled Isaacstein.
"Yes, most kindly."
"You don't drink, I suppose?" broke in the other, abruptly.
"No. I am only a boy of fifteen, and do not need stimulants."
He was favored with a sharp glance at this remark, but he bent over his diamonds again and began to examine them, one by one. He knew that the action was tantalizing to his companion, and that is why he did it.
Isaacstein went to a sideboard and poured out a stiff glass of brandy. He swallowed it as an ordinary person takes an oyster.
"That's better," he said, returning to his desk. "Now we can get to close quarters. Hand over the stones."
Philip did nothing of the sort.
"Why?" he inquired, blandly. "You know all about them. You can hardly want to examine them so frequently."
"Confound it!" cried Isaacstein, growing red with renewed impatience, "what more can I do than agree to your terms?"
"I asked you for an advance of fifty pounds. I said nothing about leaving the diamonds in your charge. Please listen to me. I make no unreasonable demands. If you wish to keep the stones now you must first write me a letter stating the agreement between us. If it is right I will give you the diamonds. If it is not according to my ideas you must alter it."
"Do you think I mean to swindle you?"
"I have no views on that point. I am only telling you what my conditions are."
Isaacstein sat back in his chair and regarded Philip fixedly and with as much calmness as he could summon to his aid. A ray of sunshine illumined a bald patch on the top of his head, and the boy found himself idly speculating on developments in the Jew's future life. The man, on his part, was seeking to read the boy's inscrutable character, but the fixity of Philip's gaze at his denuded crown disconcerted him again.
"What are you looking at?" he demanded, suddenly.
"I was wondering how you will look when you go to heaven, Mr. Isaacstein," was the astounding reply.
For some reason it profoundly disturbed his hearer. He wobbled for a little while, and finally seemed to make up his mind, though he sighed perplexedly. The Jew was not a bad man. In business he was noted for exceeding shrewdness combined with strict commercial honesty. But the case that now presented itself contained all the elements of temptation. No matter how clever this boy might be, he was but a boy, and opportunities for cheating him must arrive. If not he, Isaacstein, there were others. The boy possessed a large store, possibly a very large store, of rough gems, and in dealing with them his agents could rob him with impunity. Yet, in answer to an unguarded question, this extraordinary youth admitted that Isaacstein might merit eternal bliss. Such an eventuality had not occurred to the Jew himself during unrecorded years. Now that it was suggested to him it disturbed him.
"You imagine then that I may deal fairly with you?" he said at last.
"Oh, yes. Why should you rob me? You can earn more money than you can ever need in this world by looking after my interests properly. If only you will believe this statement it will save you much future worry, I assure you."
"Were you in earnest when you said that you have an abundance of stones like those in your hands?"
"So many, Mr. Isaacstein, that you will have some trouble in disposing of them. I have diamonds as big, as big—let me see—as big as an egg."
The wonder is that the Jew did not faint.
"My God!" he gurgled, "do you know what you are saying? Where are they, boy? You will be robbed, murdered for their sake. Where are they? Let me put them in some safe place. I will deal honestly by you. I swear it, by all that I hold sacred. But you must have them taken care of."
"They are quite safe; be certain of that. Reveal my secret I will not. I have borne insult and imprisonment to preserve it, so it is not likely I will yield now to your appeals."
Philip's face lit up with a strange light as this protest left his lips. The meteor was his mother's bequest. She gave it to him, and she would safeguard it. Had she failed hitherto? Was not all London ringing with the news of his fortune, yet what man or woman had discovered the whereabouts of his treasure? In his pocket he felt the great iron key of No. 3, Johnson's Mews, and he was as certain now that his hiding place was unknown as that his mother's spirit was looking down on him from heaven, and directing his every movement.
The Jew, in spite of his own great lack of composure, saw the fleeting glimpse of spirituality in the boy's eyes. Puzzled and disturbed though he was, he made another violent effort to pull his shattered nerves into order.
"There is no need to talk all day," he said, doggedly. "Now I am going to tell you something you don't know. If your boast is justified—if you really own as many diamonds, and as good ones, as you say you own—there must be a great deal of discretion exercised in putting them on the market. Diamonds are valuable only because they are rare. There is a limit to their possible purchasers. If the diamond mines of the world were to pour all their resources forthwith into the lap of the public, there would be such a slump that prices would drop fifty, sixty, even eighty per cent. Do you follow me?"
"Yes," nodded Philip.
A week earlier he would have said, "Yes, sir," but his soul was bitter yet against Isaacstein.
"Very well. It may take me months, years, to realize your collection. To do it properly I must have some idea of its magnitude. If there are exceptionally large stones among it, they will be dealt with separately. They may rival or eclipse the few historical diamonds of the world, but their worth can only be measured by the readiness of some fool to pay hundreds of thousands for them. See?"
"Yes," nodded Philip again. His sententiousness brought the man to the point.
"Therefore you must take me into your confidence. What quantity of stones do you possess, and what are their sizes? I must know."
Isaacstein, cooler now, pursed his lips and pressed his thumbs together until they appeared to be in danger of dislocation. It was his favorite attitude when engaged in a deal. It signified that he had cornered his victim. Philip, appealed to in this strictly commercial way, could not fail to see it was to his own interest to tell his chosen expert the exact facts, and nothing but the facts.
The boy, singularly unflurried in tone and manner, hazarded an inquiry.
"What amount of ordinary diamonds, in their money value I mean, can you dispose of readily in the course of a year, Mr. Isaacstein?"
"Oh, two or three hundred thousand pounds' worth; it is a matter largely dependent on the condition of trade generally. But that may be regarded as a minimum."
