The questioner had been a passerby: the man who’d earlier come out of Godliman Street.
4
AT ABOUT FIVE O’CLOCK Smith went home, having spent every penny he had (except the three shillings he’d screwed out of Mr. Jones) on meat pie, ale and tobacco. And, though there’d been pockets in plenty for the picking, he’d kept his hands to himself. For the first time he could remember he was frightened of being caught; for then he’d lose whatever might be the benefits of the document, which was still pressed against his chest, where it was growing strong with sweat.
“Hullo, Smith! Not nubbed yet?”
Deep in thought, he ignored the landlord’s pleasantry and made for the cellar steps. From below the tallows gleamed yellowly and cast strange shadows on the wall. He began to descend, when—
“Stand and deliver!”
A voice like twelve o’clock of St. Paul’s roared from the heart of the cellar! Smith started, missed a step, and came down the rest any way but on his feet!
A dangerous, glittering, murdering adventurer of a gentleman in green stood before him, aiming a pistol the scope of a cannon directly at his head! It was his friend, Lord Tom, the high toby, come on a sociable visit.
“Do watch how you go, Smut,” cried Miss Fanny, “or you’ll be coming down them steps stone dead! And then where will our dockiment be?”
“Did you see that degrading Mister Jones?” asked Miss Bridget. “For if you didn’t you can go straight out again, broken pate or nothing!”
“Pleased to see you, Lord Tom,” said Smith, picking himself up and rubbing his head. “They told me you was nubbed—but I never believed ’em.”
“Ah!” said the highwayman, putting up his pistol and smiling sadly through his brackenish beard. “It happens to all of us, sooner or later, Smut. With some, it’s sooner; but with Lord Tom, let’s hope it’ll be vastly the later!”
“And so say all of us,” murmured Miss Fanny, as she might have said, Amen!
“Trade been good these past ten days, Lord Tom?” asked Smith, giving over the three shillings to Miss Bridget who hid them somewhere behind the curtain, away from the highwayman’s quick green eyes.
“Been on the Finchley Common, Smut, me young friend. Wild and free on the snaffling lay!”
“Don’t use them coarse expressions!” came Miss Bridget’s voice. “If you mean pilfering from unarmed travelers, then say so. Or are you ashamed?”
Lord Tom grinned at Smith (who grinned back) and then at Miss Fanny who sighed and blushed.
“Many coaches, Lord Tom? And was there danger?”
“Fine smart equipages, little Smut! Windows fair sparkling with satin and brilliants. Like traveling stars, I tell you. Gleaming in the foggy nights. It’s a life, my boy! Stand and deliver! Stern with the gentry: courteous with the ladies. ‘Madam, your necklace—if you please! Sir, your purse—or I’ll blow your head off!’ ”
“And did you, Lord Tom?” asked Smith, smiling wistfully at the thought of riding out with his friend—which had always been one of his dearest dreams. “Did you blow any heads off this time?”
“Only a pair of coachmen’s, Smut! And then unwillingly—for they went for their weapons.”
“How many coaches did you take?”
“Six, me friend! Six gay glitterers—”
“Then where’s your profit, you ugly murderer!” came Miss Bridget’s voice—for she’d refused to come out and join the company. “Where’s the necklaces and purses, sir?”
Lord Tom sighed. “Spent, Miss Bridget—as well you know. That’s the way of our lives. Risk all for the chase—then spend the profit in high contempt. The chase and the danger’s all!” (Here, Smith nodded vigorously.) “There was a diamond brooch I parted with for an evening’s ale in Highgate, ma’am. And, by God, but it was a good exchange! Eat, drink and be merry, as they say—for tomorrow we’ll all be nubbed!”
“A pity it wasn’t yesterday!” snapped Miss Bridget and, for the first time, the highwayman looked angry. But it passed and he went on with his adventures, to Miss Fanny’s admiration and Smith’s envy and delight.
“But what’s this I hear,” he said at length and, with his hands on his hips, his high-booted legs apart, surveyed Smith with an amiable smile. “For the news I hear”—he nodded affectionately to Miss Fanny—“is that you’ve come upon a rare treasure, me lad! Already me rival in accomplishment? Well, indeed—I’m proud of you! A document, I hear tell. And curiously valuable—from all accounts.”
