Limehouse Nights

by Thomas Burke

  Lois knew that this was not an idle threat. She had seen things done at the Blue Lantern. There were rooms into which she was not permitted to pry. Once in the cellar she had seen little glass tubes of peculiar shape, coloured papers, and a big machine. She had seen men who came to the private bar, and never called for a drink, but had one given them, and who sat and mumbled across the counter for hours at a stretch.

  And Batty … he, too, knew a bit. He wanted to take her away from the lowering Causeway and the malefic air of the quarter. But he knew that old Hunk would never consent to marriage; Lois was too useful in the bar as a draw to custom. He knew, too, that if he took her forcibly away Hunk would be after them and would drag her back. The only way by which he could get her would be to remove Hunk for a spell, and the only means by which this could be accomplished. … At this point he saw clear. Very little stood between Hunk and the Thames Police Court. A little definite evidence and old Jumbo Bertello could work a raid at the right moment.

  So, the night after the Saturnalia, he took Lois for a bus-ride, and he talked and talked to her. She told him what her dad would do to her if … But he dashed in and assured her that there was not one moment’s danger to her little dear body; not a moment’s. One tiny scrap of evidence in his hands and she would be safe with him for ever.

  Well, that night certain pieces of coloured paper passed from the hands of Lois to those of her Batty, and from Batty they passed to the old copper’s nark. Jumbo hugged those pieces of coloured paper in his breast-pocket and was glad. He would go straight to the station and deposit them, and thus he would be helping his kid to marry the girl he wanted and would also be helping himself to rewards of a more substantial kind. He passed the Star of the East, and noted mechanically that it was closing time; but he noted with a very actual interest that a crowd had assembled at a near corner. Now Jumbo was a man of simple tastes. Above all else he loved the divine simplicity of a fight, and a street crowd acted on him as a red rag on a bull. At such a spectacle his eyes would light up, his nostrils quiver, his hands clench and unclench and his feet dance a double shuffle until, unable longer to remain neutral, he would charge in and lend a hand to whichever party in the contest seemed to be getting the worse. So it was to-night. Within half-a-minute he was in the centre of the crowd. At the end of the full minute he was prostrate on the ground, his skull cracked on the edge of the kerb.

  The inquest was held on the following day, and the full report in the local paper contained the following passage:—

  “The deceased was known in the district as a man who has, on frequent occasions, been of material assistance to the police in the carrying out of their duties in the Dockside. In his pockets were found 1s. 6 ½ d. in coppers and several slips of crisp, coloured paper of a curious quality unknown to any of the paper-makers in London. It is understood that the police are pursuing inquiries.”

  Old Hunk Bottles came down to supper in the parlour of the Blue Lantern at half-past eight that evening, and while Lois ministered to him with parched face and a trembling hand he called for the local paper. The skin of her whole body seemed to go white and damp, and her sunset hair took fire. She saw him turn to the police-court reports and inquests. She saw him read, with a preliminary chuckle of satisfaction, the report on the death of the copper’s nark. And then, like a rabbit before a snake, she shrank against the wall as she saw his face change, and the paper droop from his hands. Very terrible were the eyes that glared at her. She would have made a rush for the door, but every nerve of her was sucked dry. Then the glare faded from his face and he became curiously natural.

  “Well,” he remarked, “bits of coloured paper don’t prove much, do they? Let ’em make all the inquiries they like about their bits of coloured paper. They won’t git far on that. But there’s one thing that bits of coloured paper do prove when they’re in old Jumbo’s pockets, and that is, that you’re going through it to-night, me gel. Right through it.”

  She cuddled the wall and hunched her shoulders as though against an immediate blow.

  “Ar, you can skulk, yeh little copper’s nark, but yer in for it now. What d’I tell yeh? Eh?” He spoke in syrupy tones, terribly menacing. “What d’I tell yeh I’d do? Answer, yeh skunk, answer! Come on!” He approached her with a quick step, and snatched her wrists from her face. “Answer me. What d’I say I’d do to yeh?”

  “Break every bone in me body,” she whimpered.

  “That’s right. But I changed me mind. It’ll make too much noise round the Blue Lantern. I got something better for you, me darling. Y’know our top room?”

  She was silent, and he shook her like a dog. “Answer! Know our top room?”

  “Yes, dad.”