"And the bigger stones, worth many thousands each?"
"It is impossible to say. Taking them in the lump, at values varying from a thousand each to fancy figures, perhaps fifty thousand pounds' worth."
"It would be safe to reckon on a quarter of a million a year, all told?"
"Quite safe."
"Then, Mr. Isaacstein, I will supply you with diamonds of that value every year for many years."
The Jew relaxed the pressure on his thumbs. Indeed he passed a tremulous hand across his forehead. He was beaten again, and he knew it—worsted by a gutter snipe in a war of wits.
The contest had one excellent effect. It stopped all further efforts on Isaacstein's part to wrest Philip's secret from him. Thenceforth he asked for, and obtained, such diamonds as he needed, and resolutely forbade himself the luxury of questioning or probing the extent of his juvenile patron's resources.
But there was a long pause before he found his tongue again. His voice had lost its aggressiveness when he said:
"In the police court I valued the diamonds you produced at fifty thousand pounds. It does not necessarily follow that I am prepared to give such a sum for them at this moment. I might do so as a speculation, but I take it you do not want me to figure in that capacity. It will be better for you, safer for me, if I become your agent. I will take your stones to Amsterdam, have them cut sufficiently to enable dealers to assess their true worth, and sell them to the best advantage. My charge will be ten per cent, and I pay all expenses. To-day I will give you fifty pounds. To-morrow I will take you to a bank and place five thousand to your credit. Meanwhile, I will give you a receipt for thirty stones, weighing, in the rough, so many carats, and you, or anyone you may appoint, can see the sale vouchers subsequently, when I will hand you the balance after deducting £5,050 and my ten per cent. The total price may exceed fifty thousand, or it may be less, but I do not think I will be far out in my estimate. Are you agreeable?"
Some inner monitor told Philip that the Jew was talking on sound business lines. There was a ring of sincerity in his voice. Apparently he had thrust temptation aside, and was firmly resolved to be content with his ten per cent.
And this might well be. Twenty-five thousand pounds a year earned by a few journeys to the Continent—a few haggling interviews in the Hatton Garden office! What a gold mine! Moreover, he would be the head man in the trade. He was that now, in some respects; but under the new conditions none could gainsay his place at the top. Even the magnates of Kimberley would be staggered by this new source of supply. What did it matter if the boy kept to his rags and amazed the world, so long as the diamonds were forthcoming? It was no silk-hatted gentleman who first stumbled across the diamond-laden earth of South Africa. Isaacstein had made up his mind. Fate had thrust this business into his lap. He would be a fool to lose it out of mere curiosity.
"Yes," said Philip. "I agree to that."
"Samuel!" yelled Isaacstein.
"Coming, sir," was the answering shout, and a flurried clerk appeared.
"Bring in the scales, Samuel."
The scales were brought, and a level space cleared for them on the desk. Philip, of course, had never before seen an instrument so delicately adjusted. A breath would serve to depress the balance.
The boy held forth his paper, and poured the contents into the tiny brass tray of the scales. Samuel's mouth opened and his eyes widened. It was his first sight of the diamonds.
"Four ounces, eight pennyweights, five grains—six hundred and twenty-nine carats in thirty stones. Oh, good gracious me!" murmured the clerk.
Isaacstein checked the record carefully.
"Right!" he said. "Put them in the safe."
Philip raised no protest this time. He knew that the Jew would keep his word. Indeed, Isaacstein told Samuel to bring him fifty sovereigns, and ere the man returned he began to write on a sheet of letter paper:
"Received from——Here! what's your name?" he broke in.
"Philip."
"Philip what?"
"That will do to-day, thank you. The next time I call I will give you my full name and address."
"Please yourself. I am no judge in this matter," and he wrote on:
"Received from Philip, a boy who refuses any other name, but the same whom I saw in this office on the twentieth inst., and again at the Clerkenwell Police Court on that date, thirty meteoric diamonds weighing in the gross six hundred and twenty-nine carats. I hereby agree to dispose of the same, and to render true account of sales to the said Philip or his agents. My commission to be ten per cent.; the expenses payable by me. I have to-day handed the said Philip fifty pounds in gold, and undertake to place five thousand pounds to his credit to-morrow with my bankers."Reuben Isaacstein."
"Received from Philip, a boy who refuses any other name, but the same whom I saw in this office on the twentieth inst., and again at the Clerkenwell Police Court on that date, thirty meteoric diamonds weighing in the gross six hundred and twenty-nine carats. I hereby agree to dispose of the same, and to render true account of sales to the said Philip or his agents. My commission to be ten per cent.; the expenses payable by me. I have to-day handed the said Philip fifty pounds in gold, and undertake to place five thousand pounds to his credit to-morrow with my bankers.
"Reuben Isaacstein."
After completing this acknowledgment he scribbled something else.
"There," he said, with a sigh of relief, "that is not a very formal document, but it will suffice. You can get it stamped to-morrow at Somerset House. Just sign this receipt for fifty pounds."
Philip took the two papers and read them carefully. Isaacstein's handwriting was a scrawl, but legible enough. The boy reached for a pen and signed his Christian name. He was on the point of adding his surname in an unguarded moment, but he felt the Jew's eye on him. So he simply wrote "Philip" across the stamp at the foot of the receipt.
Isaacstein fully appreciated the incident, and knew that his own eagerness defeated the chance, all the more powerful because it was involuntary, of ascertaining the name of this marvelous youth.
