“Of course I mean it,” replied Mrs. Grimes, with hungry spite in her eyes. “Of course I mean it! An’ dearly I’d love to see it done, too! Cap’en Nat Kemp, with ‘is money an’ ‘is gran’son ‘e’s goin’ to make a gentleman of, an’ all! ‘‘Ope you’ll be honest where you go next,’ says Cap’en Kemp, ‘whether you’re grateful to me or not!’ Honest an’ grateful! I’ll give ‘im honest an’ grateful!”
Dan Ogle grinned silently. “No,” he said, “you won’t forgive ‘im, I bet, if it was only ‘cos you began by makin’ such a pitch to marry ‘im!” A chuckle broke from behind the grin. “You’d rather hang him than get his cash-box now, I’ll swear!”
Mrs. Grimes was red with anger. “I would that!” she cried. “You’re nearer truth than you think, Dan Ogle! An’ if you say too much you’ll lose the money you’re after, for I’ll go an’ do it! So now!”
Dan clicked his tongue derisively. “Thought you’d come to tell me how to get the stuff,” he said. “‘Stead o’ that you tell me how to hang Cap’en Nat, very clever, an’ lose it. I don’t see that helps us.”
“Go an’ threaten him.”
“Threaten Cap’en Nat?” exclaimed Dan, glaring contempt, and spitting it. “Oh yes, I see myself! Cap’en Nat ain’t that sort o’ mug. I’m as ‘ard as most, but I ain’t ‘ard enough for a job like that: or soft enough, for that’s what I’d be to try it on. Lor’ lumme! Go an’ ask any man up the Highway to face Cap’en Nat, an’ threaten him! Ask the biggest an’ toughest of ‘em. Ask Jim Crute, with his ear like a blue-bag, that he chucked out o’ the bar like a kitten, last week! ‘Cap’en Nat,’ says I, ‘if you don’t gimme eight hundred quid, I’ll hit you a crack!’ Mighty fine plan that! That ‘ud get it, wouldn’t it? Ah, it ‘ud get something!”
“I didn’t say that sort of threat, you fool! You’ve got no sense for anything but bashing. There’s the evidence that ‘ud hang him; go an’ tell him that, and say he shall swing for it, if he doesn’t hand over!”
Dan stared long and thoughtfully. Then his lip curled again. “Pooh!” he said. “I’m a fool, am I? O! Anyhow, whether I am or not, I’m a fool’s brother. Threaten Cap’en Nat with the evidence, says you! What evidence? The evidence that he’s got in his own hands! S’pose I go, like a mug, an’ do it. Fust thing he does, after he’s kicked me out, is to chuck the pocket-book an’ the likeness on the fire, an’ the watch in the river. Then he changes the notes, or sells ‘em abroad, an’ how do we stand then? Why, you’re a bigger fool than I thought you was!...What’s that?”
It was nothing but a gun on the marsh, where a cockney sportsman was out after anything he could hit. But Dan Ogle’s nerves were alert, and throughout the conversation he had not relaxed his watch toward London; so that the shot behind disturbed him enough to break the talk.
“We’ve been here long enough,” he said. “You hook it. I’ll see about Cap’en Nat. Your way’s no good. I’ll try another, an’ if that don’t come off — well, then you can hang him if you like, an’ welcome. But now hook it, an’ shut your mouth till I’ve had my go. ‘Nough said. Don’t go back the way you come.”
XX. — STEPHEN’S TALE
MY father’s death wrought in Grandfather Nat a change that awed me. He looked older and paler — even smaller. He talked less to me, but began, I fancied, to talk to himself. Withal, his manner was kinder then before, if that were possible; though it was with a sad kindness that distressed and troubled me. More than once I woke at night with candle-light on my face, and found him gazing down at me with a grave doubt in his eyes; whereupon he would say nothing, but pat my cheek, and turn away.
Early one evening as I sat in the bar-parlour, and my grandfather stood moodily at the door between that and the bar, a man came into the private compartment whom I had seen there frequently before. He was, in fact, the man who had brought the silver spoons on the morning when I first saw Ratcliff Highway, and he was perhaps the most regular visitor to the secluded corner of the bar. This time he slipped quietly and silently in at the door, and, remaining just within it, out of sight from the main bar, beckoned; his manner suggesting business above the common.
