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Title: Dumpling
A detective love story of a great labour rising
Author: Coulson Kernahan
Illustrator: Stanley L. Wood
Release date: May 31, 2024 [eBook #73740]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: B. W. Dodge and Company, 1906
Credits: Emmanuel Ackerman, Graeme Mackreth and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DUMPLING ***
THE DUMPLING
[Illustration: THE OPIUM DEN.]
THE DUMPLING
A DETECTIVE LOVE STORY
OF A GREAT LABOUR RISING
BY
COULSON KERNAHAN
Author of
"GOD AND THE ANT," Etc.
Illustrated by
STANLEY L. WOOD
New York
B.W. DODGE AND COMPANY
1907
Copyright, 1906
By WILLIAM T. BELDING
NEW YORK
Copyright, 1907
B.W. DODGE AND COMPANY
NEW YORK
To
LORD AND LADY NORTHCLIFFE:
WITH SINCERE REGARD.
29, Cannon Place,
Brighton
_June 6th, 1906._
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Prologue 1
CHAPTER I.
The Opium Den 15
CHAPTER II.
The Man with the Picture Eyes 26
CHAPTER III.
The Lucifer that Saved my Life 33
CHAPTER IV.
Criminals, Chemicals, and a Crucible 40
CHAPTER V.
A Pair of Handcuffs 46
CHAPTER VI.
The Millionaires' Club 55
CHAPTER VII.
I am Snubbed by Scotland Yard 65
CHAPTER VIII.
"Wanted" by the Police 73
CHAPTER IX.
"Dead Man's Point" 83
CHAPTER X.
I turn Burglar 92
CHAPTER XI.
"What's your little game?" 103
CHAPTER XII.
John Carleton's Burglar Alarm 112
CHAPTER XIII.
The Face at the Broken Window 120
CHAPTER XIV.
Miss Clara "Saves my Life" 126
CHAPTER XV.
My Friend the Dumpling 138
CHAPTER XVI.
The Ghost in the Garden 145
CHAPTER XVII.
The Man with Gorilla Arms 152
CHAPTER XVIII.
I Play the Craven 159
CHAPTER XIX.
The Dumpling's Secret 176
CHAPTER XX.
The New Napoleon 187
CHAPTER XXI.
The Kindness--and Unkindness--of Kate 192
CHAPTER XXII.
The Inexplicable Conduct of Miss Clara 201
CHAPTER XXIII.
Kate's Confession 211
CHAPTER XXIV.
I Discover the Identity of the Dumpling 216
CHAPTER XXV.
John Carleton's Double 221
CHAPTER XXVI.
"Only Starving" 229
CHAPTER XXVII.
Re-enter the Dumpling 243
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Mutiny and a Mesmerist 249
CHAPTER XXIX.
The Mystery of the Third Man 257
CHAPTER XXX.
Forty Miles in a Perambulator! 267
CHAPTER XXXI.
The Great Insurrection Begins 279
CHAPTER XXXII.
Bloodshed 287
CHAPTER XXXIII.
The Battle of Tower Hill 292
CHAPTER XXXIV.
London in Revolution 299
CHAPTER XXXV.
The Great Fight in Fleet Street 303
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Prince Dumpling 313
CHAPTER XXXVII.
The Man in the Cellar 319
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
The Mantle of Napoleon 325
CHAPTER XXXIX.
"God Save the King!" 333
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
In the Opium Den _Frontispiece_
"There peered through a broken pane of
glass ... the white and wicked face
of the Dumpling." _To face p._ 126
"The Dumpling was making a desperate
dash for liberty" " 190
"I fell back in incredulous horror" " 324
THE DUMPLING.
PROLOGUE.
It was an impudent thing to do!
No matter how scorching the July sun, no matter how alluring the
thought of paddling out to ascertain whether the richly wooded
lake-side looked equally lovely from the water; no matter how cunningly
old Satan had spread his snare of mischief "for idle hands to do,"
by guiding me to the very spot where the little boat lay moored at
the water's edge; no matter with what sophistry these, and many other
excuses which I pleaded to a pricking conscience, seemed to mitigate
the offence, the fact remains that I acted in a way which was as
impudent as it was unpardonable.
The owner of the property generously allowed the public to use a
particular footpath through the park. Hence my offence in straying
from the permitted footpath and in exploring unpermitted copses and
woodlands, until I came to this beautiful sheet of water, was for that
very reason all the more graceless and heinous.
But in July, when the holiday spirit is in one's blood, and when all
the world is holiday-making with us, the conventionalities exist only
to be set aside. Chaste matrons who, in chill December, would consider
that to exhibit more than two inches of stocking above the ankle
would be to pass the high-water mark of propriety, and even, to save
a new skirt from being muddied, would hesitate to hitch that garment
higher by another inch, will, in demoralising July, discard these same
stockings altogether, and disport and display themselves, knee-bare,
with never a blush, upon the beach at Margate or at Brighton.
And I who, when in my proper mind and in dress-coated, white-chokered
garb, would not so much as pass a lady in the stalls of a theatre
without first apologising for troubling her and asking for her
permission, acted on this occasion, and under the demoralising spell of
holiday-making and midsummer madness, as any other bounder would act
on a Bank Holiday. No hand had pulled aside the drawn lodge-blind to
gaze at the intruder as I entered the park gates; no surly keeper had
pointed me to a notice board, warning all and sundry that the public
must keep to the footpath, as I strolled along; no tradesman's cart had
rattled briskly up the drive to receive or to deliver orders; and when
between an avenue of trees I caught a glimpse of the house, it looked
so shuttered and sleepy, that I was persuaded "the family"--whoever the
family might be--was away, and that none would come to warn me of my
trespass. Then the path I had taken, between the trees, had led me down
to the water's edge and to the very spot where the boat lay moored.
Thrusting conscience and the conventionalities aside, I seated myself
and sculled lightly out to the middle of the lake. For a good half-hour
I pulled hither and thither as my fancy prompted, and as the various
views to be obtained from the water seemed most alluringly to open; and
then, shipping the sculls, I lay down full length in the bottom of the
boat, my arm under my head as a pillow, and my face turned skyward to
the sun.
I suppose I must have dropped off into a doze, from which I was
aroused by a slight rippling of the water. Being only half awake I
did not trouble myself greatly about the matter. "A swan passing," I
murmured sleepily; "or possibly a water-rat or moor-hen. Let 'em pass.
They're quite welcome, and I'm too comfortable to stir."
But stirred I soon was, and to some purpose. Had my boat been lying at
the wooded lake-side, instead of in the centre of this beautiful sheet
of water, I should have thought at first that a wind-blown branch of
July's own roses had dipped down to rest her unopened blossoms upon the
frail craft's side. For suddenly, upon the gunwale of the boat--just as
if a handful of blush rose-buds had shyly peeped over--there appeared
four of the tiniest, daintiest, most exquisitely tapered finger-tips
that ever were seen upon mortal hand. Pink, petite, faultlessly formed
and finely proportioned, with pearly, oval nails, as symmetrically
cut, as perfectly set and polished as rare opals, the finger-tips upon
which I looked were so lovely that a king might have craved, as a royal
boon, permission to stoop his lips to kiss them. In all the wide world
I was ready to swear there was only one other set of finger-tips as
beautiful, and the very next instant that other set, like love-bird
hastening to perch beside its mate, was laid upon the edge of the boat,
which now began to rock sideways, as if someone in the water were
working up impetus for a spring.
"Lazy bones! lazy bones! Wake up! wake up!" cried a merry voice; and
then--Venus rising from the foam was not half so beautiful--there
bobbed up, framed in clinging golden hair, at the side of the boat, the
fairest young face, the most lovely head and neck and shoulders I have
ever seen.
My awakening had come; and the whole thing had happened so suddenly
that I do not know which of us was more surprised. All I do know is
that the shame and consternation on her face at seeing me were so comic
that, but for my anxiety to spare her blushes, I should have laughed
outright. Small time, however, had I to laugh; small time had she to
blush; for, in her dismay, she suddenly let go her hold of the edge of
the boat, which, released from her weight, rolled over like a turning
porpoise, as neatly tilting me out of the other side and into the water
as if I had been a left crust shaken out of an up-gathered tablecloth
by a housewife's hand.
That those who begin by playing the fool generally end by finding
the fat in the fire is proverbial. In making free with other folk's
property I had behaved not only like a fool, but like a mannerless
schoolboy; and now, if the fat could not exactly be said to be in the
fire, the fool was undoubtedly in the water. Fortunately for this
particular fool he happened to be an expert swimmer, or my silly
holiday escapade might have ended tragically for my fair capsizer as
well as for myself. She, however, showed herself as what, in sporting
parlance, is known as "a good pluck'd 'un."
A moment's hysterical screaming and frantic beating of the water may be
passed by as no more than a concession to her sex, an acknowledgment
of a woman's weakness, and can in no way be said to detract from the
courage which she afterwards displayed. In the next instant she had
grabbed me (somewhat painfully for me, I admit) by the hair, and
manfully--if I may use that word of a woman--raising my head out of the
water, had gasped agitatedly, "Can you swim?"
I do not deny that I behaved abominably. I was already as over head and
eyes in love with this peerless Lady of the Lake as I had a moment ago
been over head and ears in water; and to swim unromantically ashore,
there perhaps to be handed over to the care of the local constable,
with the prospect of being brought up before my fair capsizer's father
(who was very possibly a magistrate) as a common trespasser, if not as
a common thief, did not appeal to me as either romantic or as likely
to further my suit. But to appear to owe my life to her, to be in a
position to hail her as a heroine and as my preserver, and myself
henceforth and for ever her grateful and adoring slave, who, even if
he devoted all his remaining years to her service, could never hope to
repay her for thus snatching him from a watery grave--to do this was
to put myself in a very different light. Were I to admit that I could
swim, she would, without the shadow of a doubt, haughtily point me in
one direction, while she with equal haughtiness would swim away in the
other. But to proclaim myself no swimmer, and consequently helpless,
would constitute an appeal to her womanhood which she, being clearly
an expert in the water, could not and would not refuse. To do so would
at once establish a relationship between us more intimate than I could
hope to attain in a twelvemonth spent or misspent in meeting her at
her own home (even could I get invited there), or at the houses of
mutual acquaintances, supposing such mutual acquaintances to exist.
Frankly, I would have pawned my soul for another five minutes in her
company. To speak the unpalatable truth meant that the five minutes
would undoubtedly be denied me;--meant that she and I must part, never
perhaps to meet again. To lie, meant not only making that coveted five
minutes my own, but possibly meant more--immeasurably, infinitely more,
than this. The thought of what that lie might mean, might win for me,
turned my love-sick soul well-nigh delirious. It _might_ mean (and to
one man, at least, on earth Paradise seemed possible again) that a hand
so soft, so delicate that I could have crushed a dozen such hands in
my own huge grasp as easily as one crumples up a score of rose-leaves,
yet so fateful for all its feebleness that, even as easily as one could
crush the rose-leaves, so more easily could that tiny hand crush and
kill the joy which was upspringing in my heart;--a hand so small that
it could not span the half of my wrist, yet could hold the whole of my
hopes and my heaven--a lie might mean that this tiny hand would for
full five paradisiacal minutes be given into my care and keeping, while
its owner should be my guardian angel, a wingless angel in a bathing
dress, to guide me safely ashore!
Which was it to be--Truth or Falsehood?
"Speak the truth and you'll shame the Devil!" thundered Duty.
"Tell a falsehood, and you won't make a fool of yourself," whispered
Desire.
Unhesitatingly I plumped for falsehood.
"I can't swim a stroke," I said.
* * * * *
We got ashore--or nearly so, at least; and that I in no way assisted
to accelerate the journey will be plain, as the phrase goes, to the
meanest intelligence.
But sit down in cold blood--if not, fortunately as I was then, in wet
clothes--to describe that elysian passing, I may not.
Spirit readers of mine--if spirit readers of mortal book there be--who
have been borne on angel pinions to heaven, may be able to enter into
my feelings at being thus wafted through magic waters by an angel hand.
Gross mortals of flesh and blood may not. But spirit readers have this
advantage over me--that whereas they, at the end of their journey,
saw the gates of Heaven open, I, at the end of mine, saw the gates of
Paradise too rudely closed.
When we were some ten yards from the shore, and while I was rehearsing
to myself the touching scene of our landing--I falling on my knees
before her, and, in a voice which I intended doing my best to make
appear broken with emotion, calling the heavens to witness that but
for her I should now be weltering in my grave (I was not exactly sure
what "weltering" meant, but it sounded wet and weedy and watery, and,
as Milton had used the word in a similar sense, it could not be far
wrong)--she, her beautiful eyes suffused with tears, one or two of
which, I arranged, should drop upon my upturned worshipping face,
would then bend over me and, laying a hand tenderly on my head, would
sob, "My poor fellow! Do not give way. You are safe. The danger is
past!"--while I was rehearsing this pretty and touching picture, she
suddenly stopped. Thus far she had been swimming, and swimming strongly
on her breast, striking out with her left arm and supporting my head
with her right. Now, as I say, she stopped, and I feared that she was
becoming exhausted.
"Put down your feet," she said, "and see if you can feel the ground."
I did so, and found that we were in water sufficiently shallow to allow
me to stand upright with my chin well above the surface.
"Yes," I said, "we're safe. My feet are on the ground. How can I ever
thank you? How can----"
"Then wade the rest of the way," she cut me short, cruelly. "Don't
trespass any more! Don't take boats that don't belong to you, and don't
get out of your depth again until you have learned to swim."
The next instant she had dived under and was gone, the flick of her
tiny heels, as they came together when she threw them up, seeming like
the snap of a derisive finger in my face.
Feeling, and looking, more foolish than I remember ever to have felt
and looked before, I waded clumsily to the bank, telling myself,
by way of comfort, that her curt dismissal and her sharp words were
the result only of the inevitable reaction which comes after a time
of tension and nerve strain. But from a clump of rushes, behind
which I had reason to think my late rescuer lay hidden, came a sound
suspiciously like suppressed laughter; and in somewhat of a temper--for
no one likes to be ridiculed by a beautiful woman--I clambered up the
bank, an ungainly figure, on all fours.
Again came that rippling music from behind the rushes; so, with a very
scarlet face, and with as upright a carriage of head and body as I
could assume--a carriage, which I may say for the benefit of the reader
was intended to express wounded dignity, but which I had a sneaking
suspicion savoured more of self-conscious stiffness and injured
pride--I walked angrily away, some verses by Austin Dobson running in
my head:
"And that's how I lost her--a jewel,
_Incognita_--one in a crowd,
Nor prudent enough to be cruel,
Nor worldly enough to be proud."
"Only _my_ Incognita," I said to myself as I entered the hotel, "is
'prudent enough to be cruel' and 'worldly enough to be proud.' Never
mind! I've found her, and by heaven! if mortal man can do it, I'll win
her yet. How lovely she looked! How divinely lovely! And was there ever
a woman since the world began with such beautiful hands?"
At this point my meditations were interrupted by the entrance of the
waiter with an express letter in his hand for me, marked "Very Urgent."
It was from the editor of the _Charing Cross Magazine_.
"Dear Mr. Rissler," it ran. "Waldorf, the American millionaire, has
bought the magazine. He's got a friend who has done some rather bad
drawings of what he thinks looks like the inside of an Opium Den. But
the chief has bought them, and has promised his friend to have an
article written up to them, to go into the next number.
"You're the man to do it, and I want you to come back by first train,
so as to root out an East End Opium Den this very night, and let us
have copy to-morrow. Don't fail."
"H'm!" I said to myself, twiddling the letter between my fingers. "What
a nuisance! I shall never rest till I have found out all about my Lady
of the Lake, and I meant to have begun investigations this very night.
But a poor devil of a writer of magazine articles and detective stories
can't afford to offend the powers that be--especially so influential an
editor as Harrison, or so wealthy a proprietor as Waldorf. So to London
I must go, worse luck: to London I must go!"
Within half an hour I had changed my clothes, packed, paid my bill, and
was in the train.
"Good-bye, my lovely Lady Disdain, my dear and lovely Lady of the
Lake," I said, kissing my hand in the direction of my late escapade, as
we puffed out of the station; "or rather _au revoir_, for soon, very
soon, we shall meet again."
CHAPTER I.
THE OPIUM DEN.
I did not half like the look of things.
Of the two Chinamen who were placidly smoking opium in a corner of the
opium den I had no fear. Though their bodies lay immovable as logs, the
eyes of these Chinamen turned continually in their sockets, following
my movements about the room. But they were merely idly curious, not
threatening, in the intentness of their stare. They reminded me of
pigs lolling on a muck-heap in the sunshine, too lazy to move, too
lazy almost to blink, but keeping meanwhile a watchful eye upon the
movements of an intrusive terrier.
What I did not like was the curious behaviour of the half-dozen men
whom I had found knocking their heads together in a corner when I had
entered. My appearance upon the scene had caused them to start apart so
guiltily that I was convinced the conference they were holding was for
no good purpose; and when, after a few whispered words, two of them
stole softly out, and stationed themselves at the foot of the staircase
as if to cut off my retreat, while two others got between me and the
door, I could not but feel uneasy.
The two who remained--one of whom seemed to be the leader of the
gang--were now holding a conference, the subject of which was evidently
myself, and, judging by the lowering looks they cast in my direction,
they were not about to move a resolution according me a vote of welcome.
On my road from Poplar Station to Limehouse Causeway I had not passed
a single policeman, and no one, except the old negro to whom I had
offered a couple of shillings if he would take me to a place where they
"smoked the opium," had seen me enter the house. Accepting my offer, he
had turned at right angles out of Limehouse Causeway, and walked for
some distance till we came to a narrow court.
Out of this he had piloted me at right angles into another narrower
and quite unlighted court, blocked up at the end by lath palings,
and so forming a _cul-de-sac_. At the darkest and farthest corner he
had stopped in front of what appeared to be an unlighted house, and
pushing open a door which led into a dark and evil-smelling passage,
had said: "In thar, sah!" had spat upon and pocketed my florin, and
taken himself off.
I entered, and encountering no one, groped my way along the passage
until it ended at a closed door, with a staircase immediately on the
right. In my groping I chanced to put my fingers upon the handle.