Philip gathered up his gold, not without counting the coins. They felt strangely heavy in his pocket, much heavier than the stones they replaced. Yet they formed but a thousandth part of the value of those flintlike pebbles. What a queer problem it was, this ratio of worth between a few stones and the bright, minted sovereigns.
"What time shall I call to-morrow?" he asked, standing, cap in hand, ready to take his departure.
"At eleven. But wait one moment. Have you no friends to look after you? See what trouble you may get into. Why, the mere possession of so much gold by a boy like you may——"
"I can take care of myself, Mr. Isaacstein. I will be here at eleven. Good-afternoon."
It was four o'clock in the afternoon of a fine, but chilly March day when Philip regained Holborn with fifty pounds making a lump in his pocket, and Isaacstein's letter safely lodged in his coat. The mere weight of the gold suggested an unpleasant possibility. His clothes were so worn that the frail calico might give way and every golden coin rattle forth to the pavement.
So with one of Mr. Abingdon's shillings he made his first purchase, a capacious tobacco pouch with a snap mouth, for which he paid ninepence. Then he adjourned to an aërated bread shop and ordered some refreshments. While the waitress was bringing his cup of tea and piece of cake he contrived to slip all the sovereigns but one into the tobacco pouch.
He did this with his hand in the pocket itself, and more than once there was a pleasant clink as the coins fell into their novel receptacle.
A man sitting near caught the sound, and looked up suspiciously. Philip, whose senses were very much on the alert to-day, realized that his action was somewhat careless. Without even glancing at his neighbor, he took out his remaining couple of shillings and the three pennies, and affected to count them with a certain degree of astonishment, as if some were missing. The ruse was satisfactory. The man gave him no further heed, and soon quitted the restaurant.
Philip tendered the odd sovereign in payment of his bill. The girl cashier seemed to be surprised that such a ragged youth should own so large a sum.
"All silver, please," said Philip, when she began to count his change.
He would take no more risks if he could avoid them. Not a single policeman in London would have failed to arrest him at that moment were his store of gold revealed by any chance. Yet Philip was rich honestly, and there were men driving away from the city at that hour whose banking accounts were plethoric with stolen money. For their carriages the policemen would stop the traffic. In neither instance could the guardians of the peace be held blameworthy; such is the importance of mere appearances.
The boy, during his short and terribly sharp tussle with London life, had already grasped this essential fact, and with great skill and method he set about the task of altering his own shabby exterior.
In a side street leading out of Gray's Inn Road, he found a secondhand clothes shop. Here he purchased a worn, but decent, blue serge suit for eight shillings six pence, a pair of boots for five shillings, a cap for ninepence, a woolen shirt for two shillings, and a linen collar for threepence.
He haggled sufficiently over the bargain to suit the needs of a scanty purse.
"I've cut 'em dahn low enough," said the shopkeeper, mournfully. "Things isn't wot they was in the ole clo' line, let me tell yer. Not but what you do want a new rig-aht."
"Yes," said Philip. "I've got a job, and can't keep it unless I look decent."
For the life of him he could not burlesque the Cockney accent, and although he used the simplest phraseology, the man glanced at him sharply.
"Where are yer workin'?" he said.
"At Isaacstein's in Hatton Garden." The words had not left his lips ere he regretted them.
"Wot is 'e?"
"A Jew," and Philip laughed. This quip atoned for the error of the admission.
"Bli-me, you won't get a lot aht of 'im."
"No. It cost me some trouble to get an advance, I can assure you."
Philip rattled all his silver and coppers onto the counter. He counted out sixteen shillings sixpence.
"Not much left, is there?" he said.
"Well, look 'ere," said the man. "Gimme fifteen bob. You're a sharp lad. You'll myke yer w'y all right. Nex' time you want some duds come to me an' I'll treat you fair."
"Thank you very much," said Philip, considerably surprised by this generous act. "I certainly will not forget you."
"You can change in my little back room if you like. That lot you've got on ain't worth tykin' 'ome."
"I am obliged for your kindness, but I must be off now. It is late, and I have a long way to go."
"Where to? Holloway?"
"No, cityward."
The clothes and boots were made up in a parcel by this time. Philip hurried away, glad to escape further questioning.
"Queer sort o' kid, that," mused the shopkeeper. "My, but 'e must ha' bin 'ard up afore 'e took on wiv' a Jew. Wot did 'e s'y 'is nyme was? Isaacstein? I've seen that somewhere or other. Now where was it?"
He knew two hours later, for he, too, read the evening paper.
Philip sprang into a 'bus for the Bank. At the Royal Exchange he would catch a green 'bus for the Mile End Road.
It was almost dark when he reached the Bank. Thus far the omnibuses going east were not crowded. Now the situation had changed.
The human eddy in that throbbing center of life was sending off its swirls to all points of the compass, and the eastbound vehicles were boarded by an eager crowd almost before the passengers arriving at the terminus could descend.
A poor woman, greatly hampered by a baby, was struggling with others to obtain a seat in the Mile End Road 'bus. Philip, coming late on the scene, saw her swept ruthlessly aside by a number of men and boys. The conductor jerked the bell-rope several times. There was no more room.
The woman, white-faced and disappointed, looked around with a woe-begone expression. Philip, who would have gladly paid for a cab to take her to her destination, dared do nothing of the sort. But he said:
"Keep close to me. I will get you a seat in the next 'bus."
"Oh, I wish you would," she said, with a wan smile. "I am so tired. I have walked here from Shepherd's Bush."
"That's a long way to carry a baby."
"What could I do? People won't take care of children without payment. I heard I could get work in a laundry there, so I went to look after it. There's nothing to be had down our way, is there?"
