Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison

by Arthur Morrison

  Her evidence, given with plain anxiety and a nervous unsteadiness of the mouth, added nothing to the tale. The man was Bob Kipps; he was a stranger till lately — came, she had heard tell, from Shoreditch or Hoxton; saw him last a day or two ago; knew nothing of his death beyond what she had heard; did not know where Dan Ogle was (this very vehemently, with much shaking of the head); had not seen him with deceased — but here the police inspector handed the coroner a scribbled note, and the coroner having read it and passed it back, said no more. Musky Mag stood aside; while the inspector tore the note into small pieces and put the pieces in his pocket.

  Nathaniel Kemp, landlord of the house, told the story of the murder as he saw it, and of his chase of the murderer. Did not know deceased, and should be unable to identify the murderer if he met him again, having seen no more than his figure in the dark.

  All this time Mr. Cripps had been standing, in eager trepidation, foremost among the little crowd, nodding and lifting his hand anxiously, strenuous to catch the coroner’s officer’s attention at the dismissal of each witness, and fearful lest his offer of evidence, made a dozen times before the coroner came, should be forgotten. Now at last the coroner’s officer condescended to notice him, and being beckoned, Mr. Cripps swaggered forward, his greasy wideawake crushed under his arm, and his face radiant with delighted importance. He bowed to the coroner, kissed the book with a flourish, and glanced round the court to judge how much of the due impression was yet visible.

  The coroner signified that he was ready to hear whatever Mr. Cripps knew of this matter.

  Mr. Cripps “threw a chest,” stuck an arm akimbo, and raised the other with an oratorical sweep so large that his small voice, when it came, seemed all the smaller. “Hi was in the bar, sir,” he piped, “the bar, sir, of this ‘ouse, bein’ long acquainted with an’ much respectin’ Cap’en Kemp, an’ in the ‘abit of visitin’ ‘ere in the intervals of the pursoot of my hart. Hem! Hi was in the bar, sir, when my attention was attracted by a sudden noise be’hind, or as I may say, in the rear of, the bar-parlour. Hi was able to distinguish, gentlemen of the jury, what might be called, in a common way o’ speakin’, a bump or a bang, sich as would be occasioned by an unknown murderer criminally shoving his un’appy victim’s ‘ed agin the back-door of a public-’ouse. Hi was able to distinguish it, sir, from a ‘uman cry which follered: a ‘uman cry, or as it might be, a holler, sich as would be occasioned by the un’appy victim ‘avin ‘is ‘ed shoved agin the back-door aforesaid. Genelmen, I ‘esitated not a moment. I rushed forward.”

  Mr. Cripps paused so long to give the statement effect that the coroner lost patience. “Yes,” he said, “you rushed forward. Do you mean you jumped over the bar?”

  For a moment Mr. Cripps’s countenance fell; truly it would have been more imposing to have jumped over the bar. But he was on his oath, and he must do his best with the facts. “No, sir,” he explained, a little tamely, “not over the bar, but reether the opposite way, so to speak, towards the door. I rushed forward, genelmen, in a sort of rearwards direction, through the door, an’ round into the alley. Immediate as I turned the corner, genelmen, I be’eld with my own eyes the unknown murderer; I see ‘im a-risin’ from over ‘is un’appy victim, an’ I see as the criminal tragedy had transpired. I — I rushed forward.”

  The sensation he looked for being slow in coming, another rush seemed expedient; but it fell flat as the first, and Mr. Cripps struggled on, desperately conscious that he had nothing else to say.

  “I rushed forward, sir; seein’ which the miscreant absconded — absconded, no doubt with — with the proceeds; an’ seein’ Cap’en Kemp abscondin’ after him, I turned an’ be’eld the un’appy victim — the corpse now in custody, sir — a-layin’ in the bar-parlour, ‘elpless an’ — an’ decimated...I — rushed forward.”