  “Where we keep old Kang Foo’s gorilla what he brought from the Straits?”

  “Yes, dad.”

  “Well, the safest place for little copper’s narks is a top room where they can’t get out. That’s where you’re going to-night. Going to be locked in the top room with old Kang’s gorilla. ’E’ll look after yeh all right. That’ll learn yeh to keep yeh tongue quiet. See? That’s what I’m going to do. Lock you in the dark room with the big monkey. And if yeh don’t know what a gorilla can do to a gel when it gets ’er alone, yeh soon will. So now!”

  “Oh … dad. …” She blubbered, a sick dread filling all her face. “I di’n’ do nothing. I dunno nothin’ ’bout it,” she lied. “I dunno nothing. I ain’t been blabbin’.”

  “Aw, yeh damn little liar!” He lifted a large hand over her. “I’ll give yeh somethin’ extra for lyin’ if yeh don’t cut it. Now then, up yeh go and sleep with little ’Rilla. No nonsense.”

  What happened then was not pleasant to see. She struggled. She screamed hoarse screams which made scarce any sound. She kicked and bit. Her dramatic hair tumbled in a torrent. And her big father flung two arms about her, mishandled her, and dragged her with rattling cries up the steep stair. When they reached the top landing, to which she had never before ascended, and the loft of a room which, she had heard, Kang Foo rented as a stable for his gorilla, all fight was gone from her. A limp, moaning bundle was flung into the thickly dark room. She heard the rattle of a chain as though the beast had been unloosed, and then the door slammed and clicked, and she was alone with the huge, hairy horror.

  In a sudden access of despairing strength she rushed to the window, barred inside and out, and hammered with soft fists and screamed: “Help! Help! Dad’s locked me up with a monkey!”

  It was about half-an-hour later that one came to Batty Bertello, who was taking a glass to the memory of the deceased dad and also to buck himself up a bit, and told him that he had passed the Blue Lantern and had heard a girl’s voice screaming from a top window something about being shut up with a monkey. And Batty, who suddenly realised that Hunk Bottles had heard of those slips of paper, dropped his glass and, with love-madness in his face, dashed for the door, crying:

  “Come on, boys! All of yeh! Old Hunk’s murdering his Lois!”

  And the boys, scenting a fight, went on. They didn’t know where the fight was or whom they were going to fight. It was sufficient that there was a fight. Through brusque streets and timid passages they chased Batty, and when he broke, like a crash of thunder, into the private bar, they followed him.

  “Over, boys!” he cried, and to the intense delight of all he placed a hand on the bar and vaulted the beer engines, bringing down only two glasses. Fired by his example, they followed, and then Hunk Bottles was rushed to the ropes by the crowd—that is, to the farther wall of his own parlour. They lowered upon him; they beetled, arms ready for battle. In the front centre was the alert Batty.

  “Where’s Lois?”

  “G-gone to bed!” answered Hunk, taken aback by the sudden invasion. Then, attempting to recover: “’Ere, what the devil’s all this? ’Ere—Joe, fetch the cops. ’Ere—I—”

  “Shut up!” snapped Batty. “Liar
. You shut ’er up with a monkey upstairs.”

  “Liar, I ’aven’t!”

  “Liar, you ’ave!”

  “Yerss, you ’ave!” roared the crowd, not knowing what it was he had done. “Down ’im, boys. Dot ’im one. Cop ’old o’ Joe—don’t let ’im out.”

  The potman was dragged also into the parlour and the few loungers in the four-ale bar took the opportunity to come round and help themselves to further drinks. “’E’s shut Lois up with a monkey. Aw—dirty dog. Less go up and get ’er out.”

  But then the potman cried upon them: “Don’ be damn fools. Wod yer talkin’ about. ’Ow can ’e shut ’er up wiv a monkey—eh? Yer plurry pie-cans! ’Ow can ’e? We ain’t got no monkey ’ere!”

  “Liar!” cried everybody, as a matter of principle.

  “I ain’t a liar. Go an’ see fer yehselves. We ain’t got no monkey ’ere. Ain’t ’ad one ’ere for nearly a year. Old Kang Foo sold his to Bostock. Don’ make such damn fools o’ yesselves. Nothin’ ain’t been done to the gel. Old ’Unk’s on’y punished ’er cos she’s too chippy. She’s ’is daughter. Got a right to, ain’t ’e? If she’d bin mine I’d ’ave give ’er a good spankin’. ’E’s on’y sent ’er up to the room to frighten ’er. It’s empty—absolutely empty.”