"Things turn up suddenly," said Philip.
"Not for the poor, my lad. I fear you know that without my telling you. But you are young, and will soon be a man."
Her wistful tone went to his heart.
"Didn't you succeed at the laundry?" he inquired.
"Yes; I ought to be thankful. I can earn nine shillings a week there. I start on Monday."
"Isn't your husband at work?"
"He is dead. Poor fellow, he caught cold last Christmas, and was buried in January. God only knows how I have lived since. If it wasn't for the kindness of neighbors, baby and I would have starved. I can ill afford this tuppence, but I can't walk any further."
"Well, look out now," he said, cheerily. "Here's our 'bus."
As the vehicle drew up he caught the brass rail with his left hand, and warded off assailants with the bundle under his right arm.
"Quick," he said to the woman, as soon as the people inside had descended. "Jump in."
She essayed to do so, but was rudely thrust aside by a young man who had paused on the roof to light a cigarette. Philip sprang onto the step and butted the young gentleman in the stomach with his parcel, causing the other to sit down heavily on the stairs. The boy caught the woman's arm with his disengaged hand and pulled her up. He dived in after her.
"You young——" roared the discomfited smoker.
"'Ere! Come orf of it," said the conductor. "Why didn't ye git dahn before? D'ye want a lift?"
Others hustled the protesting one out of the way.
"Confound the East End, I say," he growled, as he crossed to the Mansion House. "What the deuce Lady Louisa Morland wants to keep on sending me to that wretched mews for I can't imagine. Anyway, I can tell her this time that the place is empty, and will be pulled down next week."
And thus it was that Philip collided with Messrs. Sharpe & Smith's clerk, detailed by the anxious Lady Morland to discover his whereabouts. They met and bumped into each other in the whirlpool of London just as two ships might crash together by night in mid-Atlantic, and draw apart with ruffled feelings, or scraped paint, which is the same thing, without the slightest knowledge of each other's identity.
Within the omnibus the woman was volubly grateful. She had a kindly heart, and timidly essayed questions as to Philip's relatives, hoping that she might make their acquaintance.
"I'll be bound, now," she said, "that you have a good mother. You can always tell what the parents are like when you see the children."
"My mother was, indeed, dear to me," he replied sadly, again driven out of himself by the mournful recollections thus suddenly induced, "but she is dead, lost to me forever."
Some people in the 'bus ceased talking. They were attracted by the strong, clear voice of this unkempt boy, whose diction and choice of words were so outrageously opposed to his garments. Luckily, the silence warned him, or his new friend's sympathy might have brought about an embarrassing position.
"Poor thing! And is your father dead, too?"
"Yes. He died long ago."
"Where do you live now?"
"Oh," he said, "I have been staying in North London, but will leave there soon, and I have not settled anything definitely at present. Where is the laundry you spoke of? I will call some day, if I may, and learn how you are getting on."
"I will be so pleased. It is a little place in James Street—the only one there. Ask for Mrs. Wrigley."
"It is lucky you understand laundry work, or things might go hard with you."
She laughed pitifully.
"I don't! They asked me if I was a washer or an ironer. I thought washing required least experience, so I said I was a washer. I am quick to learn, and will watch the other women. If they find me out I may be discharged."
"Oh, cheer up," he said, pleasantly. "I don't suppose you'll find it very hard."
Her voice sank almost to a whisper.
"It is not the work I dread, but the surroundings. I was a school teacher before my marriage. My husband was an electrical engineer. We put all our savings into a little business, and then—the end came."
"Not quite the end. I am only a boy, but I've had ups and downs enough to know that the beginning of next week may be a very different affair to the end of this. Good-by."
They were passing the London Hospital, and he thought it prudent to alight at some distance from Johnson's Mews.
"Well, God bless you, anyhow," she said, earnestly.
"'E's got 'is 'ead screwed on tight, that lad," commented a man sitting next to her.
"Better than that, he has a good heart," said Mrs. Wrigley. Most fortunate Mrs. Wrigley—to have encountered Philip in that hour, which she deemed the blackest in her life.
He hastened through the familiar bustle of the busy thoroughfare with heightened expectancy, it is true, but devoid of the least fear that his meteor had been discovered. His mother would take good care of it. Why, the mere chance remark of the woman he had befriended showed that her gentle spirit watched over him wherever he went. Here was a stranger, a sad toiler among the millions, who went out of her way to praise the goodness of one she had never seen. He laughed joyously. Mrs. Wrigley should have further cause to bless his mother's memory.
He passed O'Brien's shop. He saw the old man seated behind the counter. Should he go in? No. Better keep wholly to himself at present. Yet he hesitated. Which was the more judicious course—to remain hidden, unknown, or to drop quietly into the groove where he was recognized? With rare perspicacity for one so young, he reflected that only five days had elapsed since he last saw the old pensioner. The period bulked largely in Philip's life; in O'Brien's it would be as naught.
Yielding to the second thought, he entered the shop.
"Glory be to God, Phil, but it's miself is glad to see ye," cried his old friend. "Where have ye bin to, at all at all? Have yez heard what the murtherin' War Office is afther doin' to me? I haven't had a sowl to sphake to about the throuble they've put on me in me owld age."
This was not strictly accurate. O'Brien had pestered the whole neighborhood with the story of his withheld pension and the preposterous claim made on him by some red-tape enthusiast in Pall Mall. But his plaint effectually stopped all further reference to Philip's disappearance. As to the "bit o' shtone," that was "naythur alum nor lime," he hadn't a word to say.
