“Ring again!” cried Hal, drawing back into the shadow; and at last the wicket opened.
“Oh, if you please, sir, my baby—”
“Blast your baby!” answered a husky voice, “what d'ye mean by coming here this time of night?”
“Please, sir, I'm afraid it's dying, and the Doctor—”
The man was no sentimentalist, and to do him justice made no hypocritical pretence of being one. He consigned the baby and its mother and the doctor to Hell, and the wicket would have closed but for the point of Hal's stick.
“Open the gate!” roared Hal. It was idle pretending not to hear Hal anywhere within half a mile of him when he filled his lungs for a cry. “Open it quick, you blackguard! You gross vat-load of potato spirit, you—”
That the Governor should speak a language familiar to the governed was held by the Romans, born rulers of men, essential to authority. This theory Hal also maintained. His command of idiom understanded by his people was one of his rods of power. In less time than it took the trembling porter to loosen the bolts, Hal had presented him with a word picture of himself, as seen by others, that must have lessened his self-esteem.
“I didn't know as it was you, Doctor,” explained the man.
“No, you thought you had only to deal with some helpless creature you could bully. Stir your fat carcass, you ugly cur! I'm in a hurry.”
The House Surgeon was away, but an attendant or two were lounging about, unfortunately for themselves, for Hal, being there, took it upon himself to go round the ward setting crooked things straight; and a busy and alarming time they had of it. Not till a couple of hours later did he fling himself forth again, having enjoyed himself greatly.
A gentleman came to reside in the district, a firm believer in the wisdom of the couplet: “A woman, a spaniel and a walnut tree, The more you beat them the better they be.” The spaniel and the walnut tree he did not possess, so his wife had the benefit of his undivided energies. Whether his treatment had improved her morally, one cannot say; her evident desire to do her best may have been natural or may have been assisted; but physically it was injuring her. He used to beat her about the head with his strap, his argument being that she always seemed half asleep, and that this, for the time being, woke her up. Sympathisers brought complaint to Hal, for the police in that neighbourhood are to keep the streets respectable. With the life in the little cells that line them they are no more concerned than are the scavengers of the sewers with the domestic arrangements of the rats.
“What's he like?” asked Hal.
“He's a big 'un,” answered the woman who had come with the tale, “and he's good with his fists—I've seen him. But there's no getting at him. He's the sort to have the law on you if you interfere with him, and she's the sort to help him.”
“Any likely time to catch him at it?” asked Hal.
“Saturdays it's as regular as early closing,” answered the woman, “but you might have to wait a bit.”
“I'll wait in your room, granny, next Saturday,” suggested Hal.
“All right,” agreed the woman, “I'll risk it, even if I do get a bloody head for it.”
So that week end we sat very still on two rickety chairs listening to a long succession of sharp, cracking sounds that, had one not known, one might have imagined produced by some child monotonously exploding percussion caps, each one followed by an answering groan. Hal never moved, but sat smoking his pipe, an ugly smile about his mouth. Only once he opened his lips, and then it was to murmur to himself: “And God blessed them and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply.”
The horror ceased at last, and later we heard the door unlock and a man's foot upon the landing above. Hal beckoned to me, and swiftly we slipped out and down the creaking stairs. He opened the front door, and we waited in the evil-smelling little passage. The man came towards us whistling. He was a powerfully built fellow, rather good-looking, I remember. He stopped abruptly upon catching sight of Hal, who stood crouching in the shadow of the door.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“Waiting to pull your nose!” answered Hal, suiting the action to the word. And then laughing he ran down the street, I following.
The man gave chase, calling to us with a string of imprecations to stop. But Hal only ran the faster, though after a street or two he slackened, and the man gained on us a little.