Turning it, I pushed open the door, and found myself in what seemed
like a disused kitchen. There was a dresser along one side, and a
copper for boiling clothes stood in a corner. The only light came from
a small window opening upon a yard, and as the room was practically
empty and unfurnished, I tiptoed out, and, closing the door silently,
made my way up the staircase to the first landing. Here were two doors,
under each of which a chink of feeble light was to be seen. I knocked
at the nearest door, and receiving no answer, turned the handle. It
was locked, but a scuffling noise within, and the prompt extinguishing
of the light, told me that the room was not untenanted. Knocking at
the second door, a gruff voice commended me so whole-heartedly and
enthusiastically to the care and protection of one who, in polite
circles, goes generally unmentioned, that, not desiring the further
acquaintance of the party or parties on the other side of the door, I
continued my way upstairs.
On the second landing was a window, immediately below which was the
small walled-in yard that I had seen from the kitchen, and beyond this
a patch of waste land. Just then the moon, which, like a cruiser with
"lights down," had been gliding silently and unseen across the dark sea
of the sky, came out for a moment from behind the clouds to sweep her
searchlight over this enclosed patch of ground, as over alien waters;
and, in the white surprise of the searchlight, I saw that dead cats,
cabbage stalks, and offal of all sorts were rotting and festering on
the unsavoury spot, and that beyond, on the other side of a dilapidated
fence, was the river.
"From the point of view of a criminal," I said to myself, "this
staircase offers unique advantages. For the committal of a crime, here,
surely, is a vantage ground which is ideal and ready-made to hand. A
stranger, ascending the staircase, as I am, in the dark, could be
knocked on the head with impunity, and nobody be the wiser. Under cover
of night, the body could be dropped out of the window, conveyed across
that fever-breeding piece of waste land, and hoisted over yonder fence
into the river. In an hour a corpse would be borne miles away from the
scene of the crime, leaving never so much as a trace behind to tell
how, and by whose hand, it came there."
The thought was not reassuring; and when, the next instant, I arrived
at the topmost landing, and, on opening a door and entering the den,
saw two evil-looking rascals hurry out to cut off my retreat by the
staircase, while two others got between me and the door, as already
described, I began to realise that the hospitality which seemed likely
to be pressed upon me would not be of the nature of an invitation to
stay to tea.
Just at this moment I was aware of a dull noise in the distance. There
was a slight but ever-increasing vibration in the boards beneath me,
a gathering rumble and roll as of approaching thunder, and with a
hoarsely discordant shriek, an ear-splitting babel-tumult and roar,
which seemed to shake the house to its foundations, an express train
hurtled by, almost outside the very windows.
Under the present condition of electric communication, and with no
apparatus, the sending of a telephonic message for help to the police
office would have been scarcely less impossible of accomplishment than
making known my present danger to anyone on board the train; yet so
unreasoning are we in the causes which arouse or allay our nervousness,
that the consciousness of my near presence to the railway did more to
bolster up my courage than all my philosophy. "With the trains and
their living freights so near at hand, I don't feel altogether cut off
from the outside world," I said to myself; and as the two men in the
corner were still whispering together, I plucked up heart to take stock
of my surroundings.
The den was lit by a single paraffin lamp, to the unassisted industry
of which I was at first inclined to ascribe the vile atmosphere of the
place.
"That light we see is burning in my hall.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world,"
says Portia. The light which I saw burning in the den did not shed
its beams very far; but in the matter of shedding smells in a world,
nice or naughty, I judged its capacity at a low estimate as forty
horse-power! An ordinary motor-car, in its most perfumed moments,
leaves trailing clouds of glory and cherry blossom in its wake compared
to that lamp's distribution of oily odours on the atmosphere.
Add to this the insufferable and sickening stench of opium--a stench
which I can only compare to a choice blending of onions and bad
tobacco--and the reader will not wonder when I say that my stomach
signalled for full speed astern, by retching rebelliously under my
breast-bone.
Greasy as was the atmosphere, the dirty yellow distempering of the
walls was in places even greasier. The chief articles of furniture were
two raised mattresses, the bare wall behind them being literally coated
with dirt and grease, rubbed from the chaste persons and fastidious
clothes of many smokers. Above these mattresses a crudely coloured and
revolting representation of the Crucifixion was incontinently fastened,
and upon the mattresses lay the Chinamen of whom I have already spoken.
Of the two men still whispering in the corner, the leader was of
singular appearance. In figure he was dumpy and comfortably rounded,
which was, I suppose, the reason of the nickname, "The Dumpling," which
I afterwards heard applied to him. His neck was so short, and his huge
head was set so closely upon his high shoulders, and thrust forward
so prominently, as almost to suggest the hunchback. But if the figure
was grotesque, the clean-shaven face was striking and powerful. It was
absolutely grey in hue, like the face of a dead or dying man; but so
far from being spare and haggard, as one would have expected from so
unhealthy and colourless a complexion, the face, like the neck, was
full, and the features of the fleshly aquiline type. The forehead was
high and intellectual, but the eyes were his most singular feature.
Accustomed as I am, as the phrase goes, "to read character," this man
utterly baffled me, for the eyes of two totally different men looked
out from the same head. On the occasion of which I am speaking his
eyes, when they rested upon me, seemed the incarnation of all that is
cunning, cruel, treacherous. Yet in the eyes of this same man, as I
came to know him thereafter, I have seen the most singular and gentle
melancholy.
Even on this eventful evening, when I saw him at his worst, his eyes,
as he turned from me to the fellow to whom he was speaking, and for
whom he seemed to entertain something like affection, softened as if in
response to some inner workings of his mind, and I saw in their depths
a dumb, inarticulate look like that one sees sometimes in the eyes of a
dog.
As he was talking he turned suddenly--perhaps because of something
which his companion had said--and looked me straight in the eyes. I
shall no doubt be laughed at when I say that I was suddenly seized by
the most singular sense of helplessness. My powers seemed paralysed at
their centre. Minded as I was to struggle or to cry out against the
influence he was exerting upon me, I could do neither. Then--whether
the result of mesmerism or of thought suggestion on his part, or of a
sort of second sight on mine, I cannot say; but I saw, as in a tableau,
myself lying helpless upon my back, with this man kneeling on my chest,
his eyes looking into mine as they were looking now, and an upraised
knife in his hand.
What could it mean?
I am not a nervous, neurotic person, but a healthy, normal, open-air
being, who has never dabbled in the mysteries of spiritualism,
hypnotism, second-sight, or clairvoyance; nor had such tableaux as I
saw when looking into this man's eyes ever before presented themselves
to me.
For a moment he held me thus, and then there was the sound of a laugh.
Whether it was the man then standing before me in the opium den who
thus laughed, or whether it was the man I had seen kneeling on my
chest, a knife in his hand and my life at his mercy, I do not know, and
matters nothing, for the face was the same. Then suddenly he turned
from me, another being altogether.
"No, don't, old man; think of the risk you run," I heard him say to his
friend, laying a hand affectionately on the other's shoulder, those
inscrutable eyes of his--all the cunning and cruelty gone--becoming
liquid and appealing.
But to myself I said: "One day--perhaps within the next hour, perhaps
to-morrow, perhaps in the far future--this man, knife in hand, will
kneel over my prostrate and helpless figure, as I saw him kneel just
now; and when that moment comes--come it to-night, to-morrow, or come
it ten years hence--one of us two must leap the barrier which fences
this world from the next, ere he shall escape. Which of us two shall it
be? And when shall that moment come?"
As I so spoke the two men turned to me. Evidently they had arrived
at some decision, and that they meant to do me a mischief, if not to
murder me outright, I knew as surely as if someone had whispered their
plans in my ear. Once again their leader fixed me with his eyes. Once
again I was conscious of the same strange feeling of helplessness;
and once again figures shaped themselves before me as in a tableau.
Two men were lying in wait on a dark staircase to brain yet another
man--myself--as he groped his way out.
CHAPTER II.
THE MAN WITH THE PICTURE-EYES.
"Good evening."
It was the leader of the gang who had spoken, smiling and rubbing his
hands softly the one on the other, as pleased, apparently, as any
purring cat.
"Good evening," I responded curtly.
"May we ask to what we owe the pleasure of your presence here?" he
continued suavely, but watching me closely meanwhile.
"My presence here?" I said, as if surprised by the question. "Why
shouldn't I come here, any more than you? It is a public place, isn't
it? And I came here to smoke opium, as you and your friends have done,
I suppose; just as one goes to a tavern for a glass of beer."
"Not at all," he replied. "This is a private house, just as much as
your own house is, and you have no more right to force your way into
it, than I have to force myself into yours. You stand in the position
of a trespasser. For all I know to the contrary, you may even be what
in America they call an area sneak-thief, except for the fact that you
have sneaked your way to the top of the house instead of to the area.
May I ask who directed you here? I _must_ ask, for I insist upon having
an answer."
"'Must' and 'insist' are not palatable words or pleasant," I said; "but
I don't know that I have any objection to tell you. It was a negro
match-seller whom I saw outside Poplar Station. I offered him two
shillings if he would take me to an opium den, and it was to this house
he led me."
"Ah! A negro match-seller, and outside Poplar Station. Oh, yes. I think
I know the fellow. We must look into this."
He stopped to cast a sidelong glance at the other man, who nodded and,
walking to the door, stood whispering to his two confederates outside.
Fearing that they were planning to attack me from behind, I twisted my
head slightly so as to keep half an eye and the whole of an ear towards
them, but not so much so as not to have the other eye open to any
movement of their leader, who was still in the room. As he was silent,
I was now able to give both ears to the whispering outside; but what
it was about I could not for all the sharpness of my hearing make out,
except for the fact that I distinctly caught the words "Black Sam."
Then, greatly to my relief, the two men, with whom the fellow at the
door was whispering, nodded and took their departure, clumping heavily
down the staircase to the second landing, to the first, and thence to
the door. Here I distinctly heard a sound as of the letting go of a
spring latch, which in all probability locked the door from the inside.
Then the door was banged to, as if to ensure that it was securely
shut; but even this did not satisfy them, for, if I were not very much
mistaken, they tried it, before leaving, by pushing heavily against it
from the outside.
To know that the front door of the house was in all probability locked,
and that, if my hosts and I came to hand-grips, my chances of escaping,
by making a bolt for the street, were now cut off, was not reassuring.
But I drew what consolation I could from the fact that the assailing
force by which I was surrounded was reduced from six to four--two in
the room and two on the staircase outside; and so I put as bold a
face as I could upon it when the man, who had been cross-examining me,
opened fire once more, his companion standing meanwhile just inside the
door.
"And now, sir," resumed the counsel for the prosecution, "that we know
to whom we are indebted for the pleasure of your company here, will you
be so very good as to tell us why you are here at all?"
Thus far I had told him the truth, and I saw no reason why I should not
continue to do so. It was Lord Beaconsfield, I think, who said that,
when he wished to mystify his opponents, he almost invariably did so by
telling them the truth. That being the last thing they expected from
him, they would jump to the conclusion that the facts were the other
way about, and so go hopelessly wrong at the start.
My reasons for deciding to be frank were based upon no such subtlety.
That I had, quite unintentionally, blundered into a den of criminals,
seemed evident; and undoubtedly the next best thing to do was to get
out. I am not, I hope, altogether a coward, but one man, caught as I
was, like a rat in a trap, is no match for four, possibly for six--for
how was I to know that the two who had been stationed outside the
door, and had apparently departed upon some errand, might not return?
I could not even be positive that they had not been told off to wait
for me in the dark court outside, so that in the event of my managing
to escape unharmed from the house, they might prevent me from reaching
the street. In coming to the place at all, I had beyond question put my
head between the jaws of a lion; and the man who, with his head between
a lion's jaws, plays the fool by trying to twist the beast's tail, must
not be surprised if, within the next two seconds, his own head be not
on speaking, or even on nodding terms, with his own body.
"I don't mind telling you why I'm here," I said civilly. "Why should
I? It is only because I have been asked to write an article on opium
dens for the _Charing Cross Magazine_. The den I visited once before in
Ratcliff Highway has been pulled down, and a big Board School built on
the site. I knew that there were dens somewhere in the neighbourhood of
Limehouse Causeway, but I didn't know exactly where to find them, so I
took the train to Poplar, gave a negro match-seller--who, I guessed,
knew something of the locality--a couple of shillings to take me to
'where they smoked the opium.' He brought me here, where I am, and
where apparently I ought not to be, judging by what you say. If I have
intruded or trespassed, I'm sorry. So, with your kind permission, sir,
I'll say 'Good evening' and take myself off."
"Stop a moment," he said, looking at me more amicably. "Your
explanation is quite straightforward and satisfactory, and now that
you've made it, I don't mind telling you the reason for what you must
have thought strange behaviour on our part.
"This place, as you see for yourself, is an opium den, and these
gentlemen," indicating the Chinamen on the mattresses, the two men at
the foot of the stairs, and his companion, "are sailors. Opium smoking
is forbidden among sailors in the employ of English vessels, and we
thought when you came in that you were an officer from one of the
vessels, who had managed to find out the den, and had come here to make
yourself unpleasant. That is why I sent those men to guard the door
and the stairs. If you had been what we thought you--well, I'm afraid
you'd have been rather roughly handled. We don't intend to allow ships'
officers, or anyone else, to come here interfering with our pleasures
or with our takings, for, of course, we don't run the den out of
charity. Now that I know it's all right, I'll just have a word with my
friends on the stairs, and tell them that they needn't stand on guard
any more. They'll be glad to get away, for they are thirsty rascals
both, and were just off for a drink when you came in."
Taking his companion by the arm, he walked out upon the landing, where
all four of them began whispering together.
Scarcely were they out of the room when, from the mattress where the
two Chinamen lay, a single word, uttered softly, warningly, stealthily,
almost in a whisper, under the breath, reached my ear.
It was my own Christian name, spoken in unmistakable English: "Max!"
CHAPTER III.
THE LUCIFER THAT SAVED MY LIFE.
Surprised, not to say startled, I certainly was, and all the more so
for the reason that I recognised the voice of the speaker. It was that
of my long time friend and at one time colleague, Robert Grant, the
detective.
When I turned round--not suddenly or abruptly, for I feared to attract
the attention, possibly the suspicion, of the four men still whispering
on the landing--the two Chinamen were still sucking nonchalantly at
their flute-shaped opium pipes, and still eyeing me, as I have already
said, as pigs, lying on a muck-heap in the sunshine, eye a terrier who
has entered their domain.
Stretching my arms, I affected to yawn, as if tired of waiting the
result of the conference outside. Then, hands deep in my trousers
pockets, I slouched leisurely across the room and bent over the
Chinamen's mattress, as if to examine the picture of the Crucifixion
which was plastered on the wall above.
The nearer of the two Chinamen made a great pretence of puffing noisily
at his pipe, as if trying hard to prevent it from going out, but
between each puff came a volley of whispered words in soft staccato:
"Make pretence to be friendly with them--disarm suspicion--but get
away--if they'll let you--go to police station--say it's me--arrest the
lot. Look out--they're coming--go away!"
The "they" were the leader and the other man.
They now returned to the room, still whispering, and the two who had
been on guard at the head of the stairs, after noisily calling out
"Good-night," made their way down, and so into the street, for we could
distinctly hear them unlocking the door, which this time--as I did not
hear it banged to--they had apparently left open.
"I don't think much of your Art Exhibition," I said, turning to the
leader of the gang and jerking my thumb over my shoulder in the
direction of the hideous representation of the Crucifixion, at which I
had made pretence to be looking. "It reminds me of what I once said to
a famous art critic and æsthete about a picture that hung in some cheap
bachelor lodgings of mine.
"'I have a picture in my room,' I said to him, 'that will give your
æsthetic senses a cold chill, not to say a shock. It's "Daniel in the
Lions' Den," done in chromo--four colours--and loud enough to win a
whistling match.'
"'How terrible!' said my friend. 'But I can imagine something even more
terrible.'
"'What is it?' I inquired.
"'A poor lion in a den of Daniels,' was the reply."
I told this story, as the reader will have surmised, in pursuance of
Grant's advice to "make pretence to be friendly," and apparently it had
the desired effect, for the leader of the gang seemed amused.
"I think I can place the man who said it," he said. "I used to meet him
often in Paris. No; we're not great on Art here, and that picture over
the couch is a terror. I've made it all right for you with my friends.
Would you like to smoke a pipe of opium, now you're here? You can if
you like."
"That's very kind of you, but I don't think I'll stop to-night," I
replied. "Fact is, you gave me a fright between you, for really I
thought you meant knocking me on the head."
He laughed.
"All right; come some other night, if you like. I'm sorry if we
frightened you, but of course we have to protect ourselves, and really
I thought at first that you had come here to interfere with our
customers and with our business. But it is all right now, and if you
want to be off, we won't detain you. Good-night."
"Good-night," I answered pleasantly, glad to get away, and making for
the door. With my hand on the handle I turned and looked back. My late
host, the man whom I have called the leader, was standing--a sort of
pocket caricature of Napoleon--his hands behind his back, and his
short legs straddled widely apart. His great head, resting almost on
his shoulders, was thrust forward, vulture-wise, the eyes glittering
venomously out of the dead-white face. On the mattress behind him, the
two men whom I had supposed to be Chinamen, but one of whom I now knew
to be Detective Grant, pulled away at their pipes as nonchalantly as
ever, the ghastly figure of the Crucified One stretching bare arms
over them on the wall.
"Good-night," smiled the leader again. "Good-night, and _bon voyage_."
I do not know why I shuddered--perhaps out of fear for Grant;
perhaps at the thought of the sacred figure of the Saviour in such
surroundings; perhaps merely because I was tired and overstrained.
But with the shudder shaking me, almost like an ague, I turned, closed
the door, and made my way down the stairs.
From the second landing window, the yard which lay immediately
underneath and the stretch of waste land beyond, looked more
darkly-desolate than ever. A single light on the far side of the river
made a snake of fire, writhing and twisting as if in the throes of
torturing agony upon the water. Otherwise, nothing moved, nothing
stirred.
Arrived at the first landing I saw that the chink of light from under
the two doors had gone, so that the stairs, leading down to the passage
and to the kitchen door, were in absolute darkness. As I reached the
bottom of the stairs and turned into the passage, I was immensely
relieved to see that the front door stood ajar, evidently as the two
men who had just gone out had left it. The whiff of outer air which
blew through the opening was infinitely sweet after the reek and stench
of opium in the den upstairs. My spirits rose at a bound. Surely I must
have been mistaken in thinking the house other than merely a place for
the smoking of opium. If anything illicit, anything in the nature of
crime, were carried on here, the door would not have been left ajar,
as I now found it, nor have been left unlatched and unlocked as it was
when I had first come to the place.