  “Then what’s the screamin’ and rowin’ that’s bin going on all the time? Eh? Listen!”

  Low noises came from above. “Cos she’s frightened—’at’s why. There’s nothin’ there.”

  “Yerss, that’s it,” said the aggrieved Hunk, still wedged against the wall by the crowd. “Yeh makin’ yesselves dam fools. Specially this dam little snipe, son of a copper’s nark. Go up and see fer yesselves since yeh so pushin’. Go on—up yeh go. She’s all right—quiet enough now, cos she’s found out there’s nothing there. I on’y sent ’er there to get a fright. There warn’t no blasted monkey there.”

  “Well, we know the kind o’ swine you are, Hunk. Don’t stand arguin’ there. Get on up!”

  “I ain’t a-arguin’ wiv yer. I’m a-telling of yeh. We ain’t got no monkey. Not fer a year. So now. Go on up and see fer yes-selves, yeh dirty lot of poke-noses. She ain’t ’urt; on’y scared. Half-a-hour in a dark room’ll learn ’er to be’ave, and it wouldn’t do some of you no ’arm. Go on! Get up my clean stairs and knock everything to pieces, yeh pack of flat-faced pleading chameleons!” He stopped and spluttered and shook himself with impotent anger. Any one of the crowd he could have put on the floor with one hand, but he recognised that a gang was a gang, and he accepted the situation. He flung a hand to the stair. “Go on—up yeh go—the ’ole pleadin’ lot of yeh!”

  So up they went.

  At the top of the house all was very still. The sounds of the river came in little low laps. The noises of the street were scarcely heard at all. They paused in a body at the door. The potman was with them with the key. He unlocked the door, shoved it with a casual hand, and piped:

  “Come on, kid—come on out. Some of yeh lovely narky friends think we bin murderin’ yeh.” The boys clustered in an awkward bunch at the door, peering into the darkness. But nobody came out; nobody answered; no sound at all was to be heard. “Strike a light!” shouted a voice. Far below, the silence was bespattered with muddy laughter from the four-ale bar.

  The light was brought, and they crowded in. On the bare floor of the room lay Lois. Portions of her clothing were strewn here and there. Her released hair rippled mischievously over her bosom disclosed to the waist. Her stiff hands were curled into her disordered dress. She was dead. The room was otherwise empty.

  Ding-Dong-Dell

  Tom the Tinker came off the lighter in mid-stream near Limehouse Hole, and was taken to the landing-stage in an absurdly small rowing-boat. His face was cold and grey, his clothes damp and disordered. He had been on a job. Under the uncommunicative Limehouse night the river ran like a stream of molten lead. Stately cargoes pranced here and there. Fussy little tugs champed up-stream. Sirens wailed their unhappy song. Slothful barges rolled and drifted, seeming without home or haven. Cranes creaked and blocks rattled, and far-away Eastern voices were usually expressive in chanties. But Tom the Tinker saw and heard nothing of this. He had not that queer faculty, indispensable to the really successful cracksman, of paying rapt attention to six things at once. He could only concentrate on one thing at a time, and, while that faculty may serve in commerce and office business, it will not serve in the finer, larger spheres of activity. Here are wanted the swift veins, the clear touch, imagination in directed play; every tissue straining at the leash, ready to be off in whatsoever direction the quarry may turn.

  Tom the Tinker, I say, saw only one thing at a time, and on this occasion he was concerned with the nice arrangement of the Bethnal Green jewellery rampage. He did not, therefore, on arriving home, observe the distracted manner of his wife.

  When he entered the kitchen of his house in Pekin Street, Poplar, he noted that she was there; and that was all. The merest babe, though preoccupied with burglary preparations, would have noted more. He kissed her, perfunctorily. She wound both arms about him, also perfunctorily.

  “Ding-Dong been here?” he asked.

  She said: “Yes, Ding-Dong’s been.”

  “Anything to say?”

  “Nope,” she replied, and continued to puff her cigarette.

  He sat down, lifted a smoke from her store, and lit it. His eyes fell to the floor; his hands sought his pockets. His wife looked swiftly at him. He might have been asleep.