Philip borrowed a spade, a small sweeping brush and a strong sack without evoking the slightest comment from the pensioner, who discoursed incessantly on the iniquity of the "Govermint," and whose farewell remark dealt with the attempt to rob him of "a hundred gowlden sov'rins."
Decidedly the boy was in luck's way. He had secured some necessary implements without attracting any attention. Watching a favorable opportunity, he slipped unseen into the gloom of Johnson's Mews. He tried the door of No. 3. It was locked. He inserted the key and entered. The darkness within was that of utter blindness, but he dumped his impedimenta on the floor and locked the door behind him.
Then he groped his doubtful path to the mantelpiece where he had left a candle and a box of matches. His boots crunched, as he went, on what he knew to be mostly diamonds, and he stumbled over the mattress in front of the fireplace. Yes, the candle was there. Soon he had a light. The tiny gleam lifted the black curtain, and he surveyed his domain. A single glance showed him that all things remained exactly as he left them on Saturday morning. The packet of letters rested on the broken chair, the old sack was stuffed into the window, and the rope—that never-to-be-forgotten rope—dangled from the hook to which he had fastened it.
The sight brought a lump into his throat. He sank to his knees, pressed down, he felt, by some superior power.
"Mother!" he said, humbly, "forgive me, and ask God to forgive me, for what I would have done were you not watching over me."
In the spiritual exaltation of the moment he almost expected to find that sweet face peering at him benignantly from out the dim background. But he could not see her, and he rose, revivified by this spoken communion with her. He had no shadow of doubt as to her presence. God to him was the universe, and his mother the unquestionable means of communication with the Providence that governed his life. He would die rather than abandon that belief. Were it dispelled from his mind he was quite certain that his wealth would vanish with it. It was no haphazard accident which had sent the diamond-laden meteor headlong from the sky. He was despairing, dying; his mother appealed for him; and, behold! the very elements that control the world obeyed a mighty behest.
He began to work methodically. In the first place, he lit a fire, for the evening was chilly. Then he shook his mattress and swept the floor, gathering into a heap all the tiny particles with which it was littered. These he collected in a piece of newspaper, and folded them into a parcel, which again he inclosed in a stouter sheet of brown paper, finally tying the whole with a yard of string he carried in his pocket.
There were hundreds of tiny diamonds in that insignificant package, and not a few the size of small peas. As a matter of fact, he discovered subsequently that the net result of his sweeping brought him in over a thousand pounds.
Having examined every nook and crevice of the apartment by the aid of the candle, he satisfied himself that naught remained which would indicate to the most curious eye any event out of the common having occurred in that humble dwelling.
It was typical of Philip's implicit faith that he did not unlock the back door until his interior task was ended. He knew that his meteor was untouched.
There was no wind without. The candle, feeble as its rays were, illuminated the small yard sufficiently to reveal its débris of white stones and darker lumps of metal. Beginning at the doorway, he swept vigorously but with minutest care, until he had formed four good-sized piles on the flagstones.
He could not afford to differentiate between the débris of the damaged pavement and the fragments of the meteor. It was easy to distinguish the larger pieces of broken glass from the window inside the house—in the yard he had neither the time nor the light to select the bits of shattered stone. All must go together, to be sorted with leisured care subsequently.
He scrutinized the external window sills, the door posts, the chinks of the small coal-house door at the further end of the yard, even the rough surfaces of the walls, and removed every speck of loose material. More newspaper was requisitioned, but, after utilizing the twine on his parcel of clothing, he ran short of string.
He coolly went up the stairs, unfastened the rope with which he had intended to hang himself and loosened its stiff strands. Soon he had an abundance of strong cord, and four bulky packages were added to the first small one.
They were heavy, too, weighing several pounds each. In placing them side by side close to the wall beneath the front window, he suddenly realized an unforeseen difficulty.
If these shreds of matter—the mere husk, as it were, of the meteor—were so ponderous, what would be the weight of the meteor itself? How could he hope to lift it from the hole in which it lay—how convey it from Johnson's Mews to a new and safer habitation? He might as well endeavor to move an unwilling elephant.
The thought chilled him. For the first time since his parting interview with Mr. Abingdon, Philip experienced a dread of failure. With something of panic in his blood, he snatched the candle and ran hastily into the yard. He knelt and held the light low in the excavation. Then he cried aloud:
"What! Am I so ready to lose faith in mother?"
For the huge metallic mass—so big that it would not enter the bore of the largest cannon known to modern gunnery—was split asunder in all directions. Its fissures gaped widely as if to mock at him. The rain and steam had done their work well. It was even possible that he would not need the spade, but would be able to pick out each separate chunk with his hand.
Instantly he put the thought into execution, and succeeded in lifting several pieces to the yard level. He noted that they were gorged with the dull white pebbles, some being the size of pigeon's eggs. He could not help comparing them in his mind's eye with the collection now lodged in Isaacstein's safe. If those were worth fifty thousand pounds, these must be of fabulous value.
Any other person in the wide world might have been excused if he pinched himself, or winked furiously, or took out the gold-filled tobacco pouch for careful inspection, to assure himself that he was not dreaming. Not so, Philip. The only dominant feeling in his brain was one of annoyance that he should have doubted, for one single instant, that means would be given him to secure absolute and undisputed control of his treasure.
But there remained the problem of weight. His original idea was to wrap the actual body of the meteor in the stout sack he obtained from O'Brien, and then inclose all his valuables in a tin trunk which he would purchase next morning. Any ordinary trunk would certainly be spacious enough, but its phenomenal weight would unquestionably evoke more comment than he desired, and it would need two strong men to lift it.