All this went through my brain in a flash while my foot was between the
last step of the staircase and the passage floor. Then suddenly the
picture I had seen, when looking in the eyes of the leader of the gang,
flashed before me--the picture of a man in a dark passage, as I at that
moment was, and two other men waiting to brain him as he groped his way
out.
"It's precious dark here!" I said aloud as if to myself, and in the
most unconcerned voice I could assume. "I must go carefully, for I
nearly came a cropper over the break-neck stairs in going up."
Meanwhile, I had been feeling stealthily in my pocket for a match-box.
Ah! I had it!
Slipping out a vesta, I struck it sharply, and placing the palm of my
open hand between the flame and myself, so as to shade my own face and
to cast what light there was in the direction of the door, I scanned
the passage as if I had of a sudden become all eyes. Stretched across,
just where it would take me over the ankle and so cause me to stumble
forward, was a piece of wire. Behind the door, and with what looked
like an iron bar, upraised ready to strike as I fell, was a man; and in
case he failed to finish me, another--for I saw the white face of him
peeping through the chink of the partly opened door--stood outside. And
then, as the light in my hand suddenly flickered and went out, I heard
behind me the stealthy steps of someone creeping down the stairs.
CHAPTER IV.
CRIMINALS, CHEMICALS, AND A CRUCIBLE.
Smoking may, as some good folk aver, be a vile and filthy habit, but
it was the fact that I am a smoker which saved my life that night. On
my way to the den I had fancied a pipe, and finding I had no matches,
had been at the outlay of a penny in the purchase of a box. But for the
fact that I happened to have these lucifers with me, and so was able
to obtain a light, I should have blundered into the trap that was so
cunningly set for me. But for the fact that, in the moment of striking
the match, the light had fallen upon the kitchen door, and I had seen
that a key stood in the lock on the outside, I might never have needed
pipe or matches more.
To remount the stairs would have been madness, for the four men--two
above and two below--would thus have me at such disadvantage between
them, that my fight for life was likely to be short. To go forward,
weaponless as I was, with two armed and sturdy ruffians waiting for
me at the street door and possibly with two others prepared to act as
reinforcements outside--would have been equally mad, especially as the
leader and his confederate were already almost on my heels, and so
could knock me on the head from behind. But the key on the outside of
the kitchen door offered me the chance at least of a fight for my life.
Whisking it out, quicker than any conjuror, I threw open the door, and
shutting it with a bang as I entered the kitchen, set my left knee and
the whole weight of my shoulders and body against the panels, while I
slipped the key into its place, and, turning it, locked myself in, and
my opponents out.
The next moment I heard the voice of the leader on the stairs outside:
"What's that? Who's gone into the kitchen? You cursed bunglers! Don't
say you haven't killed your man. He mustn't leave the place alive. It's
Robert Grant, the detective. I'd had word that he'd tracked us, and
meant trying to get in here to-night. Parker and Smudgy, fast as you
can to the yard. If you look slippy and put your back into it, you'll
be in time to cut off his escape, should he try to get out behind. If
he does, kill him on the spot. No mistake about it this time, mind,
even if you have to shoot! Now go. Joggers, you and I'll see to things
this side. First shut and lock the front door, and pocket the key.
It'll be safer so. We've got to break in this door, and if he managed
to rush us, he might slip past, and so get out. Have you got your knife
and revolver handy? Be ready to use 'em the instant the door's down."
Clearly I had no time to spare. Striking another vesta I took one
lightning peep around. By the light I saw that what, when I had peeped
into the room before, I had taken to be an ordinary kitchen copper, was
a strange-looking vat, with something like a stove under it.
Opening a cupboard which the darkness had caused me to overlook on my
previous entrance, I saw that the top shelf was full of bottles, jars,
and tins, all containing what I took to be chemicals. On the bottom
shelf was something like a crucible, and beside it lay half a dozen
metal things shaped like neckless bottles, and reminding me a little
of artillery slugs. What did it all mean? Was I in a coiners' den--an
illicit distillery--an infernal machine factory? Ha! I must be off!
Already someone was making frantic but systematic efforts to prise open
the door.
One more hurried glance around. Who knew but that I might light upon
something in the nature of a clue to the mystery? No; that was all.
Except for the things of which I have spoken, the place was absolutely
empty.
Stop a moment. What was that lying curled up in a corner? A cat--a dog?
No; it was a fur cap.
Bang! They were trying to break open the door. The next instant I was
at the window. Screwed up, was it? No matter. Snatching up the fur cap
and twisting it around my fist that it might serve as a sort of buffer
or boxing-glove, and so protect my hand from broken glass, I knocked
out enough of the framework, and of the glass, to allow me to scramble
through, with no more serious hurt than a few scratches and some rents
in my clothing. Within the next ten seconds I was across the yard, and,
by the aid of an empty box, had scaled the wall, and was over on the
waste land. Here I stopped for an instant to take my bearings, for at
that moment the inconsiderate moon broke out from behind the clouds,
and with such brightness that I could scarcely hope to escape being
seen, and so would have been an easy target for a passable marksman.
The piece of waste land was enclosed on my right and on my left by
corrugated zinc fences. I could easily have climbed them, but the
scuffling and scraping of my feet and body against the metal would have
advertised my whereabouts to the enemy; and by this time I knew that
the two men, Smudgy and Parker, whom their leader had sent to cut off
my retreat, must be close at hand. Selecting the fence which cast the
darker shadow, I made straight for it, and then turning off at right
angles, I scuttled along half crouching, and keeping as close to cover
as a mouse keeps to the wainscot when hieing him to his hole. I was now
going--and purposely--in the direction of the river, where the fencing
was of wood, not of metal, and so might be scaled less noiselessly.
Moreover, two or three stunted trees threw ragged shadows across the
moonlight in that quarter, and so might serve to screen me from my
pursuers. Just as I reached these trees I heard voices on the other
side, so I dropped like a dead thing in the shadow at the foot of the
fence, and lay listening.
I was none too soon, for the next instant someone scrambled up on the
other side of the fence, to spy out the land. For a moment I feared
that I was discovered, though I dared not look up. I knew by the place
from which the sound came that the speaker was exactly over my head.
"Can't see anything, Smudgy," the voice said. "But I can hear the
Dumpling breaking in the door. We'll hop over and make sure that Grant
doesn't get out by the window. You go one side of that iron fence and
I'll go the other, and then, between us, we can't miss him if he comes
out; but stay in the shadow till you get to the house.
"Keep your eyes skinned, for if we were to miss our man this time, the
Dumpling would be like a madman. Steady does it. Right O! But stop a
moment. What's that in the shadow there, under the trees, just where I
jumped?"
CHAPTER V.
A PAIR OF HANDCUFFS.
The fellow had walked some way in the direction of the house after
vaulting the fence, but now he turned and retraced his steps towards
the spot where I was lying, with my legs drawn up to my body. As he
stopped to bend over me, I let out with my left foot, as viciously as a
kicking horse, taking him in the stomach, and with such force that he
doubled up like a hinged draught-board, and lay quite still.
Then I leapt to my feet.
"Jones! Jim! Wilson!" I shouted, using, haphazard, the first names
which came to my tongue. "Here they are! Over the fence as fast as you
can, and we'll nab the two of 'em!"
As I spoke I kicked out a heel behind me, scraping it against the fence
as if someone were endeavouring to clamber up on the other side.
"Fast as you can!" I yelled again, making noise enough for three, and
rushing in the direction of the other man, shouting as I ran.
The dodge succeeded; for supposing, as I wished him to suppose, that he
had walked into a police ambush, he made a bolt for the house, I after
him, still yelling imaginary instructions to imaginary men.
No sooner was he gone than I whipped back to the other fellow, who I
suppose had fainted from pain, for he lay quite still where he had
fallen. But he was armed, as I knew, for I had heard the leader tell
the two of them not to hesitate to shoot. I had run risks enough, and
more than enough for my liking, on this eventful evening; so, partly
to equip myself with a weapon, in case of the other man's discovering
my ruse and returning, partly to disarm the gentleman on the ground,
in the event of his recovering consciousness sufficiently to join in
the pursuit of me, I slipped my hand into his pocket in search of
fire-arms. The first thing on which I lighted was, strangely enough, a
pair of handcuffs, and, under the impulse of the moment, I snapped them
around the unconscious man's wrists. Then, having possessed myself of
his weapon--an ugly revolver--I walked to the fence and looked over
it, in preparation to vault. The river washed almost to the fence's
foot, and, but for the fact that a boat was fastened to a stake driven
into the mud, my retreat would have been entirely cut off. Evidently
Parker and Smudgy must have taken a boat from somewhere to get round to
the back of the place. That, then, was what the leader had meant when
he spoke of the "yard," and had urged them to "put their backs into it."
Oh, well! the boat which had served their purpose would serve mine.
But stop a minute. No one was coming from the house, where I could
still hear the besiegers battering at the kitchen door. It was a
daring idea, this of mine! But why shouldn't I carry it out? To take
a prisoner, instead of myself being taken prisoner or being murdered,
would be to turn the tables on my enemies with a vengeance. The man was
unconscious; he was handcuffed; and even if he proved to be heavy, I
knew myself to be fairly strong.
Kneeling on one knee, I raised his insensible body so that his head
and chest and trunk lay inertly over my left shoulder, where I could
best bear the weight. The next thing to do was to get upon my feet.
It was not easy of accomplishment, for the man was heavily built, and
I, though tall, am somewhat slight. But I managed it at last, and
staggered to the fence, upon which I hoisted my burden, where he lay
for all the world like a straw-stuffed Guy Fawkes, his silly head and
his body and shoulders lolling helplessly towards the river, his hips
and legs hanging down limply on the side of the fence that faced the
house. Then I scrambled over myself, muttering, "You come along o' me
to Westminster, my pretty. A man who can hang both sides of a fence, as
you can, is wasted outside of Parliament."
I hauled him over, a bit at a time, until at last I was able to lower
him gently to the ground. Then I dragged him--through the water I am
sorry to say--to the boat, and with no small difficulty contrived to
tumble him in. This was the most troublesome part of the business,
for the boat behaved as coyly as a girl when a sweetheart tries to
snatch a first kiss--dodging this way and that, ducking and dipping,
till the pair of us were like to be thrown headlong into the water.
But I achieved my purpose at last, and having lashed my captive's
ankles together with the rope--the "painter" yachtsmen call it, do they
not?--by which the boat had been fastened, I took up the oars and rowed
out into mid-river.
By this time my captive was beginning to show signs of returning
consciousness, his revival being accelerated, no doubt, by the wetting
he had received in being dragged into the boat. Apparently he was still
in pain from my kick, for he groaned feebly once or twice, and then
moaned: "I feel sick."
"Yes," I said, "and you'll feel sicker before I've done with you."
It was brutal to speak thus to a man defenceless, and in pain; but I
had been under a terrible strain that evening, and now that the danger
was passed, the inevitable reaction had come, and none could have
been more surprised than I was to find the reaction take the form of
something like savagery. By nature I am by no means vindictive; but,
remembering that this very man had gone round to the back of the opium
den with the deliberate intention of murdering me, I took, I am ashamed
to say, a cruel and catlike pleasure in having him thus at my mercy,
and in seeing him a prey to the same terrors which I had been compelled
to endure. Police magistrates and His Majesty's judges may to-day
replace the rude justice of the primæval forest; but in spite of the
humanising and refining influence of civilisation, the beast in us dies
hard.
"Where am I?" he inquired, trying to raise his head.
"You're clearly a man of very little originality," I said, still
exulting savagely in having him at my mercy, instead of being--as
earlier in the evening I was like to be--at his. "'Where am I?' is what
they all say--whether on the stage, or in a novel, or in real life--on
recovering from a faint. But, if you particularly wish to know where
you are, I don't mind telling you. You are in a boat on the river
Thames, somewhere off Limehouse; but you'll be in even less comfortable
quarters before long, if I'm not much mistaken."
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Well," I said, "anyone listening to our conversation might think
that I was 'A' and you were 'Q' in Mangnall's book of Questions and
Answers. I should think you'd know who I was without having to make
so many inquiries, Mr. Parker. I'm the man you and your friend Smudgy
were told off to murder not so very many minutes ago. Now you are my
prisoner, and with your very kind permission, or without it, I'm going
to hand you over to the police."
"For God's sake don't do that!" he cried, trying to rise. This his
handcuffed wrists and bound ankles prevented him from accomplishing;
finding which, to my surprise and dismay, he fell back blubbering like
a baby.
"Give me a chance, Mr. Grant," he begged. "I've gone against the law I
know, but I've been drove to it, sir, drove to it by being out of work
so long."
"Look here," I said; "tell me what you and the man you call the
Dumpling and the other rascals are after, and if I find you've told
me the truth and kept nothing back, I'll let you go. It is your only
chance; and considering the way you'd have treated me, I think it is a
very generous offer.
"There's a mystery, and it strikes me a very wicked and criminal
mystery, about all this--that opium den with its crucible, and
chemicals, and queer instruments in the kitchen, the Dumpling, the
Chinamen, yourself, and the other men. I've got to know all about it,
and to know it now and here, this night, and in this boat. Make a clean
breast of it; tell me everything, and I'll let you go. Refuse, and I
take you straight, handcuffed and tied up as you are, to the police.
Come, no beating about the bush. Which is it to be? 'Yes' or 'No'?"
"I can't help myself," he answered. "You say you've got to know about
the Dumpling and the house, and the rest of us, and what we're after,
and that I've got to choose between telling and being handed over to
the police. You swear, you take your Davy, you'll let me go free if I
tell?"
"I swear it," I said. "Tell me all, and I swear to loose you and put
you ashore free and unfollowed--when you've done."
"Very well," he replied sullenly, doggedly. "I'll tell. But the
Dumpling"--with an oath--"will find me out and kill me if he gets to
know that I've peached."
"We'll hope he doesn't hear," I said, settling myself down to listen,
but pulling gently at the oars meantime.
Then Parker began his story.
CHAPTER VI.
THE MILLIONAIRES' CLUB.
"It's this way," Parker began a trifle importantly--and something there
was in his way of saying even these three words which made me suspect
him to be a man fond of the sound of his own voice. Though entirely
uneducated, he had, as I afterwards heard, a keen memory, and a ready
knack of picking up scraps of information, both of which stood him in
good stead in the speeches upon social subjects which he was apt to
deliver in the parks on Sunday afternoons, and at other places where
debaters foregather.
"It was this way, Mr. Grant. What with the strikes, and the work going
out of the country, to Germany and America, and never coming back, in
consequence of the strikes, things have been cruel hard in East London
this winter, and when a big firm of ship-builders closed their yards,
and went North, that meant starvation to thousands of us. Then the
Dumpling turned up, and used to address meetings of the unemployed.
'Law!' he says to them as was agitating to have the law altered, 'while
you are asking for law, your wives and children are starving. The law
won't do nothing for you unless you force it; and the rate you're going
on, you won't force it--not an inch in ten years; and where will you
be then? Starved, and in your graves, you and your wives and children.
You can send a score or two of your Labour leaders to Parliament, and
much good that will do you. They can't make laws; there aren't enough
of them in Parliament to do it. They get voted down, and then where are
you? Look here, boys,' he says; 'it's Parliament as makes the laws,
and Parliament, even this Parliament, a big part of it, is made up of
landowners, and landlords, and company promoters, and capitalists, and
big employers, and sweaters. They aren't going to make laws against
themselves--'tain't likely. For one poor man in Parliament there's
fifty rich, and you haven't got no chance there. But, boys,' he says,
a-wagging his finger at us, 'for every rich man in Parliament there's
hundreds and thousands out o' Parliament as is poor and starving.
You're in a minority in Parliament, and minorities always get crushed.
We have got it on the authority of a Cabinet Minister--and _he_ ought
to know. But it's _them_ as is in a minority outside. If you have men's
blood in your veins, you'll up and crush them. You're a thousand to
one, you poor, what sweat and slave and starve to make money for the
rich folk to spend. What I say to you is: Don't plead for your rights
no more. You take 'em, as you can if you like, and let the rich people
have a turn at the pleading. It's you who hold the whip--not them. If
the down-trodden people of the country was only to rise up and assert
their rights, the landlords and landowners and grabbers and sweaters
couldn't hold out for one hour. Come out of it, boys! Come out of it,
all of you who are men and not monkeys. Monkeys!' he says. 'Yes, you
are monkeys. You are like monkeys chained to a piano-organ, and the
piano-organ that's what they call Parliament. The poor man he has to
do the dancing and get the whip, same as the monkey does, and the rich
man gets the money and chooses the tune. But, boys,' he says, 'do you
think if there was a million o' monkeys for every man as kept a monkey
and an organ--do you think the monkeys would go on letting themselves
be kept like slaves upon a chain? Not they! They'd be up and fight for
their lives and liberty with nails and teeth.'"
All this time we had been drifting slowly down the river on the slack
of the tide. The night was now very dark and inclined to be foggy, so I
turned the boat's head round, and began to pull towards town.
"What was the scheme that was to be carried out to-night?" I questioned.
"What are we going back for, and where are you taking me?" asked Parker
suspiciously, counter-questioning.
"I'm going back," I replied, "because it's getting very dark and
promises to be foggy. Get on with your story, but do your best to cut
it short."
"I don't want to make it any longer than I can help," was the reply;
"but if I don't tell it my own way I can't tell it at all. Well, that's
the way the Dumpling talked to us, and there was no denying that what
he said was true. And he did more than talk at meetings. He got hold
of Smudgy and me and some more of us, and said if we'd throw in our
lot with him he'd see we were paid something each week out of a fund
that had been started in America and Germany and other places, for the
benefit of agitators and workers in the cause of liberty all over the
world. And he kept his word, too. We got it regular each week, and by
and by he put us on to little jobs--I needn't stop to tell you about
them now--that put more money in our way. We kicked at some of them at
first, but he's a nasty man to argue with, and pointed out that we were
helping the cause by taking money from the rich to use it for them as
was working in the cause of the poor, and after that we said----"
"You're rather long-winded, my friend," I interrupted; "and again I
must point out to you that it's getting cold and foggier and late.
