“Leamy’s my name, sor — Michael Leamy.”
“Lately from Ireland?”
“Over from Dublin this last blessed Wednesday, and a crooil bad poundherin’ tit was in the boat, too — shpakin’av that same.”
“Looking for work?”
“That is my purshuit at prisint, sor.”
“Did anything noticeable happen before these troubles of yours began — anything here in London or on the journey?”
“Sure,” the Irishman smiled, “part av the way I thraveled first-class by favor av the gyard, an’ I got a small job before I lift the train.”
“How was that? Why did you travel first-class part of the way?”
“There was a station fwhere we shtopped afther a long run, an’ I got down to take the cramp out av me joints, an’ take a taste av dhrink. I over-shtayed somehow, an’, whin I got to the train, begob, it was on the move. There was a first-class carr’ge door opin right forninst me, an’ into that the gyard crams me holus-bolus. There was a juce of a foine jintleman sittin’ there, an’ he stares at me umbrageous, but I was not dishcommoded, bein’ onbashful by natur’. We thravelled along a heap av miles more, till we came near London. Afther we had shtopped at a station where they tuk tickets we wint ahead again, an’ prisintly, as we rips through some udther station, up jumps the jintleman opposite, swearin’ hard undher his tongue, an’ looks out at the windy. ‘I thought this train shtopped here,’ sez he.”
“Chalk Farm,” observed Hewitt, with a nod.
“The name I do not know, sor, but that’s fwhat he said. Then he looks at me onaisy for a little, an’ at last he sez: ‘Wud ye loike a small job, me good man, well paid?’
“‘Faith,’ sez I, ‘’tis that will suit me well.’
“‘Then, see here,’ sez he, ‘I should have got out at that station, havin’ particular business; havin’ missed, I must sen’ a telegrammer from Euston. Now, here’s a bag,’ sez he, ‘a bag full of imporrtant papers for my solicitor — imporrtant to me, ye ondershtand, not worth the shine av a brass farden to a sowl else — an’ I want ‘em tuk on to him. Take you this bag,’ he sez, ‘an’ go you straight out wid it at Euston an’ get a cab. I shall stay in the station a bit to see to the telegrammer. Dhrive out av the station, across the road outside, an’ wait there five minuts by the clock. Ye ondershtand? Wait five minuts, an, maybe I’ll come an’ join ye. If I don’t ‘twill be bekase I’m detained onexpected, an’ then ye’ll dhrive to my solicitor straight. Here’s his address, if ye can read writin’,’ an’ he put ut on a piece av paper. He gave me half-a-crown for the cab, an’ I tuk his bag.”
“One moment — have you the paper with the address now?”
“I have not, sor. I missed ut afther the blayguards overset me yesterday; but the solicitor’s name was Hollams, an’ a liberal jintleman wid his money he was, too, by that same token.”
“What was his address?”
“’Twas in Chelsea, and ’twas Gold or Golden something, which I know by the good token av fwhat he gave me; but the number I misremember.”
Hewitt turned to his directory. “Gold Street is the place, probably,” he said, “and it seems to be a street chiefly of private houses. You would be able to point out the house if you were taken there, I suppose?”
“I should that, sor; indade, I was thinkin’ av goin’ there an’ tellin’ Misther Hollams all my throubles, him havin’ been so kind.”
“Now tell me exactly what instructions the man in the train gave you, and what happened?”
“He sez: ‘You ask for Misther Hollams, an’ see nobody else. Tell him ye’ve brought the sparks from Misther W.’”
I fancied I could see a sudden twinkle in Hewitt’s eye, but he made no other sign, and the Irishman proceeded.
“‘Sparks?’ sez I. ‘Yes, sparks,’ sez he. ‘Misther Hollams will know; ’tis our jokin’ word for ‘em; sometimes papers is sparks when they set a lawsuit ablaze,’ and he laffed. ‘But be sure ye say the sparks from Misther W.,’ he sez again, ‘bekase then he’ll know ye’re jinuine an’ he’ll pay ye han’some. Say Misther W. sez you’re to have your reg’lars, if ye like. D’ye mind that?’
“‘Ay,’ sez I, ‘that I’m to have my reg’lars.’
“Well, sor, I tuk the bag and wint out of the station, tuk the cab, an’ did all as he towld me. I waited the foive minuts, but he niver came, so off I druv to Misther Hollams, and he threated me han’some, sor.”