This portion of his plan needed to be entirely remodeled, and he was now more than ever thankful that the Jew's fifty pounds, save one expended, reposed in his pocket. With money, all things, or nearly all things, were possible.
Owing to the cramped space in which the meteor lay it was no small task to bring it to the surface in sections. But he persevered. By strenuous endeavor he accumulated an astonishing pile of iron ore studded with diamonds, looking not unlike almonds in a brown cake, and the guttering candle held low down failed to reveal anything else in the hole. There was a good deal of débris at the bottom, and the depth was now over four feet. To reach to its full extent he was compelled to jam his head and shoulders into the excavation and feel blindly with one hand, so he rightly concluded that a final examination might be left until daylight.
By this time he was hot and covered with dirt. He stripped, washed himself in front of the fire, and changed into his new clothes.
He did not possess a looking-glass, but he felt sure that he presented a remarkably different appearance when attired in a neat serge suit, a clean shirt and reputable boots. His first impulse was to thrust his discarded garments into the fire, but sentiment prevailed, and he folded them into a parcel.
Then he extinguished his candle and went out. To his exceeding surprise he discovered that it was nearly nine o'clock—time had indeed flown.
The shops in the Mile End Road open early and close late. He entered a restaurant where he was unknown, passing, as a matter of policy, the coffee stall of his kindly helper of those former days now so remote in his crowded memories. After eating a hearty meal, for which he was thoroughly prepared, he tendered a sovereign in payment.
The proprietor barely glanced at him. Philip was now well dressed, according to local ideas, and his strong, erect figure, his resolute face, added two or three years to his age when contrasted with the puny standard of fifteen as set by the poverty-stricken East End.
He had forgotten to buy a necktie and a new pair of stockings. These omissions he now rectified, and he also purchased a warm, dark-gray traveling rug, several yards of drugget, a ball of twine and a pair of scissors. A couple of stout but worn leather portmanteaux caught his eye.
"Those are cheap," said the salesman, quickly, "only fifteen shillings each."
"I'm not sure I can afford so much," said Philip, hesitatingly, for the rug alone cost one pound six shillings.
"They're a rare bargain—real leather—they were never made under three pounds each."
"Oh, very well. I will take them."
He produced three pounds, got his change, and walked away with his goods without causing any wonderment. The shopman was only too glad to have such a customer at that late hour.
Philip now knew that he was fairly safe, but he decided that a billy-cock hat gave him a more mature appearance than a cap. This alteration being effected, he hurried off to Johnson's Mews and re-entered his domicile without incident worthy of note.
Very quickly, with the help of drugget, scissors and twine, the two small portmanteaux were packed with pieces of the meteor, and the paper-covered parcels already prepared. When each bag weighed about forty pounds he stuffed the remaining space with rolled-up newspapers, closed and locked them. He estimated that three larger leather bags—these being less noisy than tin—would hold the remainder of the meteor.
As the next morning would find him occupation enough, he decided to do as much as possible that night. Three times he sallied forth and returned with a good-sized valise. He paid prices varying from two pounds ten shillings to three pounds fifteen shillings, and always bought secondhand goods.
He had locked and strapped the fourth of his goodly array of traveling bags when he fancied he heard a footstep in the mews. Such an occurrence would have troubled him not a jot a week ago. To-night it was extremely disconcerting.
Notwithstanding the weight of the packed portmanteaux, especially the larger one, he lifted each bodily in his arms and ran with it into the tiny scullery. On the front window there was no blind, only a small, much-worn curtain covering the lower panes, and he did not want any stray loafer to gaze in at him and discover a large quantity of luggage in such a disreputable hovel.
When the fourth bag was disposed of in the dark recess of the scullery he paused for an instant to listen. There was not a sound. Through the window he could dimly discern the roof of the deserted stables opposite.
He bent again to the task of packing the fifth portmanteau, and was placing in it the last parcel of ore and diamonds when some of the heavy contents fell through one end where the drugget wrapping had been hastily folded.
Shaking the package on the floor as a grocer beats down the contents of a sugar bag, he picked up the fallen specimens and put them in, one by one. A large lump of ore had fallen apart when it dropped. Inside there was a huge kernel, a rough diamond quite as large as a hen's egg.
Philip smiled as he recalled his boast to Isaacstein. He examined the stone critically, and realized that if it were flawless it must be one of the marvels of creation. Without experiencing any positive motive he slipped this unique specimen into his pocket, and went on with the reconstruction of the damaged parcel.
At last he finished. The portmanteau was lying open on the floor, when the thought occurred to him that he might have avoided the flurry and trouble of carrying these heavy articles into the scullery if he had nailed a couple of yards of his drugget across the window.
It was not too late even now to rectify this defect. He glanced at the window to ascertain how much material he should cut off, and saw a face—an evil, brutal, suspicious face—peering at him over the top of the curtain.
It would be idle to deny that Philip was startled by the sight. No braver or more resolute boy breathed; but the silence, the mystery—the gloomy aloofness of Johnson's Mews—lent a sinister aspect to an apparition formidable enough under any circumstances, but absolutely threatening and full of danger to one situated as he at that moment.
He never remembered seeing the man before. Not that this repellent physiognomy was of a type to be soon forgotten. A bullet head with prominent, blood-shot eyes, a strong, cruel mouth, a huge nose badly broken—a certain strength of character in features debased by drink and criminality—these were the tokens writ legibly on the countenance glaring intently at the boy from without.