Can't you cut the thing shorter yet, and come to the opium den and
to-night's work?"
"That's just what I was going to," replied Parker in an injured tone.
"Perhaps I am a bit long-winded. The Dumpling used to say I was, and
he's one of them clever ones what ought to know. He said once----"
"Oh, never mind what he said!" I interrupted impatiently. "Get on
quickly to the opium den and to-night's work. It's of that I wish to
hear."
"One night," continued Parker, "the Dumpling asked Smudgy and me if
we'd like to stand in with him in a little scheme he'd got to make a
pot of money. And this very night we was to meet in that opium den--us
as was in it--to arrange things. I didn't half like the job, that's
the fact, especially when I found that detectives were on the track.
But the Dumpling isn't the sort of man you find it easy to say 'No'
to, when he turns that north eye of his on you. Makes me feel quite
helpless, he does, and cold all down my back."
I nodded.
"Yes, I can believe he's not a pleasant customer to come the wrong side
of; but that's no excuse for you and Smudgy trying to murder me."
"We didn't mean murdering you or anyone else," protested Parker. "The
Dumpling he says to us, 'Boys,' he says, 'I've got everything arranged,
and we'll carry this thing through to-night. But I don't play no losing
games. Grant, the detective, is on our track, and if he comes between
us and our business--him and his blue coats--he'll have to take the
consequences. So you'd better be armed,' he says, and he gives Smudgy
and me and the other chaps a revolver each, and a knife. 'Don't shoot
unless you have to, or unless I tell you to,' he says. 'Them as plays
the game we're going to play had best keep a silent tongue in their
head, and there's no tongue so silent and so sure as a sharp knife. It
does the work and don't holloa about it. But pistols is noisy servants.
So don't use the shooting irons unless you're compelled to.'
"Smudgy and me we took the knives--I've got mine on me now--and the
pistols, but we agreed we wouldn't use 'em. Nabbing a bit o' money's
one thing, but getting nabbed for murder's quite another."
"What was the business you were to carry out to-night?" I interrupted
once more. "Are you trying to talk out the time, under the idea that
you'll be rescued, or something of that sort?"
"I'm coming to it now," replied Parker sulkily. "It's you as keeps
putting me off with interruptions. There's a club what they call
'The Millionaires' Club.' There aren't many in it--seven, I think the
Dumpling said; but they're all millionaires, and all of 'em was quite
poor men once, poor as me and Smudgy. Now they've got millions, and
live in mansions in Park Lane, and has ten-course dinners off gold and
silver plates. But I say, Mr. Grant, can't I be untied now? I'm numb
with cold and with lying here so long. I've very nearly finished my
story, and, if you'll loose me, I'll promise to finish it faithful to
the end."
"There's no reason why you shouldn't have your ankles free and sit up,"
I said, hauling in the sculls and laying them alongside as I stooped
to unfasten the rope that was lashed about Parker's feet. "We'll talk
about taking the handcuffs off when you've done. Go on--I'm listening.
This knot here's rather tight, but I can hear what you say while I'm
undoing it."
"Once a month," continued Parker, whilst I was tugging at the
knot, "these millionaires meet secretly in the back parlour in a
public-house out Shadwell way, and have a feed o' tripe and onions,
or pigs' trotters or chitlings or faggots, or stewed eels or fried
fish, or something of that sort, and drink four half out of pint
pots, and smoke shag tobacco in clay pipes, and play shove-ha'penny
and pitch-and-toss for coppers. It's coming off to-night, this Crœsus
bean-feast and blow-out, as the Dumpling calls it; and he's planned
to kidnap one of 'em on their way home, and make him pay a thumping
big sum for ransom money. The place was to be---- Hi! Look out, there!
There's a big ship coming out of the fog just behind you. My God! She's
on us. And me tied up like this! Let me loose, for Christ's sake! It's
murder. It's----"
Simultaneously with a sudden crash--under the impact of which the boat
seemed to shiver like a live thing--the blurred fog-blinded lights on
the river banks broke into zigzagging globes of yellow light that shot
backwards and forwards, upward and downward and sideways before my
eyes, as gnats dart and dance and dodge among themselves on a summer
eve. Then these lights all ran together into a streak of yellow fire.
The boat seemed to leap forward and to rise under us, as a horse which
has staggered to its knees, when hit by a bullet, strives to struggle
forward and to its feet under its rider; and the next instant the
frail craft went to pieces and fell away from under us.
In that instant I saw the ghastly face of Parker staring up
horror-stricken at what looked like the high and perpendicular side
of a house which was about to fall upon us, and that, in the act of
overtoppling, seemed momentarily to hang and hover and brood gloatingly
above our head. Then there came the deadly and numbing chill of
ice-cold and rushing water that sucked us down and under, as if to the
falling house's very foundations.
CHAPTER VII.
I AM SNUBBED BY SCOTLAND YARD.
It was "murder," as Parker had said. Even as I went down I was
conscious of the horror, of the inhumanity, of letting a poor devil,
tied hand and foot like a dog in a sack, go to his doom with never
a chance of making a fight for his life. For myself, being a fair
swimmer, and accustomed to a cold dip in rough seas, winter and summer,
I was in no such fear as entirely to lose my presence of mind. The
danger lay, of course, in my being sucked under the ship's bottom and
drowned before I could make my way to the surface; but as the steamer
was going very slowly and had taken us side-on, rather than with the
prow, I managed in a very few seconds to get clear of her wash, and up,
with open eyes, on the top of the water. Apparently no one on board the
steamer was aware that she had struck and sunk a rowing boat, for she
went slowly but steadily on her way, as if nothing had happened. Had we
not chanced to enter a fog bank a few minutes before the collision,
and had I not been engaged in loosening Parker's bonds, the probability
is that the accident would not have occurred. What most concerned me,
however, was not the cause of the mishap, but the whereabouts of poor
Parker. Again and again I crossed and re-crossed the subsiding wash of
the vessel's wake; again and again I halloed and called the unhappy
man by name; but all, alas, to no purpose. Except for the answering
bark of a dog from a barge in-shore, the hooting of the steamer's
fog-horn, and the washing of the water, there was no reply, and, being
somewhat exhausted, I gave up the search and struck out for the nearest
shore. It had been slack water for the last half-hour, and the tide
was, fortunately for me, only just upon the turn; so, without being
carried far out of my course, I was able to reach the river's bank in
safety. Wet as I was, I could not walk the streets without attracting
attention, but, luckily for me, the very first vehicle which came
along was a doctor's carriage. I shouted to the driver to stop, and
explaining my plight to his master by saying I had been run down in
the fog while on the river, asked him to be so very good as to drive
me to the police station. He not only consented, but plied me with a
restorative of some sort which he had in his bag; and when I reached
the station I was, except for a shivering fit, not very much the worse
for my wetting. There, while I was having a rub down and changing into
the clothes--a policeman's uniform--which was provided for me, I told
my story. The superintendent was very civil. He said he was aware
of the existence of the opium den in question, but otherwise knew
of nothing criminal in connection with it, but would at once send a
sufficient number of men to raid the place. He also rang up the river
police on the telephone, suggesting that a boat should be sent out
in search of Parker's body, and instructed a plain-clothes officer
to accompany me in a cab to the address which I gave as my lodging.
Whether this was done in order to verify the address, and because he
suspected the truth of my story, I did not know, and did not care. It
was a reasonable enough precaution to take, and, having nothing to
conceal, I did not resent his taking it, and, indeed, was not sorry to
have a companion upon my journey, for, now that the excitement which
had buoyed me up was passing, I began to feel somewhat exhausted.
Next morning I took cab to Scotland Yard, where I sent in my name and
business, and was at once received in audience by one of the heads. He
greeted me courteously, heard my story out, interpolating a few shrewd
and pointed questions now and then, and occasionally making a note.
When I had come to an end of my narrative he bowed gravely, and said:
"Thank you, Mr. Rissler. The superintendent at the station where you
called has already communicated with us in regard to your statement.
I'm not sure that what you have told us will be of any practical
assistance, except in so far as it confirms what we already know. But
we are obliged to you in any case. You have done rightly in coming
to us. We will communicate with you should we want your further
assistance. We have your address, I think? Thank you very much. Good
morning."
"You know this man, the Dumpling, as they call him?" I inquired
eagerly, ignoring my dismissal.
"Perfectly."
"What is there against him?"
"Nothing--absolutely nothing. He holds views which in some countries
would get him into trouble, but in England one can talk anarchy or
anything else as much as one likes, so long as one's actions keep
within the law. And he keeps doubtful company. In fact, I may go so far
as to say that we suspect him of knowing something beforehand of more
than one outrage with which we have had to deal, though we have not yet
been able to implicate him directly."
"And what's his name?" I asked.
Scotland Yard, as personified in the official before me, lifted its
eyebrows and shrugged its shoulders.
"Really, Mr. Rissler, I don't think I must answer any more questions.
As I have said, you have done quite right in coming to us, though you
haven't told us anything we didn't know before. But the matter is in
the hands of Detective Grant, and I think you may safely leave it
there."
"Oh, yes," I said. "Grant's a good man. He's a friend of mine. We
worked together, he and I, in more than one case in the past."
"Indeed!"
Scotland Yard did not seem particularly interested in these
autobiographical details, either about myself or about Grant.
"Indeed," it repeated with an air of bland boredom, rising from its
chair to indicate that the interview was at an end.
"I've done some detective work myself, as you perhaps know," I went on;
"and having been pitchforked, as it were, into this particular case,
I'm more than inclined to see if I can make anything of it; in which
case, should I discover anything, I should, of course, acquaint you
with my discoveries, so that we could co-operate together."
"You are very considerate," replied Scotland Yard, sarcastically;
"but I fancy we are tolerably competent to do our work without
outside assistance. I've heard of you, Mr. Rissler. You do a little
investigation on your own account, don't you?--and then write stories
about it after. Well, with the story-writing I have no fault to find. I
haven't read any of your stories, but I'm told they are quite harmless.
But, really, don't you think this is a case which is best let alone by
amateurs? We can't stop you from interfering as they do in medicine,
where quacks are pulled up pretty sharp by the law, but if you take my
advice you'll let the detection of crime alone, except in novels, where
I have no doubt you acquit yourself very creditably. But really I can't
spare any more time for further discussion. Again we are obliged to you
for having come to us with your story. If anything should transpire to
make it necessary to communicate with you again, you shall hear from
us. Good morning."
"Quacks!" I said to myself, angrily, as I stalked out with my head in
the air. "I've been the means, as they know, of bringing more than one
criminal to justice, and here I'm called a quack by a supercilious
representative of officialdom."
Outside in Whitehall I called a cab.
"---- police station," I said. "You can wait and bring me back, so
don't raise your eyebrows. If I don't come back, I'll pay your fare all
the same."
"Right, sir," he said, evidently in good spirits at the prospect of a
long and lucrative job, the good spirits in question being manifested
at somebody else's expense.
"What! _both_ of you awake!" he called out in surprised astonishment
to a couple of carmen who blocked his way for a moment with their vans.
Then, chuckling at the fact that a somewhat limited vocabulary could
not bear the strain which an apparently unlimited knowledge of his
family tree placed upon it, and so necessitated the inclusion and
description of himself and his entire ancestry in one simple and
comprehensive colour-scheme, he whipped up his horse, and directed its
head eastward.
CHAPTER VIII.
"WANTED" BY THE POLICE.
On the previous night the police superintendent at ---- had treated
me with a courtesy which was almost deferential; and had himself
accompanied me to my cab to say:
"Good-night, sir, and I hope you'll be none the worse for your wetting."
Witnessing my rather ceremonious "send off," the very young and perhaps
recently-enlisted member of the force, on duty in the outer office,
had evidently been duly impressed with the fact that I was a person of
some weight. On my presenting myself at the station next morning, he
greeted me with a smile of obsequious respect, and without waiting to
report my call to the superintendent, conducted me importantly, and
with a great air of knowing when and to whom to accord honour, straight
into the august presence of his chief. The somewhat officious air with
which he announced "Mr. Rissler, sir," was speedily changed into a
look of blank and crest-fallen surprise, for instead of receiving me as
a favoured caller, the superintendent--who, as we entered, had his ear
glued to the telephone--jumped up in a passion, and shouted:
"How dare you show this person, or any person, into my room without
permission?"
Looking at me viciously, as at one who had been guilty of the crime of
obtaining a respectful reception under false pretences, the unfortunate
constable stammered out:
"Very sorry, sir; but thought that the gentlem--person--was a friend
of yours." And, saluting with a proper air of chastened humility, he
withdrew.
Scarcely had the door closed behind him before the telephone bell
clashed its discordant jangling at the superintendent's very ear,
jarring the nerves of both of us, and causing him almost to jump in his
shoes.
Then I "tumbled" to the situation. If I was not very much mistaken,
he had been in communication with Scotland Yard at the moment of my
entrance, the subject of the conference being none other than my
humble self; and, judging by the marked difference in my reception,
and by the way in which, with one ear stooped to the telephone, he was
glaring at me with both eyes, his last night's reception of myself and
his communicativeness had not come in for his chief's commendation.
That he had been receiving something of a jacketing his first few words
told.
"Are you there? Oh, it's you, sir, again--is it? Yes, sir, I did hear
what you said just now, and am very sorry. What do you say? No, sir, I
didn't leave the telephone before you had done speaking. I shouldn't
think of doing such a thing, but somebody came into my room and
interrupted me. Will you excuse me a second, sir, while I turn them
out? Then I think I can explain why I acted as I did."
Without taking his ear from the telephone, and without saying a word,
he pointed me peremptorily to the door, seeing which, I of course
instantly withdrew to the outer office, where I was surveyed with
supercilious scorn by the youthful constable, who a few minutes before
had so deferentially ushered me into the superintendent's room. Turning
my back contemptuously upon him, I studied a board upon which were
displayed the portraits of certain characters "wanted" by the police.
The young constable, who apparently attributed his downfall from
official favour to a malicious and deeply-laid plot on my part, sought,
in vulgar parlance, "to get back a bit of his own" by affecting to find
a resemblance between some of the "wanteds" and myself, examining first
their faces, and then my features, with an interest which I could not
but consider offensive.
Obviously the only card left for me to play was to appear unconscious
of the comparison which he was instituting, and while I was doing this
to the best of what I fear was a poor ability, the door opened, and the
superintendent came out.
"You want to see me, Mr.--er--Rissler, isn't it?" he inquired rudely.
"What is it? I've no time to spare this morning."
"I won't keep you long," I said. "But you were good enough to say last
night that you would send some of your men to inspect the opium den,
and I called in to hear what happened, and to ask whether Parker's body
had been found."
"You called to hear what had happened, and to ask this, and to ask
that!" he said insolently. "Since when have you been appointed to the
head office in New Scotland Yard, that you come here to cross-examine
me on my own business? Pretty fine pass the force is coming to,
if we're to take every Tom, Dick, and Harry into our confidence.
I've nothing to tell you, sir, except to advise you to confine your
attention to your own business, and leave other people to attend to
their own. Good morning."
Turning on his heel he walked into his room again, slamming the door
behind him; so, affecting not to see the insolent grin on the face
of my friend the youthful constable, who had been present during my
snubbing, I put my hat on my head and stepped into the street.
"But I'll find out the result of the raiding of the den yet," I said
to myself. "The superintendent here, and his men, were friendly enough
to me last night, and I strongly suspect that the orders to tell me
nothing have only just arrived from New Scotland Yard. If I can find
the policeman within whose beat the den is, it is possible that he has
not yet received instructions that I'm to be kept in the dark, and that
half-a-crown may open his mouth. Anyhow, it can do no harm to have a
try."
Nor was I wrong in my conjecture. The policeman--when I found him,
which I did with little difficulty--was friendly and communicative.
"Oh, you're the gent, are you, sir, who laid the information about
the opium den? I wasn't at the station when you called, but I came in
directly after, and heard the superintendent talking about it. He'd
be glad to see you, I think, sir, if you was to look in. Oh, yes; he
sent five men round to the place at once. But, Lord, sir, the rascals
had got wind of it, and when our men got there, the birds had flown.
Cleared out--that's what they had, every man Jack of them. There was
the broken window, just as you said, and there was the marks on the
door, a-showin' as somebody had tried to break it in, or to batter it
down, but them as had been there had all cleared out, and they'd taken
the chemicals and tools and other things, what you saw there with 'em.
The chief he's trying to track the rascals down, and to find where
they've moved to, for they must have put them things somewhere. It
stands to reason they can't walk about with them in the street. But
though he clapped two of our best men on the job, they hadn't found
anything when I came out on beat."
"And Parker's body?" I inquired. "Has it been found?"
"Not as I've heard on, sir. But holloa, what's this?"
The constable and I had been strolling on together while talking, and
on turning the corner of a small and evil-smelling street we saw a knot
of people gathered outside a sweet shop.
"Now, then! What's all this? Stand aside there, will you?" he
commanded, shouldering the crowd aside.
At the door a wretched hag, her lank grey hair falling in dishevelled
wisps upon her shoulders, and the pores of her face so choked with dirt
that the grime lay in lines along the wrinkles, was clawing at the
air with one skinny hand and arm, alternately sobbing and screaming
hysterically.
"Come, come, my good woman!" said the constable sharply. "Stop that
noise, and tell me what it's all about."
Shaking her head, as if to convey that she was powerless to speak, the
wretched creature clutched wildly at the door lintel, and then fell in
a swoon almost at his feet.
"Who is the woman? And what's the trouble?" inquired the constable of
the bystanders. "Do any of you know her?"
"Macintyre's her name," volunteered a respectable looking woman in
the crowd. "She keeps the sweet shop inside, and lets her rooms as
lodgings. I never heard anything against her. But I don't know what's
the matter. She'd only just come out into the street before you came."
"She lives here, does she?" inquired the constable. "Stand aside there,
and I'll have a look inside and see if anything's wrong."
Then a small voice, that sounded quite near to the pavement, shrilled
from the spot where the crowd pressed thickest.
It came from a wee, wizened girl-child, who looked as if she might be
ten and talked with the precision and self-possession of twenty--so
pitifully sharpened do the wits of the children of the streets become
in the struggle for existence.
