The Victorian Villains Megapack

by Arthur Morrison

  “No; this is the ’Ville.” The van rumbled under an archway, and then, after more banging, jingling, and clattering, half a dozen men were extracted from the boxes and deposited in the yard.

  “Goodbye, Bill! Keep up yer sperrits!” screamed a soprano from the inmost recesses of the van.

  “Come and meet us at the fortnight,” growled a deepest base from the courtyard.

  A calling of names, the tramp of feet, then silence for a while, only broken by the champing of harness. Presently a brisk order, and, rumbling through the arch again, they were surrounded by the noise of traffic. But it was not for long; a few minutes, seconds even, and they halted once more, while heavy doors groaned apart. Then, clattering through a portico full of echoes, and describing a giddy curve, the van abruptly stopped as an iron gate crashed dismally in the rear.

  ‘”Ere we are guv’nor!” remarked the altruist.

  Romney Pringle in THE HOUSE OF DETENTION

  Clang, clang! Clang-a-clang, clang!

  As the bell continued to ring Mr. Pringle started from an unrestful slumber, and, sitting up in bed, stared all around. Everything was so painfully white that his eyes closed spasmodically.

  White walls, white-vaulted ceiling, even the floor was whitish-coloured—all white, but for the black door-patch at one end, and on this he gazed for respite from the glare. Slowly he took it all in—the bare table-slab, the shelf with its little stack of black volumes, the door, handleless and iron-sheeted, above all the twenty-four little squares of ground glass with their horizontal bars broadly shadowed in the light of the winter morning.

  It was no dream, then, he told himself.

  The thin mattress, only a degree less harsh than the plank bed beneath, was too insistent, obstinately as he might close his eyes to all beside. And, as he sat, the events of the last six and thirty hours came crowding through his memory. How clearly he saw it all! Not a detail was missing.

  Again he stood by the riverside, the bare trees dripping in the mist; again he saw the ingots, and lent unwilling aid to save them, fingered the contemptuous vails, sole profit of their discovery. He was crossing the bridge; beyond shone the lights of the tavern, and there within he saw the frowsy crowd of loafers, and the barman proving the base coin he innocently tendered. And then came the arrest, the police cell, the filthy sights and sounds, the court with its sodden, sickening atmosphere, and, last of all, the prison. What a trap had he, open-eyed, walked into! For a second he ground his teeth in impotent fury.

  The bell ceased. Dejectedly he rose, wondering as to the toilet routine of the establishment. Shaving was not to be thought of, he supposed, but enforced cleanliness was a thing he had read of somewhere. How long would last night’s bath stand good for? He looked at the single coarse brown towel and shuddered. Footsteps approached; he heard voices and the jingling of keys, then the lock shot noisily, and the door was flung open.

  “Now, then, put out your slops and roll your bedding up.”

  Pringle obeyed, but his bed-making was so lavish of space that when the warder peeped in again, some ten minutes later, he regarded the heap with a condescending grin, and presently returned with a prisoner who deftly rolled the sheets and blankets into a bundle whose end-on view resembled a variegated archery target. Then the hinges creaked once more, the lock snapped, and Pringle was left to his meditations. They were not of a cheerful nature, and it was with an exceeding bitter smile that he set himself to seriously review his position. Already had he decided that to reveal himself as the proprietor of that visionary literary agency in Furnival’s Inn would only serve to increase the suspicion that already surrounded him, while availing nothing to free him from the present charge—if even it did not result in fresh accusations! On the other hand, unless he did so he could see no way of obtaining any money from his bankers so to avail himself of the very small loophole of escape which a legal defence might afford.

  He had one consolation—a very small one, it is true. Money is never without its uses, and it was with an eye to future contingencies that he had managed to secrete a single half-sovereign on first arriving at the gaol. Whilst waiting, half-undressed, to enter the searching room, he bethought him of a strip of old-fashioned court-plaster which he was accustomed to carry in his pocket-book. He took it out, and, waiting his opportunity, stuck half a sovereign upon it and then pressed the strip against his shin, where it held fast.

  “What’s that?” inquired a warder a few minutes later, as Pringle stood stripped beneath a measuring gauge.