The two gazed at each other for an appreciable time. The man's face wandered from Philip's face to his costume, and then rested on the open portmanteau at the boy's feet. There was in his expression an air of astonishment—a certain gloating bewilderment—as of one who had stumbled unawares upon some object of such potential value that the finder could hardly believe it to be true. He was thinking, wondering, debating with himself. The goggle eyes seemed to see more than the brain was inclined to credit.
Philip, despite his alarm, felt that the right course was to resent this impertinent prying into his affairs.
"Hello, you!" he shouted. "What do you want?"
The man grinned. He seemed to be about to answer when he suddenly turned his head and looked down the yard toward the entry.
Instantly he swung round and vanished noiselessly, with the silent alertness of a cat, for the boy heard no sound. He simply disappeared in the darkness, and Philip, who knew every inch of the ground, realized that his most unpleasant-visaged spy had not only dived into the further obscurity of the mews—which formed acul-de-sac—but also was either in his stocking feet or wore something over his boots to deaden any possible clatter on the paving stones.
Here was a nice thing—his habitat discovered by some tramp or criminal skulking in the untenanted building marked out for the housebreakers within a few days. It was too bad. He was sorely annoyed that he had not thought sooner of the potentialities of the window when the interior of the house was illumined by a candle and a ruddy fire. How long had the man stood there watching him? He had certainly seen some portion of the contents of the last portmanteau. Had he also witnessed the removal of the others to the pantry?
Philip's experience as a newspaper vender told him that all London was now familiar with his own personal appearance, as well as with the semblance and value of his meteoric diamonds. The white stones, the clumps of iron ore, had been described minutely by clever journalists, who supplemented Isaacstein's clear statement by facts gleaned from encyclopediæ and interviews with geologists.
Most probably this man had read long articles about him, for the story was such as to bring watery curses to the lips of every penniless vagrant in the kingdom. Indeed, the careful scrutiny bestowed on his face and clothes bore out this suspicion. Had he not changed his garments the stranger would have known his identity beyond all question. As it was, the man was puzzled, and disturbed at the very moment he was about to say something. What had happened to cause him to run away? What had he seen or heard? Above all, how much did he know of Philip and his affairs?
Well, the door was locked, and it would be folly to go out again that night. The house was absolutely unapproachable save by the front. Philip resolved to remain awake until daybreak. O'Brien's spade stood against the fireplace. It was a formidable weapon, and he would not hesitate to use it if forcible entry was attempted. He must sit quietly in the dark, listening for each sound, and threatening boldly when he heard anyone endeavoring to open door or window.
He sighed, for he was very tired, but the vigil was imperative.
He dropped the drugget and scissors and bent again over the portmanteau. The packing operations might as well be finished now, and, indeed, when the light was extinguished, it would be better to keep away from the window, through which a sudden thrust with an implement might do him an injury.
He took his discarded clothes and arranged them on top of the last parcels of ore and diamonds. Then he reached out for the small bundle of documents resting on the chair behind him, intending to place them in a little pocket in the flap which already covered one-half of the bag.
At that instant he again heard footsteps. Of course, a very few seconds had elapsed since he first caught sight of the living specter without. The ideas recorded at such length whirled through his active brain with lightning speed, just as the knowledge now came that the footsteps proceeded from the entrance to the mews and not from its extremity, while their firm regularity betokened the advent of some person who had no special reason to conceal his movements.
The boy listened breathlessly. The oncomer reached his door, passed it, stopped opposite the window, and then another face peered over the curtain.
This time it was a policeman.
For an instant their eyes met in mutual astonishment. Then the policeman came so close that his helmet rested against a pane of glass. He grinned affably, and cried:
"Here! I want to speak to you."
Intuitively grasping the essential fact that his best policy was one of ready acquiescence, Philip sprang toward the door and unlocked it. He stood on the step. The constable approached.
"I hope I didn't startle you," he began, "but I just looked in on the off chance——"
"I am very glad indeed, to see you," interrupted the boy. "I am leaving here to-morrow. Just now, while I was packing some of my belongings, a very nasty-looking man came and peeped in at me in the same way as you did."
He backed into the house. The policeman half followed him, his quick glance noting the open portmanteau and its array of old clothes.
"Just now?" he questioned. "Do you mean some time since?"
"No, no. Not half a minute—a few seconds ago."
"But where can he be? He hasn't left the mews, or I must have seen him. I crossed the road, and no one came out in so short a time."
"Well, he is somewhere in the place—he had a horrid appearance—a man with a broken nose. He made me jump, I can assure you."
"A man with a broken nose! By Jove, I'm looking for a party of that description. A rank wrong 'un. Robbery with violence and a few other little things. What sort of man was he? You saw his face only, I suppose?"
The constable stepped back into the paved court. A rapid twist of his hand sent a vivid beam of light dancing over ruined tenements, disheveled doorways and shattered windows.
"A tall man," said Philip, "taller than you, for I could see his chin over the string of the curtain. He had a big face, with eyes that stuck out boldly——"
"By the Lord, it's Jocky right enough!" cried the constable. "Now, where can he have got to? He's an ugly customer to tackle single-handed," he added, beneath his breath.
"Won't you wait a bit, until I get some help?" said Philip, anxiously.
The man appeared to debate the point. The nearest comrade was an acting sergeant, newly promoted. If he were summoned, the kudos of a smart capture would be his by right of seniority.
"No," announced the constable, stubbornly. "If he is here, I will handle him myself."
Again his lamp swept the small area of the mews and revealed no living object. He quickly unfastened his belt, took off his greatcoat, and readjusted belt and lamp again.
"Now I'm ready for him," he grinned. "Put my coat inside, boy, and stand at the door yourself with the candle in your hand. If you see anything, yell out to me."