"It's my Granny--that's who it is. She's got a lodger in the back room,
Black Sam. Somebody gave him two shillings yesterday, and he came home
drunk last night, quite early, and went to bed. I know he was drunk,
for two gentlemen came to see him about ten, but Granny told them he
was in bed, and drunk, in the back room, and they couldn't see him till
this morning. I heard a funny noise in his room in the night. It woke
me up. It sounded like someone trying to scream, and not being able to;
and I thought I heard people moving about. So I woke Granny up and told
her so, but she was cross with me for waking her, and said it was only
his drunken snoring I'd heard. But just now, as Black Sam didn't get
up, Granny and I went into his room. The window was wide open, and Sam
was lying on the floor all over blood. And please, sir, there's a big
hole in his throat, and he's quite cold, and I think he's dead."
"Black Sam!" Surely I had heard that name before? Why, yes, and no
longer ago than on the preceding evening. When the leader of the gang
in the opium den had asked me who it was that directed me there, I had
replied, "A negro match-seller, whom I saw outside Poplar station." His
comment had been "Ah! a negro match-seller--and outside Poplar station.
I think I know the fellow. We must look into this!"
Then his confederates had whispered together, the only words that I had
overheard being the dead man's name, "Black Sam." Two of the gang had
then left the house, as if on some errand. That was, I remembered--for
the clock struck soon after--just before ten. It was at ten that two
men had called to see the negro. They had been told that he had come
home drunk, and was lying in the back room asleep. Was it they who had
entered that room by the window in the dead of the night and murdered
him?
CHAPTER IX.
"DEAD MAN'S POINT."
As the murder of Black Sam plays no further part in this story, I do
not propose to describe in detail the ghastly scene which presented
itself when, in company with the police officer, I entered the death
chamber.
Sensational enough, and more than enough, this narrative of the hunting
down of a master-criminal must necessarily be, without the gratuitous
description of scenes--no matter how impressive--which have no direct
bearing upon my story. Of the murder of Black Sam it was necessary
to tell as much as I have told, if the reader is to follow, step by
step, my first meeting, and my final struggle with, the man around
whom the narrative centres. When to what I have already related, I add
that, whatever the motive for the crime, the subsequent investigation
established the fact that the motive was at least not robbery, we
may dismiss the murder of Black Sam from memory, and pass on to my
efforts to get upon the trail of the man who was the instigator of the
crime--the man whose acquaintance I had so eventfully, if casually,
made on the occasion of my visit to the opium den.
My first step must, of course, be to get into communication with
Grant. Until I had seen him, and learnt his views, I did not feel
free seriously to enter upon the case at all. That he already had it
in hand, I had been told by New Scotland Yard, and that he was making
progress was clear from the fact that, disguised as a Chinaman, he
had contrived to enter the meeting-place of the gang, possibly even
to overhear some of their plans. It is not likely that, without very
strong actual or presumptive evidence of their guilt, he would have
bidden me make my way to the nearest police station, and ask, in his
name, that a body of men be sent to make prisoners of the entire gang.
Grant was a private detective, not a New Scotland Yard man; but he was
perhaps the only private detective whom New Scotland Yard can be said
to have recognised. He had been of such frequent assistance to the
chiefs of the Criminal Investigation Department, and his relations
with them were so friendly, that his standing had come to be in a
sense semi-official, and no reasonable request by him was likely to be
refused.
If, on communicating with him, I found that he had, as seemed probable,
the case more or less complete, I should, of course, recognise that
his was the prior right, and that any interference on my part, except
by his invitation or his permission, would be an impertinence. If,
however, as I hoped, he had still links to fill in, before completing
the chain, my intention was to ask him to allow me to work in
connection with him. It has been said by a great thinker that "the
things that are for you, gravitate towards you," and judging by the way
in which the Fates had involved me--as by some law of gravitation--into
the matter of the opium den mystery, the working out of that mystery to
its unravelment seemed to be my destiny.
In the meantime, where was Grant? I had left him in the den, disguised
as a Chinaman, his identity apparently unsuspected even by the Dumpling.
It is, of course, within the bounds of possibility that the Dumpling
had all the time known perfectly well that my story of having come to
the den merely in search of "copy" was likely to be true, and that the
supposed Chinaman upstairs, smoking opium, was in reality Detective
Grant. I say, it is within the bounds of possibility that it is so,
but in my own mind I was entirely convinced that the identity of Grant
with the Chinaman was quite unsuspected. If that were so, the fact
that I had made good my escape from the den would cause--and evidently
had caused--something like a panic among the members of the gang. It
was no doubt because they believed me to be Grant, and knew me to be
uninjured and at large, that, within an hour or two of my escape, they
had cleared out of the den, taking all their effects with them.
In the meantime--to repeat the question I have already put--where was
Grant? Had he, after I had gone that evening, said or done anything
to arouse suspicion, and been murdered by the Dumpling's orders? Or
had he been allowed to depart, unsuspected and unharmed? And was his
present mysterious disappearance due to the fact that he had followed
up the gang after the flight, and was still engaged in watching
their movements and in completing the chain of evidence against
them? For that he had--either of his own, or of somebody else's
choosing--vanished, and left no trace behind, was absolutely certain. I
had gone straight from the scene of the negro's murder to the nearest
post office, and had wired to Grant's chambers in Adelphi Terrace,
asking for an appointment, and that a reply be sent immediately to the
Savage Club, where I intended to lunch. Arrived at the club I found
Grant's man-servant awaiting me. He said that his master had gone out
the previous morning, and had neither returned nor sent a message.
There was, of course, nothing unusual in this, for a detective's
goings and comings are necessarily uncertain; but, remembering the
circumstances under which I had last seen my friend, I could not help
feeling uneasy.
In a restless mood I strolled out of the club and walked City-wards,
along the Embankment. From the headquarters of an evening newspaper,
in the neighbourhood of Tudor Street, the newsboys were rushing,
shouting as they ran, and making of the place a very Babel with their
bellowings.
"'Ere y'are, sir! Terrible river tragedy! Three bodies found in the
Thames this morning!"
Purchasing a paper from the nearest boy, I scanned it eagerly,
anxiously. Beyond a paragraph recording the bare fact that the bodies
of three men, supposed to be sailors, had been found at Dead Man's
Point, Canvey Island, the spot where the corpses of those drowned in
the Thames are sometimes washed ashore, there was little to satisfy my
curiosity. I had not walked a score of yards before a fresh bevy of
newsboys burst from another newspaper distributing centre.
"Spesh'l!" they yelled. "Great river mystery! Three persons drowned in
the Thames! Mysterious circumstances! Suspected murder! 'Ere y'are,
Sir! Spesh'l! Latest particulars!"
Again I purchased a paper, to find, in the stop-press portion of the
print, the following paragraph:
"THE GREAT RIVER MYSTERY.
"_The bodies have been removed to 'The Lobster Smack Inn,' Hole Haven,
Canvey Island, to await identification._"
In my present mood, action of some sort was imperative, and as a
cab was passing, I hailed it, and calling out "Fenchurch Street
Station--fast as you can," jumped in.
At Fenchurch I took the first train to Benfleet, ferrying over the
creek which at high tide separates Canvey from the mainland, and making
my way across the island to the "Lobster Smack" at Hole Haven, where I
asked to be allowed to see the bodies.
They were lying in an outhouse, side by side, each figure decently
covered by a cloth. The first to be exposed I recognised without
surprise, and at a glance, as that of the hapless Parker. He was
dressed just as he had been when I last saw him, and with the handcuffs
still on his wrists.
The second body was, to the best of my belief, that of his late
associate, Smudgy. I could not swear to the features, for Smudgy had
been stationed at the top of the staircase while I was in the opium
den, and I had kept too close an eye upon the Dumpling, and the man who
had remained with him in the room, to pay much attention to what was
going on outside. Unless I was very much mistaken, however, the shabby
greeny-fawn dust coat and the frayed shepherds' plaid trousers were
the same which I had seen upon one of the two men who had remained on
guard at the head of the stairs, and had afterwards been despatched,
in company with Parker, to cut off my retreat at the back of the
house. When I had last seen him, he had been in full flight across the
moon-lit space of waste land, and in a direction away from the river.
Whether he was dead or alive when he got into the water, or how he
came to be there at all, I had no means of knowing, and could only
conjecture that, finding he had been duped, and fearing the Dumpling's
anger on hearing of my escape, Smudgy had returned to the river in
search of myself and Parker, and had been accidentally drowned. The
third body was next uncovered. Apparently the corpse, in its passage
down the river, had been caught by the screw of a passing steamer,
and so cut and crushed as to be unrecognisable. The bones of all the
limbs were twisted and broken, the body beaten almost into a pulp, and
the whole of the face sliced off, as if by a stroke of the steamer's
swiftly revolving screw.
Then, for the first and, I hope, last time in my life, I
fainted--fainted from sheer horror, for around the otherwise naked
body was a leather belt from which a ragged inch of what had once been
trousering still clung. Looking more closely, I saw that it was of
blue silk, with tiny zigzagged threads of silver interwoven. Not many
hours ago I had seen a man who, to my positive knowledge, always wore
a leather belt (he had at one time been a sailor) around his waist. He
had then been clad in Chinese trousering of the identical pattern--blue
silk with a tiny zigzagged thread of interwoven silver. That man was
my unhappy friend, Robert Grant, and, looking again at the body, I saw
that some sort of yellow dye had recently been used to stain the face
and hands and neck.
CHAPTER X.
I TURN BURGLAR.
As I had now decided to devote myself to finding the man known as
the Dumpling, and to the clearing up of the mystery of my friend's
death and of the opium den, the first question to be asked (it was
the question I put to myself as I walked away from the inn) was,
"Did the Dumpling really believe me to be Grant?" If that were so,
it was possible that Grant had to the last successfully maintained
his disguise, and had met his death accidentally while shadowing the
fugitives, who had probably made their escape by way of the water. Or
it was possible that, without suspecting the supposed Chinaman to be
Grant, something may have happened after my departure to arouse the
Dumpling's suspicions in regard to Grant's good faith, in which case
short work would no doubt be made of the intruder.
What was more likely, for instance, than that, hearing the uproar
downstairs, after I had locked myself in the kitchen, and fearing
that I was being murdered, Grant had rushed down to my assistance, and
so betrayed himself? In which case, the Dumpling would have made no
bones about knocking him on the head, or otherwise despatching him and
throwing the body into the river. But, apart from the question whether
my friend had met his death by accident or by intention, the facts
seemed to justify me in assuming that the Dumpling had really believed
me to be Grant, the detective. The reader will remember that, after I
had locked myself in the kitchen, the Dumpling had called out, "Don't
say you haven't killed your man! He mustn't leave the place alive. It's
Robert Grant, the detective. I had word that he'd tracked us, and meant
trying to get in here to-night."
All this seemed strongly to point to the fact that the Dumpling _did_
indeed believe me to be the hated detective. How he had got wind of
Grant's intention to effect an entrance to the den, or how Grant
had contrived successfully to effect that entrance, and to disarm
suspicion, I did not know; but, supposing that news of the threatened
danger had only reached the ears of the Dumpling a few moments before
my arrival, and before he had time to turn his suspicions in other
directions--the fact that the news was followed by the entrance of
a suspicious stranger, who could give no better explanation for his
presence than a lame and apparently trumped-up story about a commission
to write a magazine article on opium dens, would certainly lend colour
to the assumption that I was the expected man. The determined and
desperate efforts which had subsequently been made to murder me, all
seemed to point the same way; and I decided to start my investigation
by assuming that the Dumpling and his accomplices had believed, and
still believed, me to be none other than Robert Grant, the detective.
If that were so, my escape would cause something like a panic among
them, and would lead to their taking immediate steps to discover my
whereabouts, and to put me out of the way. The first of these immediate
steps would be to set a watch upon Grant's house; and to discover
whether this was being done, must be my very first business. The fact
that Grant's house was being watched--unless, of course, I could
satisfy myself that the watching was being done by the police--would
not only go far to prove the accuracy of my theory, but would also
be the means of putting me upon the track of the Dumpling or of his
accomplices.
Naturally, I had to go to work very carefully. Were I, even if
skilfully disguised, to do so much as walk twice, or even once, up the
street in which Grant's house was situated, I should be in danger of
attracting attention. Shadowing the house by concealing myself in dark
doorways and lurking around corners, was quite out of the question, and
the common plan of posing as a lodger, and hiring a room or rooms in an
opposite or neighbouring house, would be equally impracticable.
Even if I commissioned a friend to make the necessary inquiries,
I should have to take possession of my lodgings--if suitable
lodgings with a view of the street were found, which was by no means
certain--more or less openly; and having once taken possession, I could
not get in and out without attracting attention.
Everyone who knows the West End of London is familiar with the somewhat
shabby side streets which borrow gentility and grandeur from the
fact that they are situated near, or off, a fashionable square, from
which they take their name. Grant lived in Taunton Place, a modest
little street consisting of two rows of small houses which abutted
upon the many mansions of aristocratic Taunton Square. Driving through
Taunton Place, sitting well back and out of sight in the recesses of
a four-wheel cab, I observed an empty house on the opposite side of
the way to Grant's, and almost at the corner where Taunton Place and
Taunton Square converged. Waiting till night had set in, I burgled this
empty house from the back, and began my watch.
The result was in every way satisfactory. Grant's house was undoubtedly
being watched, and by a man who, it was not difficult to see, was
doing double duty. He was keeping a constant eye not only upon No. 10,
Taunton Place, where Grant resided, but also upon a big, pretentious,
bow-windowed and pillar-porticoed mansion known as No. 5, Taunton
Square.
Again and again I saw him pass the windows of the big house and look
in; again and again I saw him watching, from his corner, everyone who
called either at No. 10, Taunton Place, or at No. 5, Taunton Square.
After a time a well-dressed man walked up to No. 5, Taunton Square,
knocked, and, when the door was opened, entered. He remained there
for twenty minutes, and when he came out was promptly followed by the
shadower. The coast being thus clear, I left my own post, and on making
inquiries at a tavern where I called for a glass of beer, was told
that No. 5, Taunton Square had recently been taken by a gentleman from
America, named Carleton, a widower and reputed millionaire, who lived
there with his daughter, Kate, and his unmarried sister. Here again
was an interesting discovery which promised developments. The hapless
Parker had told me of seven millionaires who once a month repaired
to a tavern in Shadwell, where they dined upon humble fare, drank
"four half" out of pint pots, and smoked shag tobacco in clay pipes.
It did not seem to be an improbable story, and, personally, I had a
secret and sneaking sympathy--due possibly to my own low tastes--with
anything which promised so complete and sensible a return to nature. I
have myself partaken--not lavishly, perhaps, but with gusto--of malt
liquors, served in pewter pots in country taverns, have smacked my lips
(another evidence of a debased nature), and have sat back in my chair,
sighing with replete contentment, and possibly with an inner man by
no means indifferently fortified by that excellent complement to good
beer--bread and cheese. At such times I have called life good, and have
found myself in peace and charity with all my neighbours.
Did all self-made millionaires renew their youth, and remind themselves
of their struggling days, by becoming members of the club of which
Parker had spoken, they would afterwards, I am persuaded, return to the
scene of their splendour in a humble and chastened frame of mind, which
might possibly prompt them to do something more permanent, and more
sensible, for their less fortunate fellow creatures than the founding
of free libraries. I may add that I do not claim any copyright in the
idea, and that should Mr. Andrew Carnegie be as assiduous a reader of
my instructive writings as it is to be hoped a gentleman so interested
in the free circulation of sound literature should be, he need fear no
action for infringement of copyright, should he be disposed to devote
the remainder of his--I fear--fast vanishing millions to such a purpose.
But to return to my story.
According to Parker's statement, the Dumpling, whose studies of natural
history had possibly led him to the conclusion that every creature
which comes into the world is so constituted that other and smaller
creatures should prey upon it, had so far fallen in with the existing
scheme of things as to decide to play the part of a plutocratic
parasite. His plan was forcibly to kidnap a millionaire when on his
way to or from the Shadwell banquet, and to hold him to ransom for an
immense sum, which was to go into the pockets of the Dumpling and his
accomplices. The fact, then, that a shadower--presumably acting on
behalf of Dumpling and Company--was carefully watching the house of a
millionaire, seemed not only to confirm the truth of Parker's story,
but to point to the very man whom the Dumpling intended to kidnap and
to bleed.
To trap a fox, it is of service to know upon which particular
chicken-house he is concentrating his attention.
While Brer Fox Dumpling was engaged in stalking and carrying off Brer
Rooster Millionaire, Brer Rabbit Rissler might, by keeping an eye upon
Brer Rooster, succeed in learning the whereabouts of, and ultimately in
stalking and trapping, Brer Fox himself. For the moment the Dumpling's
shadower was off duty, as regards the watch he was keeping upon No. 10,
Taunton Place and No. 5, Taunton Square; being engaged, as I had reason
to know, in following up the caller at Mr. Carleton's house.
Having satisfied myself that no understudy had come to take the
shadower's place or to relieve guard, I jumped into the first
four-wheeler that passed.
"Drive to No. 5, Taunton Square," I said to the cabby, "and when we are
there, get down and knock at the door. Meanwhile, I'll wait in the cab
till the door's opened, so that I can slip in at once. If anybody asks
you who I am and where you took me up, say at the Hotel Cecil, and that
you think I'm on a company-promoting job, as you have driven me already
to the houses of half a dozen company-director millionaires. Here's
half-a-crown--no, I'll make it two half-crowns, if you do as I tell
you, and hold your tongue."
With a nod and a grin he opened the cab-door and I got in. In less than
two minutes we were at No. 5, Taunton Square, and the instant the door
of the house was opened, in reply to the driver's knock, I was out of
the cab and had slipped inside and shut the door behind me, before the
astonished flunkey could as much as ask my name.
"Is Mr. Carleton in?" I snapped. "I've got some very important news for
him, and must see him without a moment's delay."
I spoke authoritatively, even sharply, and in no way as a stranger who
is unassured of his welcome.
"No, sir," the fellow answered respectfully. "He isn't in just now."
"When will he be?" I demanded.
"Well, sir, that's just what I can't say. If you'll take a seat in the
library, I'll ask Miss Kate if she has any news. She'll be----"
"Yes," I said peremptorily, "that'll do. Take me to her at once. Don't
delay in sending up word. There's not an instant to lose. Take me to
her straight."
Somewhat doubtfully, but scarcely liking to disobey one who spoke with
so confident an air, the man led the way to a door at the end of the
hall, and was just about to knock when it opened, and I saw standing
before me none other than my Lady of the Lake.