So we continued, the distance between us and our pursuer now a little more, now a little less. People turned and stared at us. A few boys, scenting grim fun, followed shouting for awhile; but these we soon out-paced, till at last in deserted streets, winding among warehouses bordering the river, we three ran alone, between long, lifeless walls. I looked into Hal's face from time to time, and he was laughing; but every now and then he would look over his shoulder at the man behind him still following doggedly, and then his face would be twisted into a comically terrified grimace. Turning into a narrow cul-de-sac, Hal suddenly ducked behind a wide brick buttress, and the man, still running, passed us. And then Hal stood up and called to him, and the man turned, looked into Hal's eyes, and understood.
He was not a coward. Besides, even a rat when cornered will fight for its life. He made a rush at Hal, and Hal made no attempt to defend himself. He stood there laughing, and the man struck him full in the face, and the blood spurted out and flowed down into his mouth. The man came on again, though terror was in every line of his face, all his desire being to escape. But this time Hal drove him back again. They fought for awhile, if one can call it fighting, till the man, mad for air, reeled against the wall, stood there quivering convulsively, his mouth wide open, resembling more than anything else some huge dying fish. And Hal drew away and waited.
I have no desire to see again the sight I saw that quiet, still evening, framed by those high, windowless walls, from behind which sounded with ceaseless regularity the gentle swish of the incoming tide. All sense of retribution was drowned in the sight of Hal's evident enjoyment of his sport. The judge had disappeared, leaving the work to be accomplished by a savage animal loosened for the purpose.
The wretched creature flung itself again towards its only door of escape, fought with the vehemence of despair, to be flung back again, a hideous, bleeding mass of broken flesh. I tried to cling to Hal's arm, but one jerk of his steel muscles flung me ten feet away.
“Keep off, you fool!” he cried. “I won't kill him. I'm keeping my head. I shall know when to stop.” And I crept away and waited.
Hal joined me a little later, wiping the blood from his face. We made our way to a small public-house near the river, and from there Hal sent a couple of men on whom he could rely with instructions how to act. I never heard any more of the matter. It was a subject on which I did not care to speak to Hal. I can only hope that good came of it.
There was a spot—it has been cleared away since to make room for the approach to Greenwich Tunnel—it was then the entrance to a grain depot in connection with the Milwall Docks. A curious brick well it resembled, in the centre of which a roadway wound downward, corkscrew fashion, disappearing at the bottom into darkness under a yawning arch. The place possessed the curious property of being ever filled with a ceaseless murmur, as though it were some aerial maelstrom, drawing into its silent vacuum all wandering waves of sound from the restless human ocean flowing round it. No single tone could one ever distinguish: it was a mingling of all voices, heard there like the murmur of a sea-soaked shell.
We passed through it on our return. Its work for the day was finished, its strange, weary song uninterrupted by the mighty waggons thundering up and down its spiral way. Hal paused, leaning against the railings that encircled its centre, and listened.
“Hark, do you not hear it, Paul?” he asked. “It is the music of Humanity. All human notes are needful to its making: the faint wail of the new-born, the cry of the dying thief; the beating of the hammers, the merry trip of dancers; the clatter of the teacups, the roaring of the streets; the crooning of the mot
her to her babe, the scream of the tortured child; the meeting kiss of lovers, the sob of those that part. Listen! prayers and curses, sighs and laughter; the soft breathing of the sleeping, the fretful feet of pain; voices of pity, voices of hate; the glad song of the strong, the foolish complaining of the weak. Listen to it, Paul! Right and wrong, good and evil, hope and despair, it is but one voice—a single note, drawn by the sweep of the Player's hand across the quivering strings of man. What is the meaning of it, Paul? Can you read it? Sometimes it seems to me a note of joy, so full, so endless, so complete, that I cry: 'Blessed be the Lord whose hammers have beaten upon us, whose fires have shaped us to His ends!' And sometimes it sounds to me a dying note, so that I could curse Him who in wantonness has wrung it from the anguish of His creatures—till I would that I could fling myself, Prometheus like, between Him and His victims, calling: 'My darkness, but their light; my agony, O God; their hope!'”
The faint light from a neighbouring gas-lamp fell upon his face that an hour before I had seen the face of a wild beast. The ugly mouth was quivering, tears stood in his great, tender eyes. Could his prayer in that moment have been granted, could he have pressed against his bosom all the pain of the world, he would have rejoiced.