  It was sad to see how little the coroner was impressed; there was even something in his face not unlike a smile; and Mr. Cripps was at the end of his resources. But if he could have seen the face of Musky Mag, in the little crowd behind him, he might have been consoled. She alone, of all who heard, had followed his rhetoric with an agony of attention, word by word: even as she had followed the earlier evidence. Now her strained face was the easier merely by contrast with itself when Mr. Cripps was in full cry; and a moment later it was tenser than ever.

  “Yes, yes, Mr. Cripps,” the coroner said; “no doubt you were very active, but we don’t seem to have increased the evidence. You say you saw the man who stabbed the deceased in the passage. Did you know him at all? Ever see him before?”

  Here, mayhap, was some chance of an effect after all. Mr. Cripps could scarce have distinguished the murderer from one of the posts in the alley; but he said, with all the significance he could give the words: “Well, sir, I won’t go so far as to swear to ‘is name, sir; no, sir, not to ‘is name, certainly not.” And therewith he made his sensation at last, bringing upon himself the twenty-four eyes of the jury all together.

  The coroner looked up sharply. “Oh,” he said, “you know him by sight then? Does he belong to the neighbourhood?”

  Now it was not Mr. Cripps who had said he knew the murderer by sight, but the coroner. Far be it from him, thought the aspirant for fame, to contradict the coroner, and so baulk himself of the credit thus thrust upon him. So he answered with the same cautious significance and a succession of portentous nods. “Your judgment, sir, is correct; quite correct.”

  “Come then, this is important. You would be able to recognise him again, of course?”

  There was no retreat — Mr. Cripps was in for it. It was an unforeseen consequence of the quibble, but since plunge he must he plunged neck and crop. “I’d know ‘im anywhere,” he said triumphantly.

  There was an odd sound in the crowd behind, and a fall. Captain Nat strode across, and the crowd wondered; for Musky Mag had fainted again.

  The landlord lifted her, and carried her to the stairs. When the door had closed behind them, and the coroner’s officer had shouted the little crowd into silence, the inquest took a short course to its end.

  Mr. Cripps, in the height of his consequence, began to feel serious misgivings as to the issue of his stumble beyond the verities; and the coroner’s next words were a relief.

  “I think that will be enough, Mr. Cripps,” the coroner said; “no doubt the police will be glad of your assistance.” And with that he gave the jury the little summing up that the case needed. There was the medical evidence, and the evidence of the stabbing, and that evidence pointed to an unmistakable conclusion. Nobody was in custody, nor had the murderer been positively identified, and such evidence as there was in this respect was for the consideration of the police. He thought the jury would have no difficulty in arriving at a verdict. The jury had none; and the verdict was Murder by some Person or Persons unknown.

  The other inquest gave even less trouble. Mr. Henry Viney, shipowner, had seen the body, and identified it as that of his partner Lewis Marr. Marr had suddenly disappeared a week ago, and an examination of his accounts showed serious defalcations, in consequence of which witness had filed his petition in bankruptcy. Whether or not Marr had taken money with him witness could not say, as deceased had entire charge of the accounts; but it seemed more likely that embezzlement had been going on for some time past, and Marr had fled when detection could no longer be averted. This might account for his dressing, and presumably seeking work, as a sailor.

  The divisional surgeon of police had examined the body, and found a large wound on the head, fully sufficient to have caused death, inflicted either by some heavy, blunt instrument, or by a fall from a height on a hard substance. One thigh was fractured, and there were other wounds and contusions, but these, as well as the broken thigh, were clearly caused after death. The blow on the head might have been caused by an accident on the riverside, or it might have been inflicted wilfully by an assailant.

  Then there was the evidence of the man who had found the body foul of a rudder and a
hawser, and of the police who had found nothing on the body. And there was no more evidence at all. The coroner having sympathised deeply with Mr. Viney, gave the jury the proper lead, and the jury with perfect propriety returned the open verdict that the doctor’s evidence and the coroner’s lead suggested. The case, except for the circumstances of Marr’s flight, was like a hundred others inquired upon thereabout in the course of a few weeks, and in an hour it was in a fair way to be forgotten, even by the little crowd that clumped downstairs to try both cases all over again in the bar of the Hole in the Wall.