"Forgive this intrusion," I said, "but I bring you news of your father."
"I am relieved to hear it," she answered cordially, but quite coolly.
"It is very strange that he should neither have returned last night nor
sent a message. You are sure that he is safe and well?"
For the moment I was so taken aback that I faltered. Was I, then, too
late? Had the Dumpling already carried out his villainous purpose?
Then, pulling myself together, I answered, cheerfully:
"Yes, he is safe and well--make yourself quite easy about that; and I
know with whom he is staying. I will tell you all about it, if you will
allow me."
"Please come in," she said.
CHAPTER XI.
"WHAT'S YOUR LITTLE GAME?"
Then she recognised me. Except for the fact that her face suddenly
flamed and then as suddenly hardened, her breeding stood her in good
stead, and with cold, clear eyes, which looked as indifferently into
mine as if I had been a stranger calling to solicit a subscription to
some charity, she pointed me to a chair.
"You bring me news of my father?" she inquired, with a composure which
was possibly assumed for my benefit, or, rather, for my discomfiture.
"That is why I am here," I answered, bowing gravely, and in my turn
assuming an indifference which I strove to make as studied as her own.
"He is safe and well," I went on. "Of that let me assure you
positively. He is detained only upon a matter of business, and but for
the fact that other people, as well as himself, are concerned in it, he
could return, if he chose, this very night."
This much I said to allay her anxiety. That it was a diplomatic rather
than an exact statement of the facts, I do not deny, but though I would
unhesitatingly have told a lie to spare her, I was at least within the
truth in saying that the moment of Mr. Carleton's return lay entirely
within his own choice, since, once he had consented to pay the ransom
demanded by the Dumpling--and the money, as well as the safety of his
kidnappers, was secured--Mr. Carleton would in all probability be set
at liberty, and could then return, as I had said. Into the question
whether he would or would not consent thus to be bled of a large sum
of money, I had no intention of entering. The business before me was
to break the bad news as gently and as gradually as possible; and in
breaking bad news it does not always do to blurt out the undiluted
truth.
"Thank you," she said stiffly. "I wonder, in that case, that my father
did not communicate with me himself. Am I to understand that you are
his messenger? And am I to content myself with the bare knowledge, and
only on your assurance, that my father is detained on business, and
may or may not return to-night?"
"That's as you choose, Miss Carleton," I made answer, somewhat
foolishly.
"You have the advantage of me, sir," she replied icily, "for, to the
best of my belief, you and I have never met before. Is that not so?"
It is a woman's prerogative to forget or to remember, as her instinct
or her inclinations dictates, and, in view of the somewhat unusual and
unconventional circumstances of our first meeting, I was by no means
sure that I did not like and admire her the more, rather than the
less, for the way in which she had met the situation. Unhesitatingly I
fathered the lie, and with similar hardihood.
"That is so," I replied coldly.
Rightly or wrongly, I fancied that she softened slightly, so feeling
that I should do myself more justice if I told my story while her
manner was less freezing, I came to the point at once.
"May I tell you what I know, and how I came to know, of the business
which has detained your father?" I inquired. "I shall not keep you many
minutes."
"I shall be curious to hear it," she answered, speaking more
graciously than hitherto, and, seating herself in a dark corner where I
could not see her face, she prepared to listen.
I told the thing well, better--though, of course, much more
briefly--than I have told it in these pages, for the excitement with
which she listened, suppressed and controlled though it was, seemed to
communicate itself to me. The only moment when she bristled, if I may
use so inapplicable a word about so lovely a woman, was at the start.
"All that I have to tell has happened within the last twenty-four
hours," I began, "for only yesterday I was taking a country holiday,
and, I fear, kicking up my heels like a mischievous colt who has broken
out of bounds, and is sadly in need of a sound whipping to teach him
to behave himself. But," I made haste to get on, for the air around
me seemed suddenly to turn chilly, "since then, short time ago as it
is, I have had a 'breaking in,' and been made to answer to lash and
spur, and to look death in the face, and to fight for my life, in so
extraordinary a way, that my only fear is you'll not believe my story
when you hear it."
Then I told of my recall to town, of my commission to visit the opium
den, and of the subsequent happenings up to the moment when I had
stepped out of the cab and into her house. As I brought my recital to a
close, the door opened, and a lumpy-figured, masculine-looking woman,
hard-faced, large-featured, entered the room. Her skin was rough,
red and grained like brick-dust, and on either cheek was a patch of
darker red--almost of purple--which might have been put on by means of
a stencil plate, so hard, so abrupt, and so definite were the lines
where it began or ended. An incipient moustache and a deep voice seemed
to enter a protest, less against the petticoats she was wearing than
against her small and well-formed hands and feet.
"Clara!" she exclaimed menacingly, "who is this?"
Knowing that Miss Carleton's name was Kate, I was somewhat astonished
to hear her thus addressed, for it was not until later that I learned
the facts. The elder lady, who was Miss Carleton's only aunt, had
felt not a little aggrieved that her niece had not been called after
herself. So, by way of entering a protest against the omission of
the compliment which she felt ought to have been paid to her, and
notwithstanding Mr. Carleton's annoyance, and the fact that everybody
else called the girl Kate, the elder lady insisted upon addressing her
niece as Clara, as though the girl were actually her namesake.
"Clara!" she repeated. "Who is this?"
The rising remonstrant inflexion which she placed upon her niece's
name, and the way in which she said "Who is this?" her deep voice
booming like a three-peal bell, sounding first a high, then a low, and
then a deep bass growling note, took me so by surprise that I stared at
her open-mouthed.
"This gentleman has brought me news of my father, aunt," replied Kate
tremulously. "He's afraid, I'm afraid, that father has been made a
prisoner by blackmailers, and that he won't be released until money has
been paid for ransom."
"How absurd!" said the other lady, and in spite of the seriousness of
the situation, it was as much as I could do to refrain from laughing,
so irresistibly, so ludicrously, did her voice remind me of Mr. Penley
in _Charley's Aunt_.
Then, like a bell which pauses for a moment between its chimes, she
boomed again, "How very absurd!"
Miss Carleton turned appealingly to me. "Will you please tell my aunt
what you have just told me?" she said.
Haltingly and half-heartedly I repeated my story, the elder lady
pursing up her fleshy lips, rolling her eyes, and indulging in
long-drawn sniffs, so plainly indicating an incredulity which was lost
in admiration and wonder at its own magnificent power of control, that
I bungled the thing sadly, and was not surprised when, at the end of
the narrative, she rose majestically from her chair, and rang a rich
peal of warning and command.
"Clara, leave the room. I will join you, shortly."
She spoke as before, on one note, until she came to the last few words,
when her voice suddenly dropped an entire octave, and then sank in
rumbling silence, by falling, first one, and then another, note. This,
I found, was her invariable way of speaking. In effect, it reminded me
of a person walking with even step along a corridor, until he reaches
a flight of stairs, down eight of which he suddenly falls, at one
flight, recovering himself sufficiently, at the ninth, to rise and
stalk majestically down the last two or three.
If, in the course of my story, I do not again allude to this
peculiarity, it will not be because she ever lost the mannerism
in question, but because, the mannerism having already been fully
described, a repeated description of it in detail would, I fear, soon
become wearisome. It is so much easier, so much cheaper, if I may use
the word, to caricature a mannerism than to indicate character--to
describe a personal eccentricity than to indicate a type--that I am not
a little shamefaced at having written at such length regarding this
peculiarity of one of my characters. So marked a feature could not,
however, be passed over in silence, for I do not recall one solitary
occasion when she failed to drop her voice in the way I have described
when coming to the end of what she had to say.
Miss Carleton gone, her aunt, regarding me majestically, rang the bell.
When the man-servant appeared, she pointed at me.
"I wish to confer with my niece, Metcalfe. Meanwhile, that person must
not leave the house or this room. If he attempts to do so, call up the
other men-servants, and secure him."
With a warning glance at Metcalfe, and a glare at me, the good lady
left the room.
She was away about twenty minutes. On returning she dismissed the
servant, and seating herself, wheeled round in her chair, to turn all
her batteries upon my unhappy self. Her voice was, I fancied, a shade
less stately, a shade sharper, a shade brisker, and more business-like:
"What's your little game?"
CHAPTER XII.
JOHN CARLETON'S BURGLAR ALARM.
I stared at her blankly.
"Game?" I said. "Game? I haven't any game. You've heard my story. It's
the truth. I haven't anything else to tell or any game to play. What do
you take me for?"
"Rats!" she answered, shortly.
Then she strode over to a side table upon which lay a square box with a
button, like that of an electric bell.
"Have you ever seen one of these?" she inquired, pointing at it. "It
is my brother's own invention, and he is thinking of patenting it.
When this button is pressed (there's one of the machines in each
room), every door leading out of the house, and every window (they
are all of plate glass) by which it would be possible to escape, is
simultaneously and automatically locked; a burglar alarm is set ringing
in the kitchen, in the hall, and in all the men-servants' rooms, as
well as in the stables; and by a particularly ingenious arrangement, of
which my brother is especially proud, communication is also established
with the nearest police station. Once inside the house, no thief, or
burglar, if this button is pressed and the machinery is set going, can
hope to escape, for he is as neatly trapped as any rat.
"Well, young man (I haven't been told your name), since it has leaked
out that my brother is a millionaire and a philanthropist, every known
dodge in the begging-letter line and in the blackmailing line has been
tried on us; but, for sheer brazenry, I must say that your tale beats
all. My niece believes in you--more fool she!--but I'll tell you what I
think: every word that you have told us--except, perhaps, the fact of
my brother having been kidnapped by this man you call the Dumpling--is
an entire concoction; and if he really has been kidnapped as you say,
why, you are clearly the kidnapper's accomplice, and have come here to
sound us, and to pave the way for the abominable blackmailing which you
call holding to ransom. If any further proof of your confederacy with
the blackmailer is needed, that proof is supplied by the facts which
my niece has just made known to me. She tells me that only yesterday
morning, when she and I were at my brother's country house, she found
that someone had rowed out to the centre of the lake in our boat, and,
supposing it was I who was in the boat and that I had fallen asleep,
she swam out and found you in it. You were there, of course, in your
capacity of spy and shadower to your employer, and in order to acquaint
yourself with my brother's movements. It's a pity she didn't leave you
to be drowned--not that you'll be that, for I clearly foresee another
fate in store for you, and a less pleasant one. And now, if you please,
I propose sending for the police. I wonder if they'll believe your
story."
"No," I said smilingly, "they won't. I can tell you that before you
send, if it will be saving you any trouble."
"Ho! ho!" she said, triumphantly. "So you admit that I'm one too many
for you. You're not such a fool as I thought. Anyhow, you're 'cute
enough to know when you're dealing with a clever woman. It's wise of
you. If you had persisted in brazening me out with that preposterous
tale, you'd have been clapped between four walls this very night. I
mean what I say. But I'm not a hard-hearted woman, and, by the look of
you, you ought to be a cut above being the accomplice of criminals and
blackmailers."
After a pause, during which she regarded me with a stern but not
altogether unfriendly eye, the good lady spoke again, this time almost
pityingly:
"An accomplice of criminals and blackmailers! What brought you to it,
young man? Drink--debt--gambling--or worse? Come, now, I don't want to
be hard upon you. Make a clean breast of it, and I'll do what I can
to help you back to an honest life. You have already confessed the
falsehood of your story, and if----"
"I have done nothing of the sort," I interrupted indignantly. "My story
is perfectly true--every word of it; and if you'll let me----"
"Your story perfectly true!" she thundered. "Why, you told me just now,
with your own mouth, when I was going to send for the police--and that
reminds me: I'll ring the bell and send for them now--that you knew
they wouldn't believe it. If you're not the----"
"I know they won't believe it, because I've already told them," I cut
in. "I see a telephone bell in the corner there. Ring up Inspector
S----, of New Scotland Yard, or the Superintendent at ---- Station,
and ask them whether I haven't already been to them with the identical
story. They don't believe me now, because they don't want to; but when
the inquest is held and the facts come out, they'll find, and you'll
find, that every word I have said is perfectly true. Or," I added--for
she had actually rung the bell when threatening to send for the police,
and the servant had come to the door in response--"or send out and buy
an evening paper. You'll find the fact of the finding of the three
bodies off Canvey Island, just as I have told you."
"You can go, Metcalfe," she said to the waiting servant. "I shan't want
you at present."
Then she turned to me again.
"I don't know what to do," she said undecidedly. "If I let you go, and
your story turns out to be a lie, you'll have decamped of course when
you're wanted. If I hand you over to the police, you'll be in safe
keeping and----"
"It will mean a night in gaol, if you give me in charge at this hour,"
I interrupted, "in which case I shall certainly bring an action against
you for false imprisonment."
"Yes," she said meditatively, walking over to a side-table and turning
over some books as she spoke. "Yes, I suppose you would; and if your
story is true I'm not sure that I should blame you if you did, for no
one likes to be imprisoned when they've only told the truth. For the
matter of that, I don't know that I shouldn't dislike the publicity
of an action for false imprisonment more than you'd dislike the
imprisonment; and my brother--there's no escape from _that_ fact--would
be furious with me for getting my name and his into the papers. I
didn't believe a word of your story when I first heard it, but looking
at you more closely, I must say that you don't look or talk like a
liar, and I've a good mind to follow my instincts and trust you, after
all."
The magnanimity of this sudden outburst of confidence in my integrity
was somewhat lessened by the fact that, while affecting to turn over
some books on the side-table, she had all the time been scanning an
evening newspaper which lay neatly folded on the top of a pile of
books. I had purchased a copy of the same journal earlier in the
evening, and was well aware that a paragraph, describing the finding
of the three bodies, was printed in large type at the top of the first
page. Folded as the paper was, this paragraph was the most prominent
item of news, and could scarcely fail to catch even a cursory eye.
Possibly the reading of the paragraph sufficiently confirmed my story
to assist her to a decision.
"Come here, young man. I want to have a look at you," she said
peremptorily, walking over to the light.
I obeyed, and for half a minute was subjected to the scrutiny of her
keen but not unkindly eyes.
"That'll do!" she said, pushing me away testily. "I'm going to make a
fool of myself; but anyhow, I'm going to trust you, fool or no fool.
And now tell me what it is you want."
Some instinct told me that she was a woman to gain whose confidence
one must give one's confidence. Looking her full in the face I made
answer boldly:
"I want to marry your niece."
CHAPTER XIII.
THE FACE AT THE BROKEN WINDOW.
Miss Clara sat down--perhaps I should say collapsed down. But for the
fact that a huge Chesterfield stood immediately at her back, ready to
receive the fair burden of her charms, I am persuaded that her ultimate
destination would have been the floor. The suddenness of my statement
"dropped" her as neatly as a good marksman "drops" his bird.
Sinking--"all of a flutter," as she afterwards described it, thus
unconsciously confirming the aptness of my bird imagery--upon the
Chesterfield, this truly remarkable woman merely observed, "Well, I
never!" and then as speedily recovering herself, sat up and said,
quietly:
"I knew there was something behind it all along."
This was said, I may observe, not in relation to the Chesterfield which
had so fortunately been behind _her_, but to my story.
"Of course you did," I said. "Anyone could see that with half an eye.
There are two things behind it. First, I want you to help me to marry
your niece, and second, I want to help you to get your brother out of
the hands of these blackmailers."
In thus coupling our common interests, and in thus bespeaking, if not
assuming, her assistance on my behalf, I was taking a good deal for
granted, but she did not seem to resent it.
"You have plenty of impudence, young man," she said, smiling grimly.
"You'll be wanting someone to help you to marry me next."
"That," I answered, "is the one regret I shall have, if I succeed in
winning your niece. It will prevent me from ever hoping to win the
heart and hand (and what a pretty hand it is too!) of her charming and
accomplished aunt."
Then I told of my well-deserved ducking in the lake, admitting frankly
that I had lied when I had said I could not swim, but pleading my cause
and the excuses to be urged in my favour with all the eloquence at my
command, and, judging by her increasing friendliness, not altogether
without success.
"And now," I said, when I had made an end of it, "now about your
brother and the kidnapping?"
"Yes," she replied, "we have to think of that. I expect you think that
both Kate and I have taken it coolly, considering. But, you see, you
don't know my brother. If you did, you'd have very little fear about
his being able to take care of himself, wherever he is. What do you
propose?"
"First of all," I said, "I'll ask you to ascertain whether the house is
still being watched. You are taking me very much on trust, and if it
should turn out that the shadower has returned to his post, or another
shadower has been put on duty, it will go a little way to confirm my
story, and to prove that I'm not altogether an impostor."
"I either trust people altogether, or don't trust them at all," she
answered. "But you've been frank with me, so I'll tell you now that I
haven't taken you so entirely upon trust as you imagine. There's an
evening paper on that table which has an account of the finding of the
bodies, just as you mentioned; and when I went upstairs to speak to my
niece, I took the opportunity to peep up and down the road from behind
the blinds. There _is_ a man watching this house, and also a house
somewhere in Taunton Square, just as you said. It certainly is very
curious. Come in!"
The last two words were spoken in response to a knock. The door, when
opened, revealed Metcalfe with a telegram on a salver. She read the
slip of orange paper quite coolly, and then passed it to me, saying,
"From my brother."
It was as follows:--
Hope Kate and you not anxious last night. Letter I wrote early
yesterday morning explaining was called to Glasgow on business not
posted by oversight. Only just discovered it in my pocket. So sorry.
May be away some days.--JOHN.
"So, you see, he's safe enough," Miss Clara said, smiling. "Do you
really think you're right in thinking he is one of the millionaires
they want to kidnap? I admit it is a curious coincidence that someone
should be watching the house."
"Perhaps I _have_ jumped to conclusions somewhat," I said. "But
if someone is really watching the house again, I ought to be at
work, not wasting any more of your time and my time by gossiping
here--especially as it turns out after all that Mr. Carleton is safe.
If there is any back door I could slip out by, I think I'll either
follow the shadower myself, and see if I can't find out where he comes
from, or perhaps even try to get New Scotland Yard to arrest him on
suspicion. He's the only clue I've got to the whereabouts of the
Dumpling, and it won't do for me to lose sight of him. What's that
noise, I wonder, in the street? There's something amiss, clearly. It
won't do for me to be seen leaving the house. Would you mind letting
your servant inquire?"