But my grandfather only frowned grimly, and stirred not so much as a finger. The man beckoned again, impatiently; but there was no favour in Grandfather Nat’s eye, and he answered with a growl. At that the man grew more vehement, patted his breast-pocket, jerked his thumb, and made dumb words with a great play of mouth.
“You get out!” said Grandfather Nat.
A shade of surprise crossed the man’s face, and left plain alarm behind it. His eyes turned quickly toward the partition which hid the main bar from him, and he backed instantly to the door and vanished.
A little later the swing doors of the main bar were agitated, and an eye was visible between them, peeping. They parted, and disclosed the face of that same stealthy visitor but lately sent away from the other door. Reassured, as it seemed, by what he saw of the company present, he came boldly in, and called for a drink with an elaborate air of unconcern. But, as he took the glass from the potman, I could perceive a sidelong glance at my grandfather, and presently another. Captain Nat, however, disregarded him wholly; while the pale man, aware of he knew not what between them, looked alertly from one to the other, ready to abandon his long-established drink, or to remain by it, according to circumstances.
The man of the silver spoons looked indifferently from one occupant of the bar to the next, as he took his cold rum. There was the pale man, and Mr. Cripps, and a sailor, who had been pretty regular at the bar of late, and who, though noisy and apt to break into disjointed song, was not so much positively drunk as never wholly sober. And there were two others, regular frequenters both. Having well satisfied himself of these, the man of the silver spoons finished his rum and walked out. Scarce had the door ceased to swing behind him, when he was once more in the private compartment, now with a knowing and secure smile, a cough and a nod. For plainly he supposed there must have been a suspicious customer in the house, who was now gone.
Grandfather Nat let fall the arm that rested against the door frame. “Out you go!” he roared. “If you want another drink the other bar’s good enough for you. If you don’t I don’t want you here. So out you go!”
The man was dumbfounded. He opened his mouth as though to say something, but closed it again, and slunk backward.
“Out you go!” shouted the unsober sailor in the large bar. “Out you go! You ‘bey orders, see? Lord, you’d better ‘bey orders when it’s Cap’en Kemp! Ah, I know, I do!” And he shook his head, stupidly sententious.
But the fellow was gone for good, and the pale man was all eyes, scratching his cheek feebly, and gazing on Grandfather Nat.
“Out he goes!” the noisy sailor went on. “That’s cap’en’s orders. Cap’en’s orders or mate’s orders, all’s one. Like father, like son. Ah, I know!”
“Ah,” piped Mr. Cripps, “a marvellous fine orficer Cap’en Kemp must ha’ been aboard ship, I’m sure. Might you ever ha’ sailed under ‘im?”
“Me?” cried the sailor with a dull stare. “Me? Under him?...Well no, not under him. But cap’en’s orders or mate’s orders, all’s one.”
“P’raps,” pursued Mr. Cripps in a lower voice, with a glance over the bar, “p’raps you’ve been with young Mr. Kemp — the late?”
“Him?” This with another and a duller stare. “Him? Um! Ah, well — never mind. Never you mind, see? You mind your own business, my fine feller!”
Mr. Cripps retired within himself with no delay, and fixed an abstracted gaze in his half-empty glass. I think he was having a disappointing evening; people were disagreeable, and nobody had stood him a drink. More, Captain Nat had been quite impracticable of late, and for days all approaches to the subject of the sign, or the board to paint it on, had broken down hopelessly at the start. As to the man just sent away, Mr. Cripps seemed, and no doubt was, wholly indifferent. Captain Nat was merely exercising his authority in his own bar, as he
did every day, and that was all.
But the pale man was clearly uneasy, and that with reason. For, as afterwards grew plain, the event was something greater than it seemed. Indeed, it was nothing less than the end of the indirect traffic in watches and silver spoons. From that moment every visitor to the private compartment was sent away with the same peremptory incivility; every one, save perhaps some rare stranger of the better sort, who came for nothing but a drink. So that, in course of a day or two, the private compartment went almost out of use; and the pale man’s face grew paler and longer as the hours went. He came punctually every morning as usual, and sat his time out with the stagnant drink before him, till he received my grandfather’s customary order to “drink up”; and then vanished till the time appointed for his next attendance. But he made no more excursions into the side court after sellers of miscellaneous valuables. From what I know of my grandfather’s character, I believe that the pale man must have been paid regular wages; for Grandfather Nat was not a man to cast off a faithful servant, though plainly the man feared it. At any rate there he remained with his perpetual drink: and so remained until many things came to an end together.