  “I grazed my skin a couple of days ago,” said he glibly.

  “Graze on right shin!” repeated the warder mechanically to a colleague who was booking Pringle’s description; and that was how the coin escaped discovery such time as he was being measured, weighed, searched, examined, and made free of the House of Detention. As he paced up and down the cell, occasionally fingering the little disc in his pocket, its touch did something to leaven his first sensations of helplessness, but they returned with pitiless logic so soon as he thought of escape. Bribery with such a sum was absurd, and he saw only too plainly that the days of Trenck and Casanova were gone forever.

  Chafing at the thought of his sorry fate, Pringle turned for distraction to the inscriptions which on all sides adorned the plaster walls. They were scarcely so ornate as those existing in the Tower, and their literary merit was of the scantiest; nevertheless they were not without a human interest, especially to a fellow sufferer like Pringle.

  The first he lighted on appeared to be the record of a deserter: “Alf. Toppy out of Scrubbs 2nd May, now pulled for deserting from 2nd Batt. W. Norfolk.”

  “H. Allport” informed all whom it might concern that he was “pinched for felony”. Another soldier—it is to be hoped not a criminal—was indicated by the simple record, “Johore, Chitral, Rawal Pindi.”

  One prisoner had summed up his self-compassion in the ejaculation, “Poor old Dick!”

  “Cheer up, mate, you’ll be out some day,” was no doubt intended to be comforting, whilst there was a suggestion of tragedy in the statement, “I am an innocent man charged with felony by an intoxicated woman.”

  It seemed to be the felonious etiquette for prisoners to give their addresses as well as their names—thus, “Dave Conolly from Mint Street.”

  “Dick Callaghan, Lombard Street, Boro, anyone going that way tell Polly Regan I expect nine moon,” set Pringle wondering why on earth Dick had not written to Polly and delivered his message for himself. An ingenuous youth was “Willie, from Dials, fullied for taking a kettle without asking for it”, with his artless postscript, “only wanted to know the time”, but perhaps he passed for a humorist among his acquaintances, while “Darky, from Sailor’s kip the Highway, nicked for highway robbery with violence”, had a matter-of-fact ruffianism about it which spoke for itself.

  From these sordid archives Pringle turned to the printed rules hanging from a peg in the cell, but they were couched in such an aridly official style as to remind him but the more cruelly of his position, and in considerable depression he resumed his now familiar tour—four paces to the window, a turn, and four paces back again, which was the utmost measure of the floor space.

  He had almost ceased to regard any plan of escape as feasible, when the idea of Free-masonry occurred as a last resort. Amongst his other studies of human nature Pringle had not neglected the mummeries of The Craft; he had even attained the eminence of a ‘Grand Zerubbahel’. Now, he thought, was the time to test the efficacy of the doctrines he had absorbed and expounded; he would try the effect of masonic symbolism upon the warder.

  Soon again the keys rattled and the doors banged; nearer came the sounds, the echoes louder, but now there was a clattering as of tinware. The door was flung open, the warder took a small cube loaf of brown bread from the tray carried by a prisoner, and slapped it, with a tin resembling a squat beer-can, down on the table board. The
tin was full of hot cocoa, and, quickly raising it with a peculiar motion of the hand, Pringle inquired genially, “How old is your mother?”

  The warder stopped in the act of shutting the door; he pulled it open again, and glared speechless at the audacious questioner. For quite a minute he stood; then, with an accent which his emotion only rendered the purer, he growled:

  “None of yer larrks now, me man!”

  As the door slammed Pringle mechanically tore the coarse brown bread into fragments, and soaking them in the cocoa, swallowed them unheedingly. His last scheme had gone the same road as its predecessors, and he no longer attempted to blind himself to the consequences. He scarcely noticed when the breakfast-ware was collected, silently handing out his tins in obedience to the summons.

  He was still sitting on the stool, with eyes staring at the frosted windows which his thoughts saw far through and beyond, when the eternal unlocking began again. Listlessly he heard a voice repeating something at every door; he did not catch the words, but there was a tramp of many feet, and a bell was ringing. The voice grew louder; now it was at the next cell. He stood up.