"Certainly, if you wish it," she said, ringing the bell.
"Metcalfe, just find out what that disturbance in the street is," she
said, when the man appeared, "and come back to report to me."
"I have been out to see already, m'm," Metcalfe answered respectfully.
"A man's been stabbed--killed, too. They say he's a brother of Mr.
Grant the detective, who lives at No. 10, Taunton Place, and very like
him, and that a man who has been hanging about the street all day
stabbed him just as he was coming out of No. 10. Why he did it nobody
knows, unless the murderer's a criminal that Mr. Grant was after, and
stabbed the brother, thinking it was the detective himself. And the
worst of it is he's got away, too! But what's that?"
From the back of the house there came a sound that was suspiciously
like the stealthy breaking of glass.
It so happens that I have extraordinary sharp hearing, and was able
with some exactness to locate the direction whence the sound came.
Calling out "Follow me, Metcalfe!" I dashed down the stairs and through
a door which led to a corridor, at the end of which was a conservatory.
A cold wind indicated either an open door or window--perhaps a broken
window. As I raced along the corridor--the bewildered Metcalfe so far
behind me that I could hear his heavy steps descending the stairs--I
saw that though all the other plants in the conservatory were perfectly
still, one white-blossomed flower in a pot was swaying and moving as if
in a draught, and the next moment there peered, through a broken pane
of glass behind it, the white and wicked face of the Dumpling.
CHAPTER XIV.
MISS CLARA "SAVES MY LIFE."
One arm was stretched through the broken window towards the
conservatory door, which he was trying to unlock; but seeing that
someone was approaching he withdrew his arm hurriedly, and the white
face that had been peering through the jagged hole in the window-pane
disappeared. The next instant I was at the conservatory door, all agog
to unfasten it and to give chase, when suddenly, from every part of the
building, came the ringing of alarm bells, and, with a sharp click, a
bolt upon the conservatory door slid into its place. Clearly Miss Clara
had pressed the button of the burglar alarm, thus locking the very
door to which my hand was then stretched, and so effectually shutting
me in, and a possible housebreaker out. With one twist of my fist I
turned the key to which the Dumpling had been directing his attention.
Then I tried to slide back the only remaining fastening--the bolt which
had been shot into its place by the burglar alarm. It held fast,
and cursing Miss Clara, her inventful brother, and his too ingenious
burglar box, I tugged at the door with all my strength, but to no
purpose. The thing would not budge an inch, and when I snatched up a
piece of rockwork from a fernery and bashed desperately at the hateful
bolt, I only made matters worse. So far from loosening, the bolt
seemed only to set its teeth, bulldogwise, the more tenaciously for my
blows. Grinning with rage, and with the strain of concentrating all
the strength of my body into my two fists, I threw down the rockwork,
with a word I hesitate to repeat, but which Metcalfe, upon whose foot
the piece of rockwork fell, had no hesitation in forcibly repeating,
what time he limped upon one leg around the conservatory with a grin
of pain upon his face more beautiful to behold than the grin which had
so recently been upon mine. For the present it was clear that, thanks
to Miss Clara and the invention of her resourceful brother, the quarry
had escaped me. Long before I could have knocked out sufficient glass
to crawl through the conservatory window, long before Miss Clara could
have reversed the action of the machine and so released the lock upon
the door, the Dumpling would be far away.
[Illustration: "THERE PEERED THROUGH A BROKEN PANE OF GLASS ... THE
WHITE AND WICKED FACE OF THE DUMPLING."]
Under the circumstances I thought it wise to put the best face I could
upon my defeat, delicately hinting at the same time to Metcalfe that I
should be personally obliged if he would make it convenient to do the
same upon his pain, since much as one might admire a stone gargoyle
which bore a resemblance to a human face, a human face which bore a
striking likeness to a stone gargoyle in pain was less admirable and
more alarming.
"And now," I said, "we'll return to the drawing-room and to Miss Clara,
and get her to open the conservatory door so that we can search the
garden without delay."
The returning to the drawing-room was easier to speak of than
to accomplish, for the door, leading into the corridor from the
conservatory, had been securely locked by the same fell agency which
had so effectually interfered to prevent my giving chase to the
Dumpling; and it was some time before I could persuade the parties,
on the other side, that the persons clamouring for entrance were not
burglars or murderers, but only Metcalfe and myself.
After a word or two to Miss Clara, I returned, accompanied by Metcalfe,
to the conservatory, and thence to the garden. As I had feared, all
was to no purpose. The broken window-pane was the only evidence of
our recent visitor, for though we scoured the place from end to end,
we could not find as much as a footprint by way of a clue. Without a
warrant from the police--which I had no possibility of obtaining--I
could not hope to explore the neighbouring garden, where it was
possible the Dumpling might still be concealed; so we returned,
somewhat chapfallen, to the house. Miss Clara, who was awaiting us with
a perturbed countenance, refused to share my dissatisfaction at the
result which had been brought about by her ill-timed action in setting
the burglar alarm at work.
"In all probability I saved your life," she said calmly. "A man like
that, who had just committed a murder, and no doubt had come here to
commit another, or to burgle the house, was tolerably sure to have been
armed; and if you had been able to open the conservatory door and to
follow him out, he would in all probability have shot you at sight."
"I thought you said that all the windows were plate glass," I grumbled.
"If so, how did the man contrive to break that pane and to get an arm
through?"
"I said all the windows in the house," corrected Miss Clara. "The
conservatory isn't in the house, and no one could get into the house,
from the conservatory, without passing through the corridor door,
which, as you know, was fast locked, like the rest of the doors and the
windows, when I pressed the burglar bell.
"Well, you have done your best, Mr. Rissler. No man can do more. We
shall have the police here directly. They have been a long time in
coming as it is, but I expect the entire staff is out hunting for the
murderer of poor young Grant. What shall we do when they come?"
"Tell them the facts, of course," I said, "and let them see the broken
window-pane and examine the garden for themselves. If I hadn't supposed
they were already on the way here, and if I hadn't been in such a hurry
to get out and search the garden, as not to give myself a moment to
think, I should have urged upon you the necessity of sending for them
before. Hush! Was that a ring at the front door? I think so. Very
possibly it is they."
It was--a sergeant and an ordinary constable, decent fellows, honest
fellows, conscientious fellows, both of them, but not, I imagine,
overburdened either of them with brains. Plainly they did not associate
the attempt to enter the house with the murder. The impression they
gave was that they thought a mere alarm of burglary very small beer
when compared with an actual murder. Miss Clara told them that while
she and I were talking, we heard the sound of falling glass below,
that I had gone down and had seen a man's face at a broken window. She
explained the circumstances which prevented me from following him, and
added that I believed the face to be that of a man respecting whom I
had laid information at Scotland Yard that very morning.
The sergeant and the constable listened to Miss Clara's statement
without excitement, and when she had made an end of it expressed a
wish to see the conservatory, the broken window and the garden, made
a few notes, took my name and address, accepted readily the glass of
whisky and water which Miss Clara suggested, but declined with equal
readiness the half-crown which the same lady, by way of compensation
for the trouble to which she had put them, endeavoured to press into
their hands, and remarking that they had done no more than their duty,
wished us good-night and so departed.
Then I turned to my hostess and unfolded my own plans.
"To tell the honest truth, Miss Carleton," I said, "I was not at all
anxious to be mixed up in this new development. I shall have more than
enough advertisement at the inquest, which is to be held to-morrow, on
the three bodies found off Canvey, and if I am called as a witness at
the inquest which will have to be held on the body of young Grant--the
police and the public will begin to think my connection with both
murders somewhat suspicious. If I were to have followed my inclinations
I should have pretended that I was anxious to learn more of the
circumstances of young Grant's murder, and should have asked you to let
me slip out to see if I could pick up any news, so as to be out of the
way when the police called. But a murder, a brutal murder, has been
committed, and though I am still smarting from the undeserved snubbing
I received when I called at Scotland Yard this morning, I should feel
that I was behaving not only like a bad citizen, but as little less
than a criminal, were I to keep back anything which would assist the
police in their search. And now, may I get on to something else which
I very much wish to say? The fact that the face I saw at the broken
window was that of the Dumpling, is to me very significant. It is, you
must admit, a strong confirmation of the theories I have formed, and of
which I have already told you. Why did I watch Grant's house? Because
if the Dumpling believed Grant to be alive, I was tolerably sure he
would lose no time in putting Grant out of the way. What was the result
of my watching? This--that I found someone was watching Grant's house,
and not only Grant's house, but this house as well. Then came the
question, Why was he watching this house? I knew from Parker that the
Dumpling had planned to kidnap certain millionaires, and to hold them
to ransom. Hearing on inquiry that your brother was a millionaire, I
thought it not unlikely that it was he who was to have been kidnapped
last night. I think so still, but I am inclined to believe that my
appearance at the opium den upset the calculations of the conspirators,
and so prevented them from carrying out their plans. They are still
watching this house, however. Why? Because they are waiting for your
brother's return so that they may learn his movements, and lay their
plans accordingly.
"Then came the murder of young Grant. It may have been, or it may not
have been, the work of the Dumpling and his accomplices. Personally, I
haven't a moment's doubt that it was so. While all the neighbourhood is
hunting for the murderer, a man tries to remove a pane of glass in your
conservatory. Who is this man? Is he a burglar who, with no connection
whatever with the murder, has chanced to choose this particular night
to break into your house? I don't think so. He could hardly have
failed to hear that a murder had just been committed in your immediate
neighbourhood, and if so, would he be fool enough to select the very
night when he knows the police will be wide awake and on the watch?
Not likely. If he had been an ordinary burglar, he would have had his
diamond with him, and would have cut out, not broken, that pane of
glass. The man who broke the glass was a fugitive, and in desperate
straits.
"Possibly he thought that at this hour of the night no one would be
likely to come into the conservatory, and that he could lie in hiding
till the hue and cry had passed. Possibly he hoped to slip through the
house unobserved, and so make his way into the street from the front,
in order to disarm suspicion. A man who had just committed a murder was
not likely to walk boldly out of the front door of such a house as this.
"But why did the Dumpling hit upon this particular house? Was it by
chance, and because it was the first which came handy when he managed
to evade his pursuers by scaling a wall and lying in hiding, while they
went by? I don't think so. That he did escape by scaling a wall I have
very little doubt; but I believe that he made his way to the house
deliberately, and with set intention. It is quite clear to me that he
has designs of some sort upon this house or upon its master. Even if
the design were no more than a burglary, you may be tolerably sure that
so clever a criminal as he doesn't attempt to burgle a house without
first acquainting himself with the position of the different rooms,
and all the difficulties which would be presented in getting in and in
getting out. My belief is that the Dumpling chose this house for his
hiding-place deliberately. Upon this house, for some reason of his own,
he is keeping a watch, and it is from this house that I must set my
counter-watch for him. I have a strange presentiment that it will not
be long before we shall see him here again. Someone--something--there
is in this house upon whom, or upon which, he has designs. It may be
its master; it may be only its master's money. To-night, if you will be
so good, so very good, Miss Carleton, as to trust me thus far, I want
to conceal myself in the garden. If nothing comes of it, no harm is
done. If any attempt is made to enter, I shall be there to frustrate it
and to give the alarm. You perhaps think my request a strange as well
as a foolish one. But listen. Whether the man, looking in at the broken
window-pane of the conservatory, recognised me--whether he even saw
me at all, I do not know. But I saw him, and for one second's space,
before the white face of him disappeared, I not only saw him, but
looked him full in the eyes. And in that second I saw something else.
As in a dream-tableau, I saw that same man creeping stealthily, and at
the darkest, deadest hour of the night, towards the same window, and
through the same garden."
CHAPTER XV.
MY FRIEND THE DUMPLING.
Romantic, Miss Clara may or may not have been; superstitious she
certainly was not. For some reason of her own she had formed a not
unflattering opinion of my intelligence--an opinion which, I fear, my
reference to these dream-tableaux did not a little to shake. And when
Miss Clara thought poorly of a person or of a thing, she said so with a
directness which was somewhat disconcerting. Her comment on the words
with which I closed my last chapter was:
"Mr. Rissler, don't be a fool!"
"I try not," I said lamely. "What's the particular folly of mine you
have in mind at the present moment?"
"Why, this dream-tableau business, of course," she answered. "You're no
fool--quite the contrary--in most respects; but I've no patience with
this nonsense about dream men kneeling on your chest in a dream garden.
If you've got anything on your chest, you should look after your
digestion--not talk about your dreams. And that reminds me. I generally
take a glass of hot milk and a biscuit before going to bed. If you are
going to sit up out of doors all night in the garden, as you propose,
you'll want something more substantial. Oblige me by ringing that bell.
I suppose you smoke," she said, when I had made a substantial supper.
"If so, you may. My brother's a great smoker, so you need have no
scruples.
"What I like about you," she continued, when I had lit up in accordance
with her permission, "is that you're a young man who can make up his
mind. To tell me, within the first half-hour you'd ever seen me, that
you wanted to marry my niece when you'd only seen her once before, was
about as brazen a piece of impudence as I've ever heard of. But I'd
rather a man should be that sort than one of your 'Oh, I'm sure I don't
mind which' and 'I haven't any choice in the matter' kind of person."
"I count myself fortunate in the possession of your good opinion, Miss
Carleton," I said with a bow.
"None of your blarney!" she answered gruffly. "Not that I mind a person
being pleasant-spoken and pleasant-mannered," she added, "although
Heaven knows I'm rough enough in ways and in speech myself. There's
something waiting on the tip of your tongue to say. What is it?"
"There is, but your penetration alarms me," I said. "It was merely to
wonder whether I might venture to inquire where your niece has been all
this while, and during all these disturbing events?"
"You may. She's in her own room. I told her to stay there till I called
her down. I sent up word to her not to be alarmed, before I rang
the burglar bell. That's why it didn't go off before you got to the
conservatory door. If I'd rung when you left the room as I should have
done except for alarming Clara, you would not have got further than the
corridor door."
"That was very dear and considerate and thoughtful of you," I replied.
"I'm going to be very fond of you, if you'll let me, before I've done,
Miss Carleton."
"Done what?" she asked grimly, but not ill-pleased.
"This cigar," I replied promptly. "I suppose you thought I was going
to say before I'm your nephew-in-law; but, hasten that happy day
as I would--and it cannot come too soon for me--it would seem an
interminable long time to wait, if I had to put off being fond of you
till then. I suppose I shan't be seeing Miss Kate again to-night."
"You'll not!" she answered bluntly. "And if you call her Kate instead
of Clara, you'll not be seeing her at all, if I have anything to do
with it, for call people out of their right names, no one shall, while
I can help it."
The logic of a lady who, in spite of the fact that she persistently
called her own niece out of the name which had been given the girl at
her christening, the name by which everyone else, from her own father
downwards, habitually called her, yet could thus lay down the law, was
too fearful a thing for a mere male to contemplate, so I smiled weakly,
and said, "I beg your pardon! 'Miss Clara,' I meant, of course. How
silly of me!"
Incidentally I made a note in my memory to the effect that the best way
out of the dilemma would be, when speaking of my Lady of the Lake, to
refer to her as "your niece," or as "Miss Carleton."
"No," said Miss Clara, philosophically, and with the air of one who,
not expecting too much from fallen human nature, is always ready to be
tolerant, and to make allowance; "no, I don't say, and I don't see,
that it is silly of you. That is too severe a word, and the mistake is
not unnatural on your part, when you remember that her own father made
it twenty years ago, and has gone on doing it ever since."
As she spoke the clock struck eleven.
"Is it so late?" I said. "I had no idea. Now, with your permission,
Miss Carleton, I'll be off to the garden. I shall never forget your
goodness to me to-night--taking me on trust, as you have, when
everything was against me, and making me feel, now that I am about to
say good-night, as if I were saying it, not to one who an hour or so
ago was a complete stranger to me, but to a dear and kind and generous
friend. How shall I ever thank you?"
"Don't try," she said laconically, rising. "Good-night."
I sprang to open the door for her, stooping low to raise to my lips the
surprisingly small and white and well-formed hand which she extended to
me.
"And now," I said to myself, when she had gone, "now for my vigil
in the garden. In my dream picture only a night ago, I saw myself
lying on my back, the man I am seeking kneeling over me, knife in
hand. The place where this happened I could not see. But to-night,
in another dream picture, I saw the same man crouched low to steal
by dead of night through a garden. I wonder whether that garden and
the place of my first dream are one and the same? I wonder whether
it was good fortune or an evil fate which guided my feet to the
opium den yesterday, and brought me and that same man to this house
to-night? I wonder whether he or I have met and striven in this or in
some pre-existent world? I wonder why it is that only when looking in
his eyes do I see these pictures which come and go so strangely in
my brain? But most of all, I wonder whether I might venture to ring
the bell, and ask the gentle Metcalfe to bring me a drink. All this
'wondering' and this 'whethering' makes me feel not only uncommonly
dry, but also more like the hero who never was on sea or land except in
the pages of a shilling shocker, or in a melodramatic play, than like
an ordinary, everyday young man who fancies that a pipeful of tobacco
taken in conjunction with liquid refreshment in the shape of a stiff
'whisky,' would suit his complaint down to the ground. Anyhow, I'll
try. Then for the garden, for my dream picture, and possibly for our
friend and enemy, the Dumpling!"
CHAPTER XVI.
THE GHOST IN THE GARDEN.
The place selected in which to keep my watch had, I imagine, been
intended by the builder for a coal-cellar; but from the fact that the
walls of thick cement were set around with shelves, partitioned into
squares, I concluded that some subsequent tenant had seen fit to turn
it into a wine-cellar. One entered from the garden, and passing down
a few stone steps, came to a wooden door like that of a coal-cellar
or tool-house, opening upon a short passage, the walls of which were
evenly cemented. At the end of this passage another door--of iron this
time, and fitted with a patent lock--had been added; and, as it did
not seem likely that anyone would trouble to protect garden tools or
coals by the addition of an extra door, such as one sees in a strong
room or on a safe, the presumption was, as I say, that the place had
been intended for the storage or the laying down of wine. But whatever
its purpose, it made a serviceable sentry-box, for by leaving the two
doors open I could command a view of the garden. Seeing by the light of
a vesta, which I struck on entering, that a naked gas-jet was fixed to
the wall, and finding that the gas was laid on, I lit it for a moment
or two while I had time to look round. Had I chosen to keep the inner
door shut, I could have left the light burning all night, and with no
fear of its gleam being seen from outside. But in that case I could not
have kept the necessary eye upon the garden; so, after I had turned an
empty champagne case into a somewhat uneasy and uncomfortable seat, I
put out the light, and, opening both doors wide, sat down to commence
my watch.