There was a certain relief, and, I think, an odd touch of triumph in Grandfather Nat’s face and manner that night as he kissed me, and bade me good-night. As for myself, I did not realise the change, but I had a vague idea that my grandfather had sent away his customer on my account; and for long I lay awake, and wondered why.
XXI. — IN THE BAR-PARLOUR
STEPHEN was sound asleep, and the Hole in the Wall had closed its eyes for the night. The pale man had shuffled off, with his doubts and apprehensions, toward the Highway, and Mr. Cripps was already home in Limehouse. Only the half-drunken sailor was within hail, groping toward some later tavern, and Captain Nat, as he extinguished the lamps in the bar, could hear his song in the distance —
The grub was bad an’ the pay was low,. Leave her, Johnny, leave her!. So hump your duds an’ ashore you go. For it’s time for us to leave her!
Captain Nat blew out the last light in the bar and went into the bar-parlour. He took out the cash-box, and stood staring thoughtfully at the lid for some seconds. He was turning at last to extinguish the lamp at his elbow, when there was a soft step without, and a cautious tap at the door.
Captain Nat’s eyes widened, and the cash-box went back under the shelf. The tap was repeated ere the old man could reach the door and shoot back the bolts. This done, he took the lamp in his left hand, and opened the door.
In the black of the passage a man stood, tall and rough. Just such a figure Captain Nat had seen there before, less distinctly, and in a briefer glimpse; for indeed it was Dan Ogle.
“Well?” said Captain Nat.
“Good evenin’, cap’en,” Dan answered, with an uncouth mixture of respect and familiarity. “I jist want five minutes with you.”
“O, you do, do you?” replied the landlord, reaching behind himself to set the lamp on the table. “What is it? I’ve a notion I’ve seen you before.”
“Very like, cap’en. It’s all right; on’y business.”
“Then what’s the business?”
Dan Ogle glanced to left and right in the gloom of the alley, and edged a step nearer. “Best spoke of indoors,” he said, hoarsely. “Best for you an’ me too. Nothin’ to be afraid of — on’y business.”
“Afraid of? Phoo! Come in, then.”
Dan complied, with an awkward assumption of jaunty confidence, and Captain Nat closed the door behind him.
“Nobody to listen, I suppose?” asked Ogle.
“No, nobody. Out with it!”
“Well, cap’en, just now you thought you’d seen me before. Quite right; so you have. You see me in the same place — just outside that there door. An’ I borrowed your boat.”
“Umph!” Captain Nat’s eyes were keen and hard. “Is your name Dan Ogle?”
“That’s it, cap’en.” The voice was confident, but the eye was shifty. “Now you know. A chap tried to do me, an’ I put his light out. You went for me, an’ chased me, but you struck your hooks in the quids right enough.” Dan Ogle tried a grin and a wink, but Captain Nat’s frown never changed.
“Well, well,” Dan went on, after a pause, “it’s all right, anyhow. I outed the chap, an’ you took care o’ the ha’pence; so we helped each other, an’ done it atween us. I just come along to-night to cut it up.”
“Cut up what?”
“Why, the stuff. Eight hundred an’ ten quid in notes, in a leather pocket-book. Though I ain’t particular about the pocket-book.” Dan tried another grin. “Four hundred an’ five quid’ll be good enough for me: though it ought to be more, seein’ I got it first, an’ the risk an’ all.”
Captain Nat, with a foot on a chair and a hand on the raised knee, relaxed not a shade of his fierce gaze. “Who told you,” he asked presently, “that I had eight hundred an’ ten pound in a leather pocket-book?”
“O, a little bird — just a pretty little bird, cap’en.”
“Tell me the name o’ that pretty little bird.”
“Lord lumme, cap’en, don’t be bad pals! It ain’t a little bird what’ll do any harm! It’s all safe an’ snug enough between us, an’ I’m doin’ it on the square, ain’t I? I knowed about you, an’ you didn’t know about me; but I comes fair an’ open, an’ says it was me as done it, an’ I on’y want a fair share up between pals in a job together. That’s all right, ain’t it?”
“Was it a pretty little bird in a bonnet an’ a plaid shawl? A scraggy sort of a little bird with a red beak? The sort of little bird as likes to feather its nest with a cash-box — one as don’t belong to it? Is that your pattern o’ pretty little bird?”
