He offered his hand with a stealthy gesture, rather as though he were trying to pick my grandfather’s waistcoat pocket; so that the old man stared at the hand for a moment, as if to see what he would be at, before he shook it.
“Down in the world again, Cap’en Nat,” said Viney, with a shrug.
“Ay, I heard,” answered Captain Nat. “I’m very sorry; but there — perhaps you’ll be up again soon...”
* * * * *
“I come to ask you about something,” Viney proceeded, as they walked away toward the bar-parlour door. “Something you’ll tell me, bein’ an old shipmate, if you can find out, I’m sure. Can we go into your place? No, there’s a woman there.”
“Only one as does washin’ up an’ such. I’ll send her upstairs if you like.”
“No, out here’s best; we’ll walk up and down; people get hangin’ round doors an’ keyholes in a place like that. Here we can see who’s near us.”
“What, secrets?”
“Ay.” Viney gave an ugly twist to his grin. “I know some o’ yours — one big ‘un at any rate, Cap’en Nat, don’t I? So I can afford to let you into a little ‘un o’ mine, seein’ I can’t help it. Now I’d like to know if you’ve seen anything of Marr.”
“No, — haven’t seen him for months. Bolted, they tell me, an’ — well you know better’n me, I expect.”
“I don’t know,” Viney replied with emphasis. “I ought to know, but I don’t. See here now. Less than a week ago he cleared out, an’ then I filed my petition. He might ha’ gone anywhere — bolted. Might be abroad, as would seem most likely. In plain fact he was only coming down in these parts to lie low. See? Round about here a man can lie low an’ snug, an’ safer than abroad, if he likes. And he had money with him — all we could get together. See?” And Viney frowned and winked, and glanced stealthily over his shoulder.
“Ah,” remarked Captain Nat, drily. “I see. An’ the creditors—”
“Damn the creditors! See here, Cap’en Nat Kemp. Remember a man called Dan Webb?”
Captain Nat paled a little, and tightened his lips.
“Remember a man called Dan Webb?” Viney repeated, stopping in his walk and facing the other with the uneasy grin unchanged. “A man called Dan Webb, aboard o’ the Florence along o’ you an’ me? ‘Cause I do, anyhow. That’s on’y my little hint — we’re good friends altogether, o’ course, Cap’en Nat; but you know what it means. Well, Marr had money with him, as I said. He was to come to a quiet anchorage hereabout, got up like a seaman, an’ let me know at once.”
Captain Nat, his mouth still set tight, nodded, with a grunt.
“Well, he didn’t let me know. I heard nothing at all from him, an’ it struck me rather of a heap to think that p’raps he’d put the double on me, an’ cleared out in good earnest. But yesterday I got news. A blind fiddler chap gave me some sort o’ news.”
Captain Nat remembered the meeting at the street corner in the evening after the funeral. “Blind George?” he queried.
“Yes, that was all the name he gave me; a regular thick ‘un, that blind chap, an’ a flow o’ language as would curl the sheathing off a ship’s bottom. He came the evening before, it seems, but found the place shut up — servant gal took her hook. Well now, he’d done all but see Marr down here at the Blue Gate — he’d seen him as clear as a blind man could, he said, with his ears: an’ he came to me to give me the tip an’ earn anything I’d give him for it. It amounted to this. It was plain enough Marr had come along here all right, an’ pitched on some sort o’ quarters; but it was clear he wasn’t fit to be trusted alone in such a place at all. For the blind chap found him drunk, an’ in tow with as precious a pair o’ bully-boys as Blue Gate could show — drunk an’ gabbling, drunk an’ talkin’ business — my business — an’ lettin’ out all there was to let — this an’ that an’ t’other an’ Lord knows what! It was only because of his drunken jabber that the blind man found out who he was.”
“And this was the day before yesterday?” asked Captain Nat.
“Yes.”
Captain Nat shook his head. “If he was like that the day before yesterday,” he said, “in tow with such chaps as you say, — well, whatever he had on him ain’t on him now. An’ it ‘ud puzzle a cleverer man than me to find it. You may lay to that.”