  She was a woman who had passed the flush of girlhood, but was not yet old; twenty-nine, maybe; old enough in those parts, though. Still, there were some who had looked upon her and found her not altogether to be despised. There was, for example, Ding-Dong. Somehow, her mouth always tightened when she thought of Ding-Dong; tightened, not in vexation or as a mouth tightens when about to speak hard words, but as a mouth tightens when about to receive and return a kiss. As she sat staring upon her lawful mate, Tom the Tinker, she recalled a certain amiable night when Tom had been giving his undivided attention to a small job—he only worked the small jobs—in Commercial Road, which had long needed his services.

  Do you remember that little four-ale bar, the Blue Lantern, in Limehouse, and the times we used to have there with that dear drunken devil, Jumbo Brentano? Well, it was there, amid the spiced atmosphere of the Orient and under that pallid speck of blue flame, that Jumbo Brentano introduced Ding-Dong to Tom the Tinker as a likely apprentice. His recommendation had taken the form that young Ding-Dong was one of the blasted best; that he’d give his last penny away to a pal; that he’d got the pluck of the devil, where danger was concerned; the guts of a man, where enterprise was concerned; and the heart of a woman, where fidelity and tenderness were concerned. (This last comparison by a well-meaning seeker after truth who knew nothing about Woman.) Moreover, he’d been “in” five times for small jobs, and had thoroughly fleshed his teeth in the more pedestrian paths of his profession.

  It is curious to note that although Jumbo was hopelessly drunk when he effected this introduction in such happy prose-poetry, he spoke little more than the truth. Can you wonder, then, that when a full-blooded girl like Myra, wife of Tom the Tinker, met a boy so alive, so full of these warm virtues, her heart should turn aside from her man, who possessed only the cold, negative virtues, and go out, naked and unashamed, to Ding-Dong?

  You can’t wonder. That is precisely what Myra did. She loved Ding-Dong. She loved him for his superb animal body, and also for his clear honesty, strength and absurdly beautiful ideas of playing the game. She hoped she had cured him of those ideas on the night upon which she now let her memory stretch itself. On that night Ding-Dong had come to the little lurking cottage near the raucous water-side, and found her alone; and, he being full of beer and the intent glee of the moment, had tried to kiss Myra. She had repulsed him with a push in the mouth that had made him angry, and he returned
to the assault. His large, neat hand had caught the collar of her blouse and ripped it fully open. His free arm had slipped her waist and twisted her off her feet. Then he flew at her as a hawk at its prey. A beast leapt within him and devoured all reason. He crushed her against him, and, as their bodies met in contact, she gasped, resisted his embraces with a brief and futile violence, and, the next moment, he found himself holding a limp and surrendered body.

  “Let me go, Ding-Dong,” she had cried.

  “No; I’ll be damned if I do!”

  “I’d just hate for you to be damned, Ding-Dong,” she had said, nestling to him with an expression at once shy and wild. Then wonder awoke within their hearts, wonder of themselves and of one another and of the world, till, very suddenly, the beer went out of him and he flung her aside, and bowed his head, and turned to the door.

  “Where are you going, Ding-Dong?”

  “‘Eh? Oh, home. I’m sorry. I fergot. I was a bit on, I think. I been a beast.”

  “No, you ’aven’t.”

  “But I should ’ave been, if I ’adn’t remembered. P’r’aps you’ll fergive me later on. Bye-bye.”

  “But you ain’t really going?”

  “Yerss.”

  “But—here—going?”

  “Yerss.”

  “Well …” She looked at him, then lifted a delicate finger and pulled his ear. “Well … you damn fool!”

  And somehow he felt that he was.

  He felt it so keenly that it seemed to be up to him to repudiate the soft impeachment. So, whenever Tom the Tinker was professionally busy, Ding-Dong, blond and beautiful and strong as some jungle animal, would come to the cottage, and many delirious hours would be passed in the company of the lonely, lovable Myra.

  He began to be happy. He began to feel that he really was a man. He was asserting himself. He had stolen another man’s wife—sure cachet of masculinity. At the same time he had done nothing dirty, since the man in question didn’t want her; had, indeed, often said so in casual asides, uttered in the intervals of driving steel drills through the walls of iron safes.