“Yes, but tell me exactly all he did.”
“‘Misther Hollams, sor?’ sez I. ‘Who are ye?’ sez he. ‘Mick Leamy, sor,’ sez I, ‘from Misther W. wid the sparks.’ ‘Oh,’ sez he, ‘thin come in.’ I wint in. ‘They’re in here, are they?’ sez he, takin’ the bag. ‘They are, sor,’ sez I, ‘an’ Misther W. sez I’m to have me reg’lars.’ ‘You shall,’ sez he. ‘What shall we say, now — afinnip?’ ‘Fwhat’s that, sor?’ sez I. ‘Oh,’ sez he, ‘I s’pose ye’re a new hand; five quid — ondershtand that?’”
“Begob, I did ondershtand it, an’ moighty plazed I was to have come to a place where they pay five-pun’ notes for carryin’ bags. So whin he asked me was I new to London an’ shud I kape in the same line av business, I towld him I shud for certin, or any thin’ else payin’ like it. ‘Right,’ sez he; ‘let me know whin ye’ve got any thin’ — ye’ll find me all right.’ An’ he winked frindly. ‘Faith, that I know I shall, sor,’ sez I, wid the money safe in me pockut; an’ I winked him back, conjanial. ‘I’ve a smart family about me,’ sez he, ‘an’ I treat ‘em all fair an’ liberal.’ An’, saints, I thought it likely his family ‘ud have all they wanted, seein’ he was so free-handed wid a stranger. Thin he asked me where I was a livin’ in London, and, when I towld him nowhere, he towld me av a room in Musson Street, here by Drury Lane, that was to let, in a house his fam’ly knew very well, an’ I wint straight there an’ tuk ut, an’ there I do be stayin’ still, sor.”
I hadn’t understood at first why Hewitt took so much interest in the Irishman’s narrative, but the latter part of it opened my eyes a little. It seemed likely that Leamy had, in his innocence, been made a conveyer of stolen property. I knew enough of thieves’ slang to know that “sparks” meant diamonds or other jewels; that “regulars” was the term used for a payment made to a brother thief who gave assistance in some small way, such as carrying the booty; and that the “family” was the time-honored expression for a gang of thieves.
“This was all on Wednesday, I understand,” said Hewitt. “Now tell me what happened on Thursday — the poisoning, or drugging, you know?”
“Well, sor, I was walking out, an’ toward the evenin’ I lost mesilf. Up comes a man, seemin’ly a sthranger, and shmacks me on the showldher. ‘Why, Mick!’ sez he; ‘it’s Mick Leamy, I du b’lieve!’
“‘I am that,’ sez I, ‘but you I do not know.’
“‘Not know me?’ sez he. ‘Why, I wint to school wid ye.’ An’ wid that he hauls me off to a bar, blarneyin’ and minowdherin’, an’ orders dhrinks.
“Can ye rache me a poipe-loight?’ sez he, an’ I turned to get ut, but, lookin’ back suddent, there was that onblushin’ thief av the warl’ tippin’ a paperful of phowder stuff into me glass.”
“What did you do?” Hewitt asked.
“I knocked the dhirty face av him, sor, an’ can ye blame me? A mane scutt, thryin’ for to poison a well-manin’ sthranger. I knocked the face av him, an’ got away home.”
“Now the next misfortune?”
“Faith, that was av a sort likely to turn out the last of all misfortunes. I wint that day to the Crystial Palace, bein’ dishposed for a little sphort, seein’ as I was new to London. Comin’ home at night, there was a juce av a crowd on the station platform, consekins of a late thrain. Sthandin’ by the edge av the platform at the fore end, just as thrain came in, some onvisible murdherer gives me a stupenjus drive in the back, and over I wint on the line, mid-betwixt the rails. The engine came up an’ wint half over me widout givin’ me a scratch
, bekase av my centraleous situation, an’ then the porther-men pulled me out, nigh sick wid fright, sor, as ye may guess. A jintleman in the crowd sings out: ‘I’m a medical man!’ an’ they tuk me in the waitin’-room, an’ he investigated me, havin’ turned everybody else out av the room. There wuz no bones bruk, glory be! and the docthor-man he was tellin’ me so, after feelin’ me over, whin I felt his hand in me waistcoat pockut.