Philip obeyed. These preparations for a deadly struggle appealed to his very soul, for your healthy-minded boy of fifteen has generally ceased to be a highwayman or a pirate in imagination, and aims rather at planting the Union Jack on a glacis bristling with hostile cannon.
The policeman, feeling for the loose strap of his truncheon, commenced a careful survey of the mews. He had not gone five yards when there was a loud crash of broken glass. The building at the other end of the yard possessed a couple of windows facing into another inclosure at the back. Obviously, the broken-nosed "Jocky," unseen himself, had observed the constable's movements.
Realizing that discovery was imminent, he was effecting a strategic movement to the rear.
The policeman instantly abandoned his cautious tactics. He ran toward the door of the house whence the sound came. It resisted somewhat, but yielded to his shoulder. He disappeared inside. Philip, after closing his own door, also ran to the new center of interest, shielding the candle with one hand lest it should blow out.
Quick as he was, he missed the first phase of a Homeric combat. The violent "Jocky," foiled by an unnoticed iron bar in his attempt to escape, turned like a madman on the policeman. There was no sort of parley between them. Cursing the luck that had revealed his hiding place, the man, an ex-convict, with the frame of a giant, sprang at his pursuer suddenly from an inner room.
The policeman had a second's warning. It was something, but not enough to give him an advantage. He got his truncheon out, but simultaneously his assailant was on him with the ferocity of a catamount. They closed in bone-breaking endeavor, and before they were locked together for ten fearful seconds the officer of the law bitterly regretted the professional pride which sent him single-handed into this unequal strife.
For he was physically outclassed, and he knew it, and there is no more unnerving knowledge can come to a man in such a supreme moment. Nevertheless, he was a brave man, and he fought with all the resolution that is born of the consciousness of justice and moral right. But Providence is on the side of big battalions, and "Jocky" was taller, heavier, very much more active. Moreover, liberty is as potent an incentive as law any day, and law was being steadily throttled when the pale gleam of Philip's candle lit up the confines of the ruinous hovel about which the two men stamped and lurched and wrestled.
At the precise moment of the boy's entrance the policeman's knees yielded and he fell, with his remorseless antagonist uppermost. Philip, gazing at them wide-eyed, almost fell too, for his left foot rolled on the constable's staff.
Being fashioned of the stuff which founds empires—on the principle that instant action is worth a century of diplomacy—he picked up the truncheon and brought it down on "Jocky's" hard skull with such emphasis that the convict emitted a queer sort of cough, and collapsed limply on top of his conquered adversary.
Then the boy was horrified. The two lay so still that he imagined both were dead. It is one thing to help the law, but quite another to kill a man. He did not want to be a murderer as well as a millionaire, not knowing then the qualities which go to form these varieties of thegenus homoare strangely alike.
He gazed at them as in a trance, but relief came when he heard them breathing stertorously. At last, after a pause that apparently endured unnumbered minutes, the constable weakly rolled himself free from the bulky form of his would-be slayer, and sat up.
He inflated his lungs vigorously. Then he managed to gasp:
"Thank you! You've saved my life!"
He pressed his ribs with both hands and gingerly felt his throat. He stood up. His lamp was still alight, but a quantity of oil had run over his tunic and trousers.
"By Jove, boy, you are a brick," he said, and his voice was under control again.
Philip answered not a word; his eyes were glued on the prostrate form of Jocky. The policeman understood his fear, and laughed.
"Don't you worry about him. He'll do a stretch all right. I would have given him a harder one than that if I got a swing at him."
His words were quickly justified. The fallen man yowled unintelligibly and moved. With a rapidity born of much practice the officer handcuffed him. There must have been some sense of familiarity in the touch of the steel bracelets, for the recipient of this delicate attention stirred uneasily.
"You knocked him silly," grinned the policeman, "but he will get his wits back in a minute or two. Can you bring him a drink of water? It won't do me any harm, either."
Philip hurried away to comply with this request. His mind was relieved now, and with the backward swing of the mental pendulum came the reflection that the least said of his connection with the case the better.
He filled a small tin at the scullery tap and ran with it to the scene of the capture. The constable was gently shaking his prize and addressing him by name.
"Jocky! Jocky Mason! Pull yourself together. This way for the Old Bailey!"
"If you please," said Philip, "I would be very greatly obliged were my name not mentioned at all with reference to this affair."
The policeman, whose senses were normal again, was instantly impressed by the boy's grand manner. His accent was that of the men of the University Mission. And how many boys of his age would have struck so straight and truly at a critical moment?
"Well, don't you see, that will be rather difficult," was the answer. "It was you who told me where he was, and the man himself knows that without somebody's help I could not have arrested him. There is no need to mince matters. I have you to thank for not being laid here stiff."
Philip said no more. To press his request implied a powerful motive. The stars in their courses must have conspired that day to supply him with excitement.
Mason eagerly gulped the water held to his lips. Then he tried to raise his right hand to his head. Ah! He understood. A flood of oaths began to meander thickly from his mouth.
"That's better," said the constable, encouragingly. "Now, up you get! It's no use, Jocky. I won't let you kick me. You must either go quietly or I will drag you to the street over the stones, and that will hurt."
The man glared dully at his captor. With the apathy of his class he knew when he was beaten, and became submissive in demeanor. Philip, holding his candle aloft, marveled at his own temerity in hitting this giant, oxlike in size and strength.
Mason wobbled his head and craned his neck awkwardly.
"Oo gev me that crack on the nut?" he asked.
"The roof dropped," was the jocular reply.