“I told Lord Tom,” put in Miss Fanny, stopping her sewing with her needle at full stretch. “And we’re of an opinion that—”
“ ’Tis nothing of value!” said Miss Bridget, coming at last through the curtain, her handsome face much flushed. “A property deed, most likely. Of no use to anyone at all!”
“And I say it’s a confession, Brid! Reely, Lord Tom dear—I’m convinced! Indeed, the more I think on it, it had such—such a guilty look!”
“Well, then,” exclaimed Lord Tom cheerfully, “let’s put an end to conjecture and see it. Here, Smut, old comrade-in-arms, let’s see the document. Lord Tom’ll read it for you.”
Smith, suddenly uneasy, stared at his two sisters, one frowning and the other softly open-mouthed. Then he looked up at his friend, the glittering, dangerous highwayman. He hesitated . . . and began to back towards the stairs. Now that his secret was about to be revealed he felt unsure, even unwilling . . . For a whole day the document had been next to his heart. He felt strangely that he’d be betraying it if he gave it up now. He continued to look suspiciously from one to another of the company.
“Well, Smut, friend—where’s the treasure?”
“I—I ain’t got it, Lord Tom . . . I—I left it with a friend!”
“Not that creeping Mister Palmer?” exclaimed Miss Bridget. “How I hate debtors! They’re worse’n thieves!”
Smith shook his head and rubbed his nose ruefully.
“Then who’s got it, Smut, dear? Who’s got our valuable dockiment?”
“The parson in Saint Andrew’s.”
“And who’s he, when he’s at home? You little liar!” said Miss Bridget coldly.
“A friend o’ mine.”
“You made him up!”
“No, Miss Bridget! True as I live an’ breathe. Big fat man all in white. Friend of mine. Cross my heart and hope to be nubbed!”
“And where did you meet him?”
“In church—”
“Now I know you’re lying! For you never was in a church in all your born days! Liar and blasphemer! Oh, how I hate a liar! Nothing’s more degrading! You come here—you young person—and I’ll wash your mouth out with vinegar for you. Don’t think you’ll escape this time!”
Miss Bridget—who had indeed a jar of vinegar in her hand—began to advance on Smith with her eyes glinting venomously. Smith dodged briefly behind Lord Tom and hung on to the tops of his boots.
“Never come ’tween a family,” chuckled the highwayman—and stepped aside so’s Smith stumbled and fell. Miss Bridget came on. Smith howled and fled behind Miss Fanny. Who obliged by crying, “Poor Smut!” and flouncing aside to the stairs.
Smith began to dart round the cellar at so great a rate that the tallow flames tore after him as if to rip loose from their seatings.
“I’ll teach you to lie to me!” shouted Miss Bridget, making strong dives at her brother who, between howling and roaring his innocence, kept dragging table and stools and every movable article into her path.
On the stair—cutting off all retreat—sat Miss Fanny and Lord Tom, laughing fit to burst.
“Let me through!” panted Smith, each time he passed.
“Not till you give up the document!” laughed Lord Tom.
“Oh, do as Lord Tom says, dear Smut,” cried Miss Fanny, “before Brid mashes you stone dead! For she’s that vexed.”
Smith shook his head and rushed on more fiercely than ever, for Miss Bridget, having the longer legs, was gaining . . .
Round and round he scuttled and darted—now like a sooty moth—now like a quick black rat. And each time he passed the stair he begged and implored Miss Fanny and Lord Tom to make way for his desperate, panting self.
“Not till we see the document! Ha-ha! Not till you give up your treasure!”
While from behind, Miss Bridget panted grimly, “Nothing’ll save you this time! You degrading little liar, you!”
She made a last tremendous lunge—both to save herself (for she’d tripped on a stool) and to seize her brother’s hair. Smith shrieked. Lord Tom laughed. Miss Fanny cried, “Poor Smut!” When there was a fateful interruption: the landlord. His greasy head hung over the stair like a dirty street lamp.
“Smith! Smith! Forgot to tell you something!”
Hastily, Miss Bridget let go of his hair and genteelly wiped her fingers.
“What?”
“You ’ad callers. Two.”
“Who? Me?”