  To the coroner, the jury, and the little crowd, these were two inquests with nothing to connect them but the accident of time and the convenience of the Hole in the Wall club-room. But Blind George, standing in the street with his fiddle, and getting the news from the club-room in scraps between song and patter, knew more and guessed better.

  XIII. — STEPHEN’S TALE

  I FOUND it a busy morning at the Hole in the Wall, that of the two inquests. I perceived that, by some occult understanding, business in one department was suspended; the pale man idled without, and nobody came into the little compartment to exhibit valuables. Grandfather Nat had a deal to do in making ready the club-room over the bar, and then in attending the inquests. And it turned out that Mrs. Grimes had settled on this day in particular to perform a vast number of extra feats of housewifery in the upper floors. Notwithstanding the disturbance of this additional work, Mrs. Grimes was most amazingly amiable, even to me; but she was so persistent in requiring, first the key of one place, then of another, next of a chest of drawers, and again of a cupboard, that at last my grandfather distractedly gave her the whole bunch, and told her not to bother him any more. The bunch held all she could require — indeed I think it comprised every key my grandfather had, except that of his cash-box — and she went away with it amiable still, notwithstanding the hastiness of his expressions; so that I was amazed to find Mrs. Grimes so meek, and wondered vaguely and childishly if it were because she felt ill, and expected to die shortly.

  Mr. Cripps was in the bar as soon as the doors were open, in a wonderful state of effervescence. He was to make a great figure at the inquest, it appeared, and the pride and glory of it kept him nervously on the strut, till the coroner came, and Mr. Cripps mounted to the club-room with the jury. He was got up for his part as completely as circumstances would allow; grease was in his hair, his hat stood at an angle, and his face exhibited an unfamiliar polish, occasioned by a towel.

  For my own part, I sat in the bar-parlour and amused myself as I might. Blind George was singing in the street, and now and again I could hear the guffaw that signalised some sally that had touched his audience. Above, things were quiet enough for some while, and then my grandfather came heavily downstairs carrying a woman who had fainted. I had not noticed the woman among the people who went up, but now Grandfather Nat brought her through the bar, and into the parlour; and as she lay on the floor just as the stabbed man had lain, I recognised her face also; for she was the coarse-faced woman who had stopped my grandfather near Blue Gate with vague and timid questions, when we were on our way from the London Dock.

  Grandfather Nat roared up the little staircase for Mrs. Grimes, and presently she descended, amiable still; till she saw the coarse woman, and was asked to help her. She looked on the woman with something of surprise and something of confusion; but carried it off at once with a toss of the head, a high phrase or so— “likes of ‘er — respectable woman” — and a quick retreat upstairs.

  I believe my grandfather would have brought her down again by main force, but the woman on the floor stirred, and began scrambling up, even before she knew where she was. She held the shelf, and looked dully about her, with a hoarse “Beg pardon, sir, beg pardon.” Then she went across toward the door, which stood ajar, stared stupidly, with a look of some dawning alarm, and said again, “Beg pardon, sir — I bin queer”; and with that was gone into the passage.

  It was not long after her departure ere the business above was over, and the people came tramping and talking down into the bar, filling it close, and giving Joe the potman all the work he could do. The coroner came down by our private stairs into the bar-parlour, ushered with great respect by my grandfather; and at his heels, taking occasion by a desperately extemporised conversation with Grandfather Nat, came Mr. Cripps.

  There had never been an inquest at the Hole in the Wall before, and my grandfather had been at some exercise of mind as to the proper entertainment of the coroner. He had decided, after consideration, that the gentleman could scarce be offended at the offer of a little lunch, and to that end he had made ready with a cold fowl and a bottle of claret, which Mrs. Grimes would presently be putting on the table. The coroner was not offended, but he would take no lunch; he was very pleasantly obliged by the invitation, but his lunch had been already ordered at some distance; and so he shook hands with Grandfather Nat and went his way. A circumstance that had no small effect on my history.