“Well, well, s’pose it is, cap’en? Lord, don’t be bad pals! I ain’t, am I? Make things straight, an’ I’ll take care she don’t go a pretty-birdin’ about with the tale. I’ll guarantee that, honourable. You ain’t no need be afraid o’ that.”
“D’ye think I look afraid?”
“Love ye, cap’en, why, I didn’t mean that! There ain’t many what ‘ud try to frighten you. That ain’t my tack. You’re too hard a nut for that, anybody knows.” Dan Ogle fidgeted uneasily with a hand about his neck-cloth; while the other arm hung straight by his side. “But look here, now, cap’en,” he went on; “you’re a straight man, an’ you don’t round on a chap as trusts you. That’s right, ain’t it?”
“Well?” Truly Captain Nat’s piercing stare, his unwavering frown, were disconcerting. Dan Ogle had come confidently prepared to claim a share of the plunder, just as he would have done from any rascal in Blue Gate. But, in presence of the man he knew for his master, he had had to begin with no more assurance than he could force on himself; and now, though he had met not a word of refusal, he was reduced well-nigh to pleading. But he saw the best opening, as by a flash of inspiration; and beyond that he had another resource, if he could but find courage to use it.
“Well?” said Captain Nat.
“You’re the sort of man as plays the square game with a man as trusts you, cap’en. Very well. I’ve trusted you. I come an’ put myself in your way, an’ told you free what I done, an’ I ask, as man to man, for my fair whack o’ the stuff. Bein’ the straight man you are, you’ll do the fair thing.”
Captain Nat brought his foot down from the chair, and the knee from under his hand; and he clenched the hand on the table. But neither movement disturbed his steady gaze. So he stood for three seconds. Then, with an instant dart, he had Dan Ogle by the hanging arm, just above the wrist.
Dan sprang and struggled, but his wrist might have been chained to a post. Twice he made offer to strike at Captain Nat’s face with the free hand, but twice the blow fainted ere it had well begun. Tall and powerful as he was, he knew himself no match for the old skipper. Pallid and staring, he whispered hoarsely: “No, cap’en — no! Drop it! Don’t put me away! Don’t crab the deal! D’ y’ ‘ear—”
Captain Nat, grim and silent, s
lowly drew the imprisoned fore-arm forward, and plucked a bare knife from within the sleeve. There was blood on it, for his grip had squeezed arm and blade together.
“Umph!” growled Captain Nat; “I saw that in time, my lad”; and he stuck the knife in the shelf behind him.
“S’elp me, cap’en, I wasn’t meanin’ anythink — s’elp me I wasn’t,” the ruffian pleaded, cowering but vehement, with his neckerchief to his cut arm. “That’s on’y where I carry it, s’elp me — on’y where I keep it!”
“Ah, I’ve seen it done before; but it’s an awkward place if you get a squeeze,” the skipper remarked drily. “Now you listen to me. You say you’ve come an’ put yourself in my power, an’ trusted me. So you have — with a knife up your sleeve. But never mind that — I doubt if you’d ha’ had pluck to use it. You killed a man at my door, because of eight hundred pounds you’d got between you; but to get that money you had to kill another man first.”
“No, cap’en, no—”
“Don’t try to deny it, man! Why it’s what’s saving you! I know where that money came from — an’ it’s murder that got it. Marr was the man’s name, an’ he was a murderer himself; him an’ another between ‘em ha’ murdered my boy; murdered him on the high seas as much as if it was pistol or poison. He was doin’ his duty, an’ it’s murder, I tell you — murder, by the law of England! That man ought to ha’ been hung, but he wasn’t, an’ he never would ha’ been. He’d ha’ gone free, except for you, an’ made money of it. But you killed that man, Dan Ogle, an’ you shall go free for it yourself; for that an’ because I won’t sell what you trusted me with about this other.”
Captain Nat turned and took the knife from the shelf. “Now see,” he went on. “You’ve done justice on a murderer, little as you meant it; but don’t you come tryin’ to take away the orphan’s compensation — not as much as a penny of it! Don’t you touch the compensation, or I’ll give you up! I will that! Just you remember when you’re safe. The man lied as spoke to seein’ you that night by the door; an’ now he’s gone back on it, an’ so you’ve nothing to fear from him, an’ nothing to fear from the police. Nothing to fear from anybody but me; so you take care, Dan Ogle!...Come, enough said!”
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 142