“Yes, indeed. Had you off to a T. Dirty, weaselish, villainous-looking remnant. Eyes like chips of coal. Teeth like the same. About twelve year old.—‘That’s him!’ I says directly.—‘Good!’ says they. ‘And where is he?’—‘Nubbed, most likely,’ says I.—‘Oh-ho!’ says they, ‘we’ll be back then—to inspect the remains.’ Then they was off. No message. Just that.”
“W-what was they like?”
“One tall, t’other short. Wearing brown. And, though I says it myself (and I ought to know), as unsavory and throat-slittish a pair as ever I’ve clapped eyes on! Ha-ha!”
The landlord’s head was hoisted out of view and there was a deep silence in the cellar. Smith shivered uncontrollably. He was desperately frightened. God knew how the two men in brown had tracked him down; but they had done so. He could not stop his teeth chattering. Even Miss Bridget looked at him compassionately.
“It—it’s them!” he whispered. “They’ve come to slit me throat!”
“Don’t you worry, me lad!” exclaimed Lord Tom, grimly. “There’s no high toby, thief or rascal who’d dare come here when he knows Lord Tom’s on your side! By God, Smut! If they so much as sets foot on them stairs, I’ll blow blue daylight through the both of them! You’ve a man to protect you now. And I can’t say fairer than that.”
“No,” muttered Smith. “You don’t know ’em. They’re not your sort, Lord Tom—”
“Why, Smut! You’ll be safe with Lord Tom! There, dear—you just give him our dockiment and all will be well.”
“You don’t understand! They’ll do for me anyways. They’re that sort.”
“Then what will you do, child?” asked Miss Bridget, much troubled.
“I don’t know . . . But I can’t stay ’ere. Not now. Not at night! I’ll go off somewhere. Maybe to—”
“To the parson at Saint Andrew’s?” smiled Lord Tom.
“Maybe . . .”
“Don’t lie now, child. It may be for the last time . . . and you’d go to Hell.”
Smith looked round the cellar which was his home, very mournfully and wretchedly. “I got to go! For Gawd’s sake, let me past!”
Lord Tom shrugged his shoulders, but stood aside. “I’d protect you, Smut. Honest, I would.”
“The dockiment, Smut. Won’t you leave it, dear? It’ll bring you no good—”
“No!” said Smith, fiercely. “Never! Never! Never!” He paused, as if shocked by his own determination, then added, “Besides, it’s with the parson at Saint Andrew’s.”
“Oh, Smut,” sighed Miss Fanny. “Brid’s right—and you’re a liar. For you got it inside of your coat. I can see it, dear.”
“Out o’ my way!” shouted Smith—and, with a desperate rush, flew up the stairs and was gone.
5
TWO MEN—one short, the other tall—who might have been dressed in brown (the street was too dark to be sure), saw Smith hurry out of the Red Lion Tavern. They’d been in a doorway nearby. Deep in shadows. They did not think they’d been observed. After a few seconds they set off together in the wake of the hurrying boy. They followed him for about five minutes along the nearly empty Saffron Hill. Then they lost him. He seemed to have vanished into the gloomy air. Half a minute later he was seen— unexpectedly—on their left, at the corner of Cross Street, hurrying like a mad thing. They nodded and set off again.
This time they kept him in sight for nearly ten minutes; then he vanished near Cony Court. They waited awhile, listening, for the narrow streets and alleys hereabouts were very quiet, and even a rat’s scuttle would have been heard. Now they entered the shadowy confines of the court—were about three yards within it— when the boy was seen again, darting desperately back towards Cross Street, his alarmed eyes glittering in the light of some late merchant’s window.
Back went the two followers, their shoulders hunched—for the night was growing bitterer by the minute—and their feet kissing the cobbles with a grim, urgent passion. They did not let him out of their sight for more than an instant. Portpool Lane—Hatton Garden—Chart Street—back into Saffron Hill, then Holborn Hill—Union Court—Hatton Garden again—and so to Cross Street—Saffron Hill—Cox’s Court . . .
An intricate necklace of flight was being threaded as the three hurrying figures shifted through and round the lanes, courts and alleys that lay, ragged and near deserted, under a gnawed rind of the moon.