Viney swore, and stamped a foot, and swore again. “But see,” he said, “ain’t there a chance? It was in notes, all of it. Them chaps’ll be afraid to pass notes. Couldn’t most of it be got back on an arrangement to cash the rest? You can find ‘em if you try, with all your chances. Come — I’ll play fair for what I get, to you an’ all.”
“See how you’ve left it,” remarked Captain Nat; and Viney swore again. “This was all done the day before yesterday. Well, you don’t hear of it yourself till yesterday, an’ now you don’t come to me till to-day.”
Viney swore once more, and grinned twice as wide in his rage. “Yes,” he said, “that was Blind George’s doing. I sent him back to see what he could do, an’ ain’t seen him since. Like as not he’s standing in with the others.”
“Ay, that’s likely,” the old man answered, “very likely. Blind George is as tough a lot as any in Blue Gate, for all he’s blind. You’d never ha’ heard of it at all if they’d ha’ greased him a bit at first. I expect they shut him out, to keep the plant to themselves; an’ so he came to you for anything he could pick up. An’ now—”
Viney cursed them all, and Blind George and himself together; but most he cursed Marr; and so talking, the two men walked to and fro in the passage.
* * * * *
I could see that Viney was angry, and growing angrier still. But I gave all my attention to the work at the fouled hawser. The man in the boat, working patiently with a boat-hook, succeeded suddenly and without warning, so that he almost pitched headlong into the river. The rope came up from its entanglement with a spring and a splash, flinging some amazing great object up with it, half out of water; and the men gave a cry as this thing lapsed heavily to the surface.
The man in the boat snatched his hook again and reached for the thing as it floated. Somebody threw him a length of line, and with this he made it fast to his boat, and began pulling toward the stairs, towing it. I was puzzled to guess what the object might be. It was no part of the lighter’s rudder, for it lay in, rather than on, the water, and it rolled and wallowed, and seemed to tug heavily, so that the boatman had to pull his best. I wondered if he had caught some curious water-creature — a porpoise perhaps, or a seal, such as had been flung ashore in a winter storm at Blackwall a year before.
Viney and Grandfather Nat had turned their steps toward the stairs, and as they neared, my grandfather, lifting his eyes, saw the boatman and his prize, and saw the watermen leaving their boats for the foreshore. With a quick word to Viney he hastened down the stairs; and Viney himself, less interested, followed half way down, and waited.
The boatman brought up alongside the foreshore, and he and another hauled at the tow-rope. The thing in the water came in, rolling and bobbing, growing more hideously distinct as it came; it checked at the mud and stones, turned over, and with another pull lay ashore, staring and grey and streaming: a dead man.
The lips were pulled tight over the teeth, and, the hair being fair, it was the plainer to see that one side of the head and forehead was black and open with a great wound. The limbs lay limp and tumbled, all; but one leg fell aside with so loose a twist that plainly it was broken; and I heard, afterwards, that it was the leg that had caused the difficulty with the hawser.
Grandfather Nat, down at the waterside, had no sooner caught sight of the dead face than with wide eyes he turned to Viney, and shouted the one word “Look!” Then he went and took another view, longer and closer; and straightway came back in six strides to the stairs, whereon Viney was no longer standing, but sitting, his face tallowy and his grin faded.
“See him?” cried Grandfather Nat in a hushed voice. “See him! It’s Marr himself, if
I know him at all! Come — come and see!”
Viney pulled his arm from the old man’s grasp, turned, and crawled up a stair or two. “No,” he said faintly, “I — I won’t, now — I — they’d know me p’raps, some of them.” His breath was short, and he gulped. “Good God,” he said presently, “it’s him — it’s him sure enough. And the clothes he had on...But...Cap’en — Cap’en Nat; go an’ try his pockets. — Go on. There’s a pocket-book — leather pocket-book... Go on!”
“What’s the good?” asked Captain Nat, with a lift of the eyebrows, and the same low voice. “What’s the good? I can’t fetch it away, with all them witnesses. Go yourself, an’ say you’re his pardner; you’d have a chance then.”
“No — no. I — it ain’t good enough. You know ‘em; I don’t. I’ll stand in with you — give you a hundred if it’s all there! Square ‘em — you know ‘em!”