“‘An’ fwhat’s this, sor?’ sez I. ‘Do you be lookin’ for your fee that thief’s way?’
“He laffed, and said: ‘I want no fee from ye, me man, an’ I did but feel your ribs,’ though on me conscience he had done that undher me waistcoat already. An’ so I came home.”
“What did they do to you on Saturday?”
“Saturday, sor, they gave me a whole holiday, and I began to think less of things; but on Saturday night, in a dark place, two blayguards tuk me throat from behind, nigh choked me, flung me down, an’ wint through all me pockuts in about a quarter av a minut.”
“And they took nothing, you say?”
“Nothing, sor. But this mornin’ I got my worst dose. I was trapesing along distreshful an’ moighty sore, in a street just away off the Strand here, when I obsarved the docthor-man that was at the Crystial Palace station a-smilin’ an’ beckonin’ at me from a door.
“‘How are ye now?’ sez he. ‘Well,’ sez I, ‘I’m moighty sore an’ sad bruised,’ sez I. ‘Is that so?’ sez he. ‘Sthep in here.’ So I sthepped in, an’ before I could wink there dhropped a crack on the back av me head that sent me off as unknowledgable as a corrpse. I knew no more for a while, sor, whether half an hour or an hour, an’ thin I got up in a room av the place, marked ‘To Let.’ ’Twas a house full av offices, by the same token, like this. There was a sore bad lump on me head — see ut, sor? — an’ the whole warl’ was shpinnin’ roun’ rampageous. The things out av me pockuts were lyin’ on the flure by me — all barrin’ the key av me room. So that the demons had been through me posseshins again, bad luck to ‘em.”
“You are quite sure, are you, that everything was there except the key?” Hewitt asked.
“Certin, sor? Well, I got along to me room, sick an’ sorry enough, an’ doubtsome whether I might get in wid no key. But there was the key in the open door, an’, by this an’ that, all the shtuff in the room — chair, table, bed, an’ all — was shtandin’ on their heads twisty-ways, an’ the bedclothes an’ every thin’ else; such a disgraceful stramash av conglomerated thruck as ye niver dhreamt av. The chist av drawers was lyin’ on uts face, wid all the dhrawers out an’ emptied on the flure. ’Twas as though an arrmy had been lootin’, sor!”
“But still nothing was gone?”
“Nothin’, so far as I investigated, sor. But I didn’t shtay. I came out to spake to the polis, an’ two av them laffed at me — wan afther another!”
“It has certainly been no laughing matter for you. Now, tell me — have you anything in your possession — documents, or valuables, or anything — that any other person, to your knowledge, is anxious to get hold of!”
“I have not, sor — divil a document! As to valuables, thim an’ me is the cowldest av sthrangers.”
“Just call to mind, now, the face of the man who tried to put powder in your drink, and that of the doctor who attended to you in the railway station. Were they at all alike, or was either like anybody you have seen before?”
Leamy puckered his forehead and thought.
“Faith,” he said presently, “they were a bit alike, though one had a beard an’ the udther whiskers only.”
“Neither happened to look like Mr. Hollams, for instance?”
Leamy started. “Begob, but they did! They’d ha’ been mortal like him if they’d been shaved.” Then, after a pause, he suddenly added: “Holy saints! is ut the fam’ly he talked av?”
Hewitt laughed. “Perhaps it is,” he said. “Now, as to the man who sent you with the bag. Was it an old bag?”
“Bran’ cracklin’ new — a brown leather bag.”
“Locked?”
“That I niver thried, sor. It was not my consarn.”
“True. Now, as to this Mr. W. himself.” Hewitt had been rummaging for some few minutes in a portfolio, and finally produced a photograph, and held it before the Irishman’s eye. “Is that like him?” he asked.
“Shure it’s the man himself! Is he a friend av yours, sor?”
“No, he’s not exactly a friend of mine,” Hewitt answered, with a grim chuckle. “I fancy he’s one of that very respectable family you heard about at Mr. Hollams’. Come along with me now to Chelsea, and see if you can point out that house in Gold Street. I’ll send for a cab.”
He made for the outer office, and I went with him.
“What is all this, Hewitt?” I asked. “A gang of thieves with stolen property?”
Hewitt looked in my face and replied: “It’s the Quinton ruby!”
“What! The ruby? Shall you take the case up, then?”
“I shall. It is no longer a speculation.”