He shook himself together with a laugh. “Come, Paul, we have had a busy afternoon, and I'm thirsty. Let us drink some beer, my boy, good sound beer, and plenty of it.”
My mother fell ill that winter. Mountain born and mountain bred, the close streets had never agreed with her, and scolded by all of us, she promised, “come the fine weather,” to put sentiment behind her, and go away from them.
“I'm thinking she will,” said Hal, gripping my shoulder with his strong hand, “but it'll be by herself that she'll go, lad. My wonder is,” he continued, “that she has held out so long. If anything, it is you that have kept her alive. Now that you are off her mind to a certain extent, she is worrying about your father, I expect. These women, they never will believe a man can take care of himself, even in Heaven. She's never quite trusted the Lord with him, and never will till she's there to give an eye to things herself.”
Hal's prophecy fell true. She left “come the fine weather,” as she had promised: I remember it was the first day primroses were hawked in the street. But another death had occurred just before; which, concerning me closely as it does, I had better here dispose of; and that was the death of old Mr. Stillwood, who passed away rich in honour and regret, and was buried with much ostentation and much sincere sorrow; for he had been to many of his clients, mostly old folk, rather a friend than a mere man of business, and had gained from all with whom he had come in contact, respect, and from many real affection.
In conformity with the old legal fashions that in his life he had so fondly clung to, his will was read aloud by Mr. Gadley after the return from the funeral, and many were the tears its recital called forth. Written years ago by himself and never altered, its quaint phraseology was full of kindly thought and expression. No one had been forgotten. Clerks, servants, poor relations, all had been treated with even-handed justice, while for those with claim upon him, ample provision had been made. Few wills, I think, could ever have been read less open to criticism.
Old Gadley slipped his arm into mine as we left the house. “If you've nothing to do, young 'un,” he said, “I'll get you to come with me to the office. I have got all the keys in my pocket, and we shall be quiet. It will be sad work for me, and I had rather we were alone. A couple of hours will show us everything.”
We lighted the wax candles—old Stillwood could never tolerate gas in his own room—and opening the safe took out the heavy ledgers one by one, and from them Gadley dictated figures which I wrote down and added up.
“Thirty years I have kept these books for him,” said old Gadley, as we laid by the last of them, “thirty years come Christmas next, he and I together. No other hands but ours have ever touched them, and now people to whom they mean nothing but so much business will fling them about, drop greasy crumbs upon them—I know their ways, the brutes!—scribble all over them. And he who always would have everything so neat and orderly!”
We came to the end of them in less than the time old Gadley had thought needful: in such perfect order had everything been maintained. I was preparing to go, but old Gadley had drawn a couple of small keys from his pocket, and was shuffling again towards the safe.
“Only one more,” he explained in answer to my look, “his own private ledger. It will merely be in the nature of a summary, but we'll just glance through it.”
He opened an inner drawer and took from it a small thick volume bound in green leather and closed with two brass locks. An ancient volume, it appeared, its strong binding faded and stained. Old Gadley sat down with it at the dead man's own desk, and snuffing the two shaded candles, unlocked and opened it. I was standing opposite, so that the book to me was upside down, but the date on the first page, “1841,” caught my eye, as also the small neat writing now brown with age.
“So neat, so orderly he always was,” murmured old Gadley again, smoothing the page affectionately with his hand, and I waited for his dictation.
But no glib flow of figures fell from him. His eyebrows suddenly contracted, his body stiffened itself. Then for the next quarter of an hour nothing sounded in the quiet room but his turning of the creakling pages. Once or twice he glanced round swiftly over his shoulder, as though haunted by the idea of some one behind him; then back to the neat, closely written folios, his little eyes, now exhibiting a comical look of horror, starting out of his round red face. First slowly, then quickly with trembling hands he turned the pages, till the continual ratling of the leaves sounded like strange, mocking laughter through the silent, empty room; almost one could imagine it coming from some watching creature hidden in the shadows.