“If they’re to be squared you can do it as well as me. There’ll be an inquest on this, an’ evidence. I ain’t going to be asked what I did with the man’s pocket-book. No. I don’t meddle in this, Mr. Viney. If it ain’t good enough for you to get it for yourself, it ain’t good enough for me to get it for you.”
“Kemp, I’ll go you halves — there! Get it, an’ there’s four hundred for you. Eight hundred an’ odd quid, in a pocket-book. Come, that’s worth it, ain’t it? Eight hundred an’ odd quid — in a leather pocket-book! An’ I’ll go you halves.”
Captain Nat started at the words, and stood for a moment, staring. “Eight hundred!” he repeated under his breath. “Eight hundred an’ odd quid. In a leather pocket-book. Ah!” And the stare persisted, and grew thoughtful.
“Yes,” replied Viney, now a little more himself. “Now you know; and it’s worth it, ain’t it? Don’t waste time — they’re turning him over themselves. You can manage all these chaps. Go on!”
“I’ll see if anything’s there,” answered Captain Nat. “More I can’t; an’ if there’s nothing that’s an end of it.”
He went down to where the men were bending over the body, to disengage the tow-line. He looked again at the drawn face under the gaping forehead, and said something to the men; then he bent and patted the soddened clothes, now here, now there; and at last felt in the breast-pocket.
Meantime Viney stood feverishly on the stairs, watching; fidgeting nervously down a step, and then down another, and then down two more. And so till Captain Nat returned.
The old man shook his head. “Cleaned out,” he reported. “Cleaned out, o’ course. Hit on the head an’ cleaned out, like many a score better men before him, down these parts. Not a thing in the pockets anywhere. Flimped clean.”
Viney’s eyes were wild. “Nothing at all left?” he said. “Nothing of his own? Not a watch, nor anything?”
“No, not a watch, nor anything.”
Viney stood staring at space for some moments, murmuring many oaths. Then he asked suddenly, “Where’s this blind chap? Where can I find Blind George?”
Grandfather Nat shook his head. “He’s all over the neighbourhood,” he answered. “Try the Highway; I can’t give you nearer than that.”
And with no more counsel to help him, Mr. Viney was fain to depart. He went grinning and cursing up the passage and so toward the bridge, without another word or look. And when I turned to my grandfather I saw him staring fixedly at me, lost in thought, and rubbing his hand up in his hair behind, through the grey and out at the brown on top.
XII. — IN THE CLUB-ROOM
BY the side of the bills stuck at the corner of Hole-in-the-Wall Stairs — the bills that had so fascinated Stephen — a new one appeared, with the heading “Body Found.” It particularised the personal marks and description of the unhappy Marr; his “fresh complexion,” his brown hair, his serge suit and his anklejacks. The bill might have stood on every wall in London till it rotted, and never have given a soul who knew him a hint to guess the body his: except Viney, who knew the fact already. And the body might have been buried unidentified ere Viney would have shown himself in the business, were it not for the interference of Mr. Cripps. For industry of an unprofitable kind was a piece of Mr. Cripps’s nature; and, moreover, he was so regular a visitor at the mortuary as to have grown an old friend of the keeper. His persistent prying among the ghastly liers-in-state, at first on plea of identifying a friend — a contingency likely enough, since his long-shore acquaintance was wide — and later under the name of friendly calls, was an indulgence that had helped him to consideration as a news-monger, and twice had raised him to the elevation of witness at an inquest; a distinction very gratifying to his simple vanity. He entertained high hopes of being called witness in the case of the man stabbed at the side door of the Hole in the Wall; and was scarce seen at Captain Nat’s all the next day, preferring to frequent the mortuary. So it happened that he saw the other corpse that was carried thence from Hole-in-the-Wall Stairs.
“There y’are,” said the mortuary-keeper. “There’s a fresh ‘un, just in from the river, unknown. You dunno ‘im either, I expect.”
But Mr. Cripps was quite sure that he did. Curious and eager, he walked up between the two dead men, his grimy little body being all that divided them in this their grisly reunion. “I do know ‘im,” he insisted, thoughtfully. “Leastways I’ve seen ‘im somewheres, I’m sure.” The little man gazed at the dreadful head, and then at the rafters: then shut his eyes with a squeeze that drove his nose into amazing lumps and wrinkles; then looked at the head again, and squeezed his eyelids together once more; and at last started back, his eyes rivalling his very nose itself for prominence. “Why!” he gasped, “it is! It is, s’elp me!...It’s Mr. Marr, as is pardners with Mr. Viney! I on’y see ‘im once in my life, but I’ll swear it’s ‘im!... Lord, what a phenomenal go!”