  “Chapel!”

  Pringle stared at the warder—a fresh one this time.

  “Get yer prayer-book and ’ymn-book, and come to chapel! Put yer badge on,” he added, looking back for a minute before continuing his monotonous chant.

  Pringle picked up the black volumes and sent an inquiring glance around for the “badge”. Prisoner after prisoner defiled past the open door as he waited; then all at once he saw the warder’s meaning. Each man displayed a yellow badge upon his breast, and, looking round again, he saw, dangling upon his own gas-burner, a similar disc of felt, with the number of the cell stamped upon it. Hanging the tab upon his coat button, Pringle entered a gap in the procession duly labelled “B.3.6.” for the occasion.

  Right overhead an endless column marched; on the gallery below he saw another, and all around was a rhythmic tramp-tramp in one and the same direction. Down a slope of stairs they went, across a flying bridge, and then along a gallery whose occupants had preceded them. Tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp. Another bridge, and then a door opened into a huge barn of a hall.

  Backless forms were ranged in long rows over the wooden floor, with here and there a little pew-like desk, from which the warders piloted their charges to their seats. The prisoner ahead of him was the end man of his bench, and Pringle, motioned to the next one, headed the file along it and sat down by the wall at the far end, with a warder in one of the little pews just in front.

  “What yer in for, guv’nor?” asked someone in a husky growl.

  Pringle looked round, but his immediate neighbour was glaring stolidly at the nearest warder, whose eye was upon them, and there was no one else within speaking distance but a decrepit old creature, obviously very deaf, on the row behind, and beyond him again a man of apparent education wearing a frock coat. From neither of these could such an inquiry have proceeded.

  “Eyes front there! Don’t let me catch you looking round again.”

  It was the warder who spoke in peremptory tones, and Pringle started at the words like a corrected schoolboy.

  “Hymn number three.”

  The chaplain had taken his stand by the altar, and the opening bars of Bishop Ken’s grand old hymn sounded from the organ. There was a rustle and shuffling of many feet as the whole assembly rose, the organist started the singing, and the many-voiced followed on with a roar which could not wholly slaughter the melody. Half-way through the first verse Pringle felt a nudge in the ribs and, barely inclining his head, caught the eye of his stolid neighbour as it closed in a grotesque wink. Keeping one eye on the little pew in front the man edged towards him, and repeated, in a singsong which fairly imitated the air of the hymn:

  “What yer in for, matey?”

  Taking his cue, Pringle changed back: “Snide coin,” and then a strange duet was sung to the old Genevan air.

  “Fust time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do a bloke a turn?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Change badges—I’ll tell yer why at exercise presently. Won’t ’urt you, an’ do me a sight er good!”

  The hymn ceased, and the chaplain began to intone the morning prayers. As they all sat down, Pringle’s neighbour dropped his badge on the floor, and, pretending to reach for it, motioned to him to exchange.

  The warder’s attention was elsewhere, and Pringle obligingly relabelled himself “C.2.24”.

  A short and somewhat irrelevant address, another hymn, and the twenty minutes’ service was over. As bench after bench emptied, the monotonous tramp again echoed through the bare chamber, and a dusty haze rose and obscured the texts upon the altar. It was a single long procession that snaked round and round the corridors, and, descending by a fresh series of stairways and bridges, disappeared far below in the basement. The lower they got, the atmosphere became sensibly purer and less redolent of humanity, until at the very bottom Pringle felt a rush of air, welcome for all its coldness, and there, beyond an open grille, was an expanse of green bordered by shrubs, and, above all, the cheery sunlight.

  “And earth laughed back at the day,” he murmured.

  The grass was cut up by concentric rings of flagstones, and round these the prisoners marched at a brisk rate. Between every two rings were stone pedestals, each adorned with a warder, who from this elevation endeavoured to preserve a regulation space between the prisoners—that is to say, when he was not engaged in breathing almost equally futile threatenings against the conversation which hummed from every man who was not immediately in front of him And what a jumble of costumes! Tall hats mingled with bowlers and seedy caps that surely no man would pick from off a rubbish heap. Here the wearer of a frock-suit followed one who was literally a walking rag-shop; and, conspicuous among all with its ever-rakish air in the sober day-time, an opera hat spoke of hilariously twined vine-leaves.