Sometimes there was not above five yards between them; and then they’d lose him for a few seconds—oddly, unaccountably— like he’d gone up in a puff of black smoke . . . Till there he’d be again, come suddenly from some dark passageway of which nothing had been seen till then.
There seemed to be many dozens of these crevices in the black, lumpy substance of the frowning houses—but, sooner or later, there’d be one whose end would be sewn up tight as a sock: a fatal passage from which there’d be no panting scuttle of escape.
The boy had left the Red Lion Tavern at half after six by St. Paul’s. At a quarter to nine o’clock, the followers leaned up against a wall in Hatton Garden.
Breathed one: “Fer God’s sake! I can’t go another step! Me heart’ll burst—I swear it!”
Came a low reply, much charged with pain and phlegm: “All right! We’ll go back—some’ow—to the Red Lion. We’ll wait there . . . God rot the crafty little perisher!”
With painful steps they limped away, so wind-broken by two and a quarter hours of unceasing pursuit that they seemed scarce able to drag their own meager shadows down the cold street.
Ten minutes later, in a narrow abutment no more than a yard from where they’d been leaning, a shadow moved. Then a face edged out: a small, pointed, wary face. It surveyed the empty street. It grinned—not with pleasure, but with a savage and desperate triumph. Smith had done what he’d set out to do when he’d seen the men waiting for him as he’d left the Red Lion. He’d run his pursuers into the ground.
He began to walk—somewhat slowly, for his own sides were aching villainously. Presently, he stopped and drew the sweat-drenched document from under his coat. He studied it by the thin, cold light of the moon. It did not seem much the worse for its wetting. Miss Bridget’s “property” and Miss Fanny’s “felonious” looked as much like a horse and cart and a nest of maggots as ever. None the less, at the first opportunity, he picked a passing pocket of a handkerchief and wrapped the document up. Then he sighed with relief and set off for another part of the Town.
Though no one followed him now, he moved with extraordinary circumspection; for the dark houses and the dimly silvered streets held another, more formidable menace. Time and again he fancied he heard other footsteps—steps that limped awkwardly—and he thought of the unseen lame man with the soft voice.
But these alarms were in his mind alone and, if they ever came to anything, they never turned into more than the totterings of some drunken home-goer, or the limping of a chairman, weary unto death and cursing under his breath.
Now he was in High Holborn, and the tall buildings on either side scowled blackly down with, here and there
through an ill-drawn drape, a yellow sneer of light; while ceaselessly down the wide street, like the Devil’s own crossings’ sweeper, came a bitter wind, whipping up the Town’s rubbish into spiteful ghosts of dust and paper that plucked and nipped and stung the living boy.
His nose, chin and fingers were beginning to burn with the cold. Not a night to be out in: black and windy, with the moon now doused in a creeping sea of cloud. He passed by a gloomy alehouse with a bunch of iron grapes groaning from its sign. He stopped—fingered a guinea he’d got with the handkerchief—and thought of a bed for the night.
But the house was full, so he took a half a pint of gin to keep out the cold, the loneliness and the shifting fear—to no purpose. The gin sickened him and inflamed his brain so’s he heard everywhere the soft voice he dreaded and the awkward scrape of a leg, quaintly lame. He began to search for the door—and was helped by a pair of potboys who came at him, slantwise, from somewhere in the smoky room.
Out again into the bitter street. Above his head the iron grapes creaked menacingly, back and forth—back and forth . . . He moved away, fearful that they’d drop and crack him like an egg.
But it was not the grapes alone; the very houses seemed to be shuddering against the blotched sky. He shifted out into the middle of the street, for he’d a sudden horror that all the buildings were tottering in upon him. The sky seemed to grow smaller and smaller and the jagged roofs, fanged with chimneys, seemed to snarl and snap as if to gobble him up.
He began to run, wildly: now from side to side of the street, banging into posts, stumbling across the gutter, turning down lanes and alleys that were new even to him . . . And all this with a curious, hopeless urgency: his feet running like a hanged man’s feet—seeming to reach for a purchase on a world that was slipping away.
Where was he going? God knew! Maybe even in search of the two men in brown to give up the document. For suddenly it seemed to him that the document was a fearful disease that was burning and poisoning him—after tempting him madly from the shelter of his home.
Smith Page 3