And with that Mr. Cripps rushed off incontinent to spread the news wherever anybody would listen. He told the police, he told the loafers, he told Captain Nat and everybody in his bar; he told the watermen at the stairs, he shouted it to the purlmen in their boats, and he wriggled into conversation with perfect strangers to tell them too. So that it came to pass that Viney, being called upon by the coroner’s officer, was fain to swallow his reluctance and come forward at the inquest.
That was held at the Hole in the Wall twenty-four hours after the body had been hauled ashore. The two inquests were held together, in fact, Marr’s and that of the broken-nosed man, stabbed in the passage. Two inquests, or even three, in a day, made no uncommon event in those parts, where perhaps a dozen might be held in a week, mostly ending with the same doubtful verdict — Found Drowned. But here one of the inquiries related to an open and witnessed murder, and that fact gave some touch of added interest to the proceedings.
Accordingly a drifting group hung about the doors of the Hole in the Wall at the appointed time, — just such an idle, changing group as had hung there all the evening after the man had been stabbed; and in the midst stood Blind George with his fiddle, his vacant white eye rolling upward, his mouth full of noisy ribaldry, and his fiddle playing punctuation and chorus to all he said or sang. He turned his ear at the sound of many footsteps leaving the door near him.
“There they go!” he sang out; “there they go, twelve on ‘em!” And indeed it was the jury going off to view the bodies. “There they go, twelve good men an’ true, an’ bloomin’ proud they are to fancy it! Got a copper for Blind George, gentlemen? Not a brown for pore George?...Not them; not a brass farden among the ‘ole dam good an’ lawful lot...Ahoy! ain’t Gubbins there, — the good an’ lawful pork-butcher as ‘ad to pay forty bob for shovin’ a lump o’ fat under the scales? Tell the crowner to mind ‘is pockets!”
The idlers laughed, and one flung a copper, which Blind George snatched almost before it had fallen. “Ha! ha!” he cried, “there’s a toff somewhere near, I can tell by the sound of his money! Here goes for a stave!” And straightway he broke into: —
O they call me Hanging Johnny,. With my hang, boys, hang!
&
nbsp; The mortuary stood at no great distance and soon the jury were back in the club-room over the bar, and at work on the first case. The police had had some difficulty as to identification of the stabbed man. The difficulty arose not only because there were no relations in the neighbourhood to feel the loss, but as much because the persons able to make the identification kept the most distant possible terms with the police, and withheld information from them as a matter of principle. Albeit a reluctant ruffian was laid hold of who was induced sulkily to admit that he had known the deceased to speak to, and lodged near him in Blue Gate; that the deceased was called Bob Kipps; that he was quite lately come into the neighbourhood; and that he had no particular occupation, as far as witness knew. It needed some pressure to extract the information that Kipps, during the short time he was in Blue Gate, chiefly consorted with one Dan Ogle, and that witness had seen nothing of Ogle that day, nor the day before.
There was also a woman called to identify — a woman more reluctant than the man; a woman of coarse features, dull eyes, tousled hair, and thick voice, sluttish with rusty finery. Name, Margaret Flynn; though at the back of the little crowd that had squeezed into the court she was called Musky Mag. It was said there, too, that Mag, in no degree one of the fainting sort, had nevertheless swooned when taken into the mortuary — gone clean off with a flop; true, she explained it, afterward, by saying that she had only expected to see one body, but found herself brought face to face with two; and of course there was the other there — Marr’s. But it was held no such odds between one corpse and two that an outer-and-outer like Mag should go on the faint over it. This was reasonable enough, for the crowd. But not for a woman who had sat to drink with three men, and in a short hour or so had fallen over the battered corpse of one of them, in the dark of her room; who had been forced, now, to view the rent body of a second, and in doing it to meet once again the other, resurrected, bruised, sodden and horrible; and who knew that all was the work of the last of the three, and that man in peril of the rope: the man, too, of all the world, in her eye...
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 136