  “Thankee, guv’nor,” came a hoarse whisper from behind Pringle; “yer done me a good turn, yer ’ave so!”

  The speaker was slight and sinuously active, with a cat-like gait—a typical burglar; also his hair was closely cropped in the style of the New Cut, which is characterised by a brow-fringe analogous to a Red Indian’s scalp-lock, being chivalrously provided for your opponent to clutch in single combat.

  “What do you want my badge for?” inquired Pringle with less artistic gruffness.

  “Why, the splits’ll be ’ere in a minute ter look at us—bust ’em! An’ I’ll be spotted—what ho! Well, they’ll take my number from this badge o’ yourn, ‘B.3.6’, an’ they’ll look up your name an’ think it’s an alias of mine—see? An’ then they’ll go an’ enter all my convictions ’gainst you—haw, haw!”

  “Against me! But, I say, you know—”

  “Don’t you fret—it’ll do you no ’arm! Now when I goes up on remand termorrer there won’t be nothing returned ’gainst me, so the beak’ll let me off light ’stead o’ fullyin’ me—”

  “Yes, yes; I see where you come in right enough,” interrupted Pringle. “But what about me?”

  “No fear, I tells yer strite. When yer goes up again, if the split ain’t found out ’is mistake an goes ter say anythink ’gainst yer respectability, jest you sing out loud an’ say it’s all a bit o’ bogie—see? Then the split’ll see it’s not me, an’ ’e’ll ave ter own up, an’ p’raps the beak’ll be that concerned for yer character bein’ took away that he’ll—”

  “Halt!”

  Pringle, in amused wonderment at the cleverness of an idea founded, like all true efforts of genius, on very simple premises, walked into the man ahead of him, who had stopped at the word of command. Those in the inner circle were being moved into the outermost one, and there the whole gathering was packed close and faced inwards.

  Measured footsteps were now audible; but when the leaders o
f this new contingent came in view it was clear that whatever else they might be they were certainly not a fresh batch of prisoners. For one thing, they wore no badges; moreover, they conversed freely as they drew near. Well set-up, and with a carriage only to be acquired by drilling, they displayed a trademark in their boots of a uniform type of stoutness.

  ‘”Tecs, the swabs!” was the quite superfluous remark of Pringle’s neighbour. Along the line they passed, scanning each man’s features, now exchanging a whispered comment, and anon making an entry in their pocket-books. Pringle himself was passed by indifferently, but it was quite otherwise with the wearer of badge “B.3.6”. He, evidently a born actor, underwent the scrutiny with an air of profound indifference, which he managed to sustain even when one of the police returned for a second look at his familiar features.

  “Forward!”

  As the recognisers left the yard the prisoners were sorted out again, and resumed their march round the paved circles.

  “That’s a bit of all right, guv’nor!” And Pringle’s new friend chuckled as he spoke. “Haw, haw! See that split come ter ’ave another look at me? Strite, I nearly busted myself tryin’ not ter laugh right out! Shouldn’t I like ter see the bloke’s face when yer goes up—oh, daisies! Yer never bin copped afore?”

  “No. Is there any chance of getting out?”

  “What—doin’ a bolt? Bless yer innercent young ’art, not from a stir like this! Yer might get up a mutiny, p’raps,” he reflected, “so’s yer could knock the screws (warders) out. But ’ow are yer ter do that when yer never gets a chance ter ’ave a jaw with more than one at a time? There’s the farm now,” indicating an adjacent building with a jerk of the head.

  “The what?”

  ‘”Orspital. If yer feel down on yer luck yer might try ter fetch it, p’raps. But it’s no catch ’ere where yer’ve no work and grups yerself if yer like. Now, when yer’ve got a stretch the farm’s clahssy.”

  Again the bell rang, and the spaces grew wider as the prisoners were marched off by degrees. On the stairs, as they went in, Pringle and his new friend exchanged badges, and the old prisoner, with a muttered “Good luck”, passed to his own side of the gaol and was seen no more.