“Then do you expect to find it at Hollams’ house in Chelsea?” I asked.
“No, I don’t, because it isn’t there — else why are they trying to get it from this unlucky Irishman? There has been bad faith in Hollams’ gang, I expect, and Hollams has missed the ruby and suspects Leamy of having taken it from the bag.”
“Then who is this Mr. W. whose portrait you have in your possession?”
“See here!” Hewitt turned over a small pile of recent newspapers and selected one, pointing at a particular paragraph. “I kept that in my mind, because to me it seemed to be the most likely arrest of the lot,” he said.
It was an evening paper of the previous Thursday, and the paragraph was a very short one, thus:
“The man Wilks, who was arrested at Euston Station yesterday, in connection with the robbery of Lady Quinton’s jewels, has been released, nothing being found to incriminate him.”
“How does that strike you?” asked Hewitt. “Wilks is a man well known to the police — one of the most accomplished burglars in this country, in fact. I have had no dealings with him as yet, but I found means, some time ago, to add his portrait to my little collection, in case I might want it, and to-day it has been quite useful.”
The thing was plain now. Wilks must have been bringing his booty to town, and calculated on getting out at Chalk Farm and thus eluding the watch which he doubtless felt pretty sure would be kept (by telegraphic instruction) at Euston for suspicious characters arriving from the direction of Radcot. His transaction with Leamy was his only possible expedient to save himself from being hopelessly taken with the swag in his possession. The paragraph told me why Leamy had waited in vain for “Mr. W.” in the cab.
“What shall you do now?” I asked.
“I shall go to the Gold Street house and find out what I can as soon as this cab turns up.”
There seemed a possibility of some excitement in the adventure, so I asked: “Will you want any help?”
Hewitt smiled. “I think I can get through it alone,” he said.
“Then may I come to look on?” I said. “Of course I don’t want to be in your way, and the result of the business, whatever it is, will be to your credit alone. But I am curious.”
“Come, then, by all means. The cab will be a four-wheeler, and there will be plenty of room.”
Gold Street was a short street of private houses of very fair size and of a half-vanished pretension to gentility. We drove slowly through, and Leamy had no difficulty in pointing out the house wherein he had been paid five pounds for carrying a bag. At the end the cab turned the corner and stopped, while Hewitt wrote a short note to an official of Scotland Yard.
“Take this note,” he instructed Leamy, “to Scotland Yard in the cab, and then go home. I will pay the cabman now.”
“I will, sor. An’ will I be protected?”
“Oh, yes! Stay at home for the rest of the day, and I expect you’ll be left alone in future.
Perhaps I shall have something to tell you in a day or two; if I do, I’ll send. Good-by.”
The cab rolled off, and Hewitt and I strolled back along Gold Street. “I think,” Hewitt said, “we will drop in on Mr. Hollams for a few minutes while we can. In a few hours I expect the police will have him, and his house, too, if they attend promptly to my note.”
“Have you ever seen him?”
“Not to my knowledge, though I may know him by some other name. Wilks I know by sight, though he doesn’t know me.”
“What shall we say?”
“That will depend on circumstances. I may not get my cue till the door opens, or even till later. At worst, I can easily apply for a reference as to Leamy, who, you remember, is looking for work.”
But we were destined not to make Mr. Hollams’ acquaintance, after all. As we approached the house a great uproar was heard from the lower part giving on to the area, and suddenly a man, hatless, and with a sleeve of his coat nearly torn away burst through the door and up the area steps, pursued by two others. I had barely time to observe that one of the pursuers carried a revolver, and that both hesitated and retired on seeing that several people were about the street, when Hewitt, gripping my arm and exclaiming: “That’s our man!” started at a run after the fugitive.
We turned the next corner and saw the man thirty yards before us, walking, and pulling up his sleeve at the shoulder, so as to conceal the rent. Plainly he felt safe from further molestation.
“That’s Sim Wilks,” Hewitt explained, as we followed, “the ‘juce of a foine jintleman’ who got Leamy to carry his bag, and the man who knows where the Quinton ruby is, unless I am more than usually mistaken. Don’t stare after him, in case he looks round. Presently, when we get into the busier streets, I shall have a little chat with him.”
But for some time the man kept to the back streets. In time, however, he emerged into the Buckingham Palace Road, and we saw him stop and look at a hat-shop. But after a general look over the window and a glance in at the door he went on.
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 12