The end reached, he sat staring before him, his whole body quivering, great beads of sweat upon his shiny bald head.
“Am I mad?” was all he could find to say. “Kelver, am I mad?”
He handed me the book. It was a cynically truthful record of fraud, extending over thirty years. Every client, every friend, every relative that had fallen into his net he had robbed: the fortunate ones of a part, the majority of their all. Its very first entry debited him with the proceeds of his own partner's estate. Its last ran—“Re Kelver—various sales of stock.” To his credit were his payments year after year of imaginary interests on imaginary securities, the surplus accounted for with simple brevity: “Transferred to own account.” No record could have been more clear, more frank. Beneath each transaction was written its true history; the actual investments, sometimes necessary, carefully distinguished from the false. In neat red ink would occur here and there a note for his own guidance: “Eldest child comes of age August, '73. Be prepared for trustees desiring production.” Turning to “August, '73,” one found that genuine investment had been made, to be sold again a few months later on. From beginning to end not a single false step had he committed. Suspicious clients had been ear-marked: the trusting discriminated with gratitude, and milked again and again to meet emergency.
As a piece of organisation it was magnificent. No one but a financial genius could have picked a dozen steps through such a network of chicanery. For half a lifetime he had moved among it, dignified, respected and secure.
Whether even he could have maintained his position for another month was doubtful. Suicide, though hinted at, was proved to have been impossible. It seemed as though with his amazing audacity he had tricked even Death into becoming his accomplice.
“But it is impossible, Kelver!” cried Gadley, “this must be some dream. Stillwood, Waterhead and Royal! What is the meaning of it?”
He took the book into his hands again, then burst into tears. “You never knew him,” wailed the poor little man. “Stillwood, Waterhead and Royal! I came here as office boy fifty years ago. He was more like a friend to me than—” and again the sobs shook his little fat body.
I locked the
books away and put him into his hat and coat. But I had much difficulty in getting him out of the office.
“I daren't, young 'un,” he cried, drawing back. “Fifty years I have walked out of this office, proud of it, proud of being connected with it. I daren't face the street!”
All the way home his only idea was: Could it not be hidden? Honest, kindly little man that he was, he seemed to have no thought for the unfortunate victims. The good name of his master, of his friend, gone! Stillwood, Waterhead and Royal, a by-word! To have avoided that I believe he would have been willing for yet another hundred clients to be ruined.
I saw him to his door, then turned homeward; and to my surprise in a dark by-street heard myself laughing heartily. I checked myself instantly, feeling ashamed of my callousness, of my seeming indifference to the trouble even of myself and my mother. Yet as there passed before me the remembrance of that imposing and expensive funeral with its mournful following of tearful faces; the hushed reading of the will with its accompaniment of rustling approval; the picture of the admirably sympathetic clergyman consoling with white hands Mrs. Stillwood, inclined to hysteria, but anxious concerning her two hundred pounds' worth of crape which by no possibility of means could now be paid for—recurred to me the obituary notice in “The Chelsea Weekly Chronicle”: the humour of the thing swept all else before it, and I laughed again—I could not help it—loud and long. It was my first introduction to the comedy of life, which is apt to be more brutal than the comedy of fiction.
But nearing home, the serious side of the matter forced itself uppermost. Fortunately, our supposed dividends had been paid to us by Mr. Stillwood only the month before. Could I keep the thing from troubling my mother's last days? It would be hard work. I should have to do it alone, for a perhaps foolish pride prevented my taking Hal into my confidence, even made his friendship a dread to me, lest he should come to learn and offer help. There is a higher generosity, it is said, that can receive with pleasure as well as bestow favour; but I have never felt it. Could I be sure of acting my part, of not betraying myself to her sharp eyes, of keeping newspapers and chance gossip away from her? Good shrewd Amy I cautioned, but I shrank from even speaking on the subject to Hal, and my fear was lest he should blunder into the subject, which for the usual nine days occupied much public attention. But fortunately he appeared not even to have heard of the scandal.
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