  For it seemed to Mr. Cripps, who saw the coroner go, that by dexterous management the vacant place at our dinner-table (for what the coroner would call lunch we called dinner) might fall to himself. It had happened once or twice before, on special occasions, that he had been allowed to share a meal with Captain Nat, and now that he was brushed and oiled for company, and had publicly distinguished himself at an inquest, he was persuaded that the occasion was special beyond precedent, and he set about to improve it with an assiduity and an innocent cunning that were very transparent indeed. So he was affectionately admiring with me, deferentially loquacious with my grandfather, and very friendly with Joe the potman and Mrs. Grimes. It was a busy morning, he observed, and he would be glad to do anything to help.

  At that time the houses on Wapping Wall were not encumbered with dust-bins, since the river was found a more convenient receptacle for rubbish. Slops were flung out of a back window, and kitchen refuse went the same way, or was taken to the river stairs and turned out, either into the water or on the foreshore, as the tide might chance. Mrs. Grimes carried about with her in her dustings and sweepings an old coal-scuttle, which held hearth-brushes, shovels, ashes, cinders, potato-peelings, and the like; and at the end of her work, when the brushes and shovels had been put away, she carried the coal-scuttle, sometimes to the nearest window, but more often to the river stairs, and flung what remained into the Thames.

  Just as Mr. Cripps was at his busiest and politest, Mrs. Grimes appeared with the old coal-scuttle, piled uncommonly high with ashes and dust and half-burned pipe-lights. She set it down by the door, gave my grandfather his keys, and turned to prepare the table. Instantly Mr. Cripps, watchful in service, pounced on the scuttle.

  “I’ll pitch this ‘ere away for you, mum,” he said, “while you’re seein’ to Cap’en Kemp’s dinner”; and straightway started for the stairs.

  Mrs. Grimes’s back was turned at the moment, and this gave Mr. Cripps the start of a yard or two; but she flung round and after him like a maniac; so that both Grandfather Nat and I stared in amazement.

  “Give me that scuttle!” she cried, snatching at the hinder handle. “Mind your own business, an’ leave my things alone!”

  Mr. Cripps was amazed also, and he stuttered, “I — I — I — on’y — on’y—”

  “Drop it, you fool!” the woman hissed, so suddenly savage that Mr. Cripps did drop it, with a start that sent him backward against a post; and the consequence was appalling.

  Mr. Cripps was carrying the coal-scuttle by its top handle, and Mrs. Grimes, reaching after it, had seized that at the back; so that when Mr. Cripps let go, everything in the scuttle shot out on the paving-stones; first, of course, the ashes and the pipe-lights; then on top of them, crowning the heap — Grandfather Nat’s cash-box!

  I suppose my grandfather must have recovered from his astonishment first, for the next thing I remember is that he had Mrs. Grimes back in the bar-parlour, held fast by the arm, while he carried his cash-box in the disengage
d hand. Mr. Cripps followed, bewildered but curious; and my grandfather, pushing his prisoner into a far corner, turned and locked the door.

  Mrs. Grimes, who had been crimson, was now white; but more, it seemed to me, with fury than with fear. My grandfather took the key from his watch-guard and opened the box, holding it where the contents were visible to none but himself. He gave no more than a quick glance within, and re-locked it; from which I judged — and judged aright — that the pocket-book was safe.

  “There’s witnesses enough here,” said my grandfather, — for Joe the potman was now staring in from the bar— “to give you a good dose o’ gaol, mum. ‘Stead o’ which I pay your full week’s money and send you packin’!” He pulled out some silver from his pocket. “Grateful or not to me don’t matter, but I hope you’ll be honest where you go next, for your own sake.”

  “Grateful! Honest!” Mrs. Grimes gasped, shaking with passion. “‘Ear ‘im talk! Honest! Take me to the station now, and bring that box an’ show ‘em inside it! Go on!”

  I felt more than a little alarmed at this challenge, having regard to the history of the pocket-book; and I remembered the night when we first examined it, the creaking door, and the soft sounds on the stairs. But Grandfather Nat was wholly undisturbed; he counted over the money calmly, and pushed it across the little table.