* * * * *
One!
Two!
Three!
"Three o'clock and a wet night!" I said to myself, yawning wearily.
"The policeman, whom I've just heard pass, isn't likely to get wet
feet, judging by the thickness of the boots he's wearing. I wonder how
he manages to walk like that? One might think he did it purposely, to
warn the gentle burglar to lie low while law-and-order is passing.
First of all comes his heel with a _flick_, and then the flat of his
foot with a _flack_, like the double beat of a flail. _Flick-flack,
flick-flack, flick-flack!_
"But perhaps I'm blaming the poor man without a cause. It may be that
it is only because we hear the policeman's tramp, sounding and echoing
on an empty pavement, that we think it peculiar; and possibly my own
footfalls could as readily be recognised were they heard at night, when
other sounds are still.
"Now he's stopped. Trying a door or window perhaps. Now he's on the
move again. _Flick-flack, flick-flack, flick-flack!_ It seems to me
that, listening here as I am, I could locate his whereabouts all down
the street. All down the street, did I say? Yes, and down the next
street, and the street after that, if one wished to do so. I'm sure I
don't. All I want now is to see this thing through, and to get home to
a cold bath and a bed. And it won't be long now, for very likely that
is Robert's last beat down this way for the night--or, rather, for the
morning.
"Was that something stirring at the end of the garden? Another cat,
I expect. How that other brute made me jump--creeping in upon me so
stealthily that I didn't know it was there, till I saw its horrible
eyes, glaring at me like a ghost out of the dark!
"Here's another yawn coming. Y-a-a-a-a-ow!
"There's another yawn gone, and I seem to see quite a procession of
yawns looming up before me. What a queer place it is--this thread of
territory, which I call 'Half-Awake-Land'! It's a sort of boundary
line--no more--between Dream-Land and Waking-Land, and as one can't
stand on a boundary line, any more than one can stand on a stretched
thread, I keep tumbling in and out, first into Dream-Land and then into
Waking-Land all the time. One of the funny things about Half-Awake-Land
is that all one's thoughts turn into pictures.
"When I yawned a few minutes ago, I said to myself that I saw 'quite
a procession of yawns looming up before me,' and then, as I say, my
thoughts turned into pictures, and the earth, as far as ever I could
see, seemed to have as many cracks or crevasses in it as a newly
ploughed field has furrows. As I looked each crack yawned open, like
the huge mouth of some rude person who gapes in your face, without
having the decency even to gape behind his hand, so that the world
seemed to wrinkle away to the horizon's edge in a thousand opened
mouths.
"Then all of a sudden I saw a great Sleep-Sea in front of me. All the
waves upon it were yawns, and they came rolling in upon me, one after
the other, till I feared I was going to be carried off my feet by a
bigger yawn than any of the others, and so washed away and drowned.
"What a farrago of nonsense, half-soliloquy, half sleep-talking, I've
been thinking or speaking--I hardly know which. Hullo! Nodding again!
This won't do! If it hadn't been that I'm sitting up, instead of lying
down, I should have dropped right off to sleep that time. I was nearly
off my seat, as it was. It was the forward lurching of my head and body
which woke me, and the jerk seemed sharp enough to snap one's backbone
at the neck, not to speak of making one's heart jump inside one, like a
frightened frog. What tricks one's brain plays in a moment's snatched
sleep! Three seconds ago I was awake and talking about one's thoughts
turning into pictures when one is half-awake and half-asleep. After
that I reminded myself that I must keep awake, lest the Dumpling should
steal in upon me unawares. Then I suppose that for a second's space I
dropped off; and again the thought turned into a picture in my brain.
I was sitting, just as I am now, looking at the incandescent burner of
that lamp-post in the side street to the right of the garden. And that
reminds me. It's a strong light, and if I don't get a little farther
back it is just possible that I might be seen by anybody who looked
over the wall at the garden's end. That's better! No one could see me
here; I'm well in the shadow. Yes, I was sitting here, blinking, as I
say, at the incandescent light on the lamp-post, and as I sat I saw
a black object, like the crouched figure of a man, creeping along in
the shadow of the wall. It was the over-wrought brain playing tricks
again--projecting out of itself the picture of the person of whom one
had been thinking, so that one could easily believe that what one saw
was the actual flesh-and-blood person himself. I'm morally sure I shall
fall asleep in dead earnest if I sit here any longer. I think I'll
steal outside for a moment or two, if only to stretch my legs, and to
shake off the drowsiness which is coming over me."
Very lightly and on tip-toe I crept out--to receive a sudden,
sickening, crushing blow, which brought me blinded, and with the blood
running down into my eyes and mouth, to my knees.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE MAN WITH GORILLA ARMS.
The only wonder is that I wasn't killed outright, as would have
happened had my antagonist been as tall as I. But enormously strong
as the Dumpling was, my superior height saved my life. He had struck
at me with a life-preserver heavily loaded with lead, but being many
inches less in stature than I, he had struck short. Hence the blow
which, had it taken me directly on the head, as intended, would have
made a very batter-pudding of my brains, did no more than inflict
a nasty skin-wound, more of a graze than a gash, above one temple.
Even had the blow fallen directly on my shoulder, I should in all
probability have been disabled for the rest of my life. Luckily for
me, however, the loaded life-preserver barely scraped, instead of
smashing, my shoulder-blade, and though for the moment I fell--dazed
and blinded by my own blood--to my knees, my hurts were by no means
serious. As I lay, half stupefied by the suddenness of the attack and
by the blow, yet not too stupefied to forget to shield my head, lest
my antagonist should strike again, I was seized around the waist, by
arms so abnormally long and strong that they were more like those of
a gorilla than of a man, and was carried swiftly to the cellar. To
say that unconsciously I feigned unconsciousness may seem a queer way
of describing what followed; but it is a fact that I lay, apparently
as lifeless, on the cellar floor, as if I had been a spider, shamming
death in the presence of an enemy. And this I did automatically as far
as I can remember, without knowing why I did it.
"I hope he isn't dead, poor devil!" said the Dumpling aloud, to
himself, and in a tone of voice which, in view of the fact that my
death was the fact he had a few moments before had in view, and had,
indeed, done his best to compass, struck me as unnecessarily anxious.
His methods reminded me somewhat of modern warfare, in which we first
do everything in our power to put a bullet into a man, by means of a
gun, and then do everything in our power, by means of good surgery, to
get it out. It always seems to me that--since once we have wounded
a man, our chief anxiety is to restore the _status quo_ by healing
his wound--the desired end might be attained, and the _status quo_
established, by means considerably less expensive to ourselves and
undoubtedly less painful to him.
"I hope he isn't dead," muttered the Dumpling again, laying me down
with surprising gentleness. "It's one of the servants, I suppose, who
has been ordered to be on watch all night in case there's a second
attempt to break into the house, and I have no quarrel with _him_."
As he spoke I suddenly seized him by the legs and toppled him over,
fastening on him like a bulldog the instant he was down. From the first
it was clear that I was wholly outmatched, and had no chance. I had him
on his back, one knee on his chest, and my hands at his throat; but he
put up his two hands very much in the same indifferent way in which
he would have gone to work to fasten--or to unfasten--a collar-stud,
and taking my two wrists, one in each of his fists, he forced them
apart, and away from his neck, as easily as a clamp or a vice opens or
shuts by the twisting of the screw. As if to show his strength, he
held my two hands powerless, thus, for a few seconds, and then with a
contemptuous laugh he swung me away from him and aside, as easily as
a man, who is teaching a child to jump, swings the little one from a
chair to the floor.
What followed I have never ceased to regret. The man had had it in his
power, then and there, to strangle me as I lay. With an antagonist
whose arms were, as I have said, as long and as strong as a gorilla's,
and whose hands held one in a grip of iron, it was useless--athletic
and muscular as I am--to struggle. I was as a child in his grasp;
and, remembering that he had--whether from a contempt which was more
cruel than a blow, or from some instinct of chivalry which made him
disdainful of so puny an opponent--set me free of his own accord,
and, in a sense, thrown my liberty in my face, remembering all this,
I am ashamed to record what followed. The only point to be urged in
my excuse is that I was beside myself with wounded vanity and by the
humiliation which had been put upon me--I was about to have written by
the humiliation of my defeat; but defeat comes after a contest, and
between him and me there had been, thus far, as little appearance of
contest as there is when a strapping nursemaid takes a naughty child
across her knees, and, in spite of the culprit's tears and kicks,
administers the necessary number of smacks. Whether what I have urged,
in extenuation of what I did, will be accounted any excuse by the
reader, I cannot say; but the fact remains that, mad with impotent
anger, and burning for some sort of revenge, I rose to my feet and
struck him, unprepared as he was, full in the face, and with all my
might.
With a snarl like that of a wild beast he closed with me, and for a
few seconds--for my fury seemed temporarily to endow me with a giant's
strength--we rolled over and over, each striving to pin the other to
the ground.
Even at this distance of time, as I seek to recall that moment, I can
well believe that the bloody, bestial savagery of the fight--except for
the short, gasping, hissing intaking and expulsion of breath, we fought
in silence--might have turned a possible onlooker sick with loathing
and disgust. But it was soon over. The strain I had put upon myself,
when first grappling with him, was too terrific to last. My strength
suddenly failed me, and I fell backward, his fingers upon my throat.
In our struggle we had worked our way out of the cellar and into the
passage which led to the garden, and, as I went crashing backward,
I saw for one instant, by the light from the lamp-post in the side
street, that his right hand was already at his hip-pocket in search
of a knife. The next instant he was kneeling on my chest, the knife
upraised to strike--just as I had foreseen in the dream-tableau. As
he bent over me to get a yet firmer grip upon my throat, the yellow
lamp-light fell across my face. Out of his face, which had now turned
white and haggard, the blood-fury seemed suddenly to die.
"My God!" he gasped. "It's Grant the detective--and I've killed the
wrong man!"
Then there came into his eyes a look which, seeing it again in dreams
even now, years after, makes me awake with a cry, to find the cold
perspiration from my forehead running down into my eyes, my limbs
trembling and my heart leaping like a frightened creature.
"I've got you at last, Grant, have I!" he said, in a voice of cold
and slow and deadly calmness. "Just now--seeing him go in and out of
your house, and, striking in the dark, as I did--I killed a man whom I
believed to be you. But there can be no mistake this time. I've got you
now, and this time"--he took a firmer grip of the knife--"this time, I
rather guess you're going to die."
CHAPTER XVIII.
I PLAY THE CRAVEN.
Then I played the craven. It is useless to say any more. It is idle to
urge an excuse. I played the craven, and pleaded to the man at whom, a
few minutes before, when he was unprepared, and after he had spared my
life, I had struck a cowardly blow.
"Don't strike!" I gasped. "I'm not Grant--Grant is dead. I've seen his
body. I'll tell you about it, if you'll not strike."
"This," he said--almost drawled--in slow, deliberate accents, "is very
extraordinary and most interesting. I won't promise to spare your life.
But I'll hear your tale. I'll promise nothing else, young man, whoever
you are, till I've heard you out."
My momentary panic was over. Already I was beginning to feel ashamed of
myself. Already the manhood which had deserted me was returning.
"Stop a moment," I said. "I won't have my life on false pretences. I
lost my nerve just now and played the coward; but, please God, I'll
play the man again. I'm not Grant, it is true, and Grant is dead; but
I'm your enemy, and I meant and mean to hunt you down. So knife me now
if you want to, but before you do so, I'd like to ask your pardon for
striking you, after you'd spared my life, and when you were unprepared.
It was a cad's blow--a coward's blow--and I am ashamed of it."
I stopped short, red-faced and choking. He gave an uneasy, abrupt
laugh, and, rising, put back his knife.
"Get up!" he said; "I guess you mean playing the game fairly. As for
the bit of a blow, we'll say no more about it. Perhaps I deserved it.
It does not do to think an opponent's beaten and means throwing up the
sponge too early in the game. For what happens after I've heard your
story--whether I kill you, as kill you I assuredly can this moment and
in this place--I promise nothing till I've heard you out. This much,
however, I will say. You tell me you are my enemy, and that you meant
and still mean hunting me down. Well, that's straight talk, and I'll
say this much of straight talk to you in return. If you are my enemy
only, I wouldn't and couldn't kill you for any reason under the sun.
If you're the enemy of the cause I have at heart, I'd find you out and
kill you though all Scotland Yard itself acted as your bodyguard and
protector. That's the state of the market, young man. First of all,
let me ask you whether that yarn you spun in the opium den about your
having come there by chance as an author in search of copy was true?"
"Every word of it," I answered.
"Well, now, tell me what you have been doing since, and how you came
to be in this house, and in this garden. I have got to know, and it
will go better with you, if you tell me with your own lips, than if you
force me to find it out for myself, as I most assuredly shall. I don't
want to kill you. It is horrible to me to have to take a life--unless
the safety of the cause is concerned, and then I'd kill you or anyone
else as unconcernedly--much more unconcernedly than I'd kill a
superfluous litter of kittens brought into the world by the family cat."
Doubt his sanity I might and did, but of his seriousness and sincerity
I was in no sense sceptical. If I refused to speak, the chances were
that I should not be allowed to leave the place alive. In the matter
of personal strength, I was hopelessly outmatched, and as my revolver
had dropped out of my hand when I had received the blow which felled
me, and had been secured by him, I was, save for a pocket-knife,
entirely unarmed.
All things considered, to tell him my story seemed the best course
to pursue. He would learn very little that mattered or that he could
not find out without me; whereas it was quite possible that if, in
return, I could induce him to speak of the "cause" to which he was so
warmly attached, and in the interests of which he was ready to stop at
nothing, I might, on the contrary, learn something which would be very
well worth the knowing.
"I'll tell you my story," I bargained, "if you in return will tell me
what is this cause which you say you have at heart. Who knows that it
might not be a cause with which I myself sympathise, and might wish to
befriend?"
"I agree," he said quietly. "But first I think we'll shut the door and
have a light. I've been in this place before. If I can help it, I never
enter any place without finding out all I can about it beforehand.
There's a gas-jet, and if you'll wait a moment, I'll light it. It can't
be seen from the outside."
Commencing with the invitation to write an article on the opium den, I
very briefly narrated what had befallen me, keeping back nothing except
my love for Kate, and the fact of the dream-tableaux, neither of which
seemed to me to come within my bargain.
He listened without a comment, though he now and then interpolated a
pointed question. When I had done, he lit a cigarette, and began to
pace backward and forward.
"Mr. Rissler," he said abruptly, after a short silence, "were you ever
poor?"
"Ever poor?" I laughed. "If you had asked me if I were ever rich, I
might, by thinking hard, remember a time when I had a few pounds in
hand. But ever poor? My dear sir, I can't recall a time when I was ever
anything else."
He nodded gravely.
"I have heard your story. Now listen to mine. I'm not without hope of
enlisting your sympathy. Not for myself: I need, and will have, the
sympathy of no man; but for the cause for which I fight, for which I
hope and believe I shall be able to persuade you to fight. My mother
was a poor woman--a woman of the people; my father--my God! the irony
of it--a gentleman. He was, if the truth were known, something more
than a gentleman. We are all gentlemen to-day, or think we are, and
one has to make a distinction. He was more than a gentleman. He was
an aristocrat. He was more, even, than an aristocrat; but we will not
talk further of that now. She was my mother, but not his wife. She
was the mother of his child, and he left her and her child to starve.
We did not starve; but I pass over those years. When I was ten, she
broke down, worked out, worn out, wearied out. Then I took over her
burden. No matter what my work, no matter who my employer. There are
thousands of such employers as he; there are millions of such workers
as I--workers whom no law protects. You may not be cruel to a cat
or dog; you may not over-work a horse. These are offences which are
punishable by law. But your fellow-men and fellow-women, your clerk,
your shop-assistant, your warehouse-man--these you may starve, sweat,
over-work, underpay, these you may do to death if you like, and none
shall say you nay. The sweating, the over-work, and the underpay are
the least of the evils they endure.
"The one and only aim of most employers is making money. And 'making'
money means _taking_ money, the money which is the rightful property
of others--means, in point of fact, swindling. But a good business man
is shy of swindling his customers. The customer is a free agent. If
he discovers he is being swindled he will take his custom elsewhere,
and loss of custom means loss of money, which will not suit your
business man. So he must needs look for somebody else to sweat and
swindle--somebody who cannot take himself elsewhere at choice; and in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the somebodies are the unfortunate
employees. They must be made to do the greatest possible amount of
work at the least possible rate of pay. And that they be compelled to
endure this wholesale blood-sucking and robbery, they must of necessity
be kept in a state of subjection, of fear, of slavery, and bondage.
All feeling of independence, of having a soul or a conscience to call
their own, must be taken from them. They are the chattels of their
master, the creatures of his will, depending--they and their wife and
child, if wife or child there be--upon his whim and pleasure for the
roof which covers their head, for the clothes they wear, for the very
food which keeps body and soul together. Let them once feel any sense
of independence--let them once feel that they can obtain shelter and
clothes and food at the hands of another employer, and they will no
longer consent to be sweated and robbed, underfed, underpaid, and
overworked.
"There are several ways of bringing the unhappy employees to this state
of servile subjection. One is to browbeat, to bully, and to intimidate,
till their nerve be gone and their spirit be broken. But why stand it,
you ask? Why not throw off these chains, and seek work at the hands
of some employer who is considerate and just. The reason is that such
an employer is not easy to find, and, when found, the chances are a
hundred to one against his having a vacancy on his staff.
"Every man in a situation knows that there are thousands out, and
that, were he to resign his post, it would be filled, almost at a
moment's notice, and at any wage which an employer chose to offer. Such
knowledge as that gives pause to the man who is minded to assert his
independence, for out of his meagre salary it is almost impossible to
save; and to be out of work even for a week or two, with nothing to
fall back upon, means not only starvation for him and his, but means
that every week he is out, the longer is he likely to remain so. It
means shabby clothes; for how, without money, can he buy new clothes
to keep up the appearance which is of so much importance to him when
applying for a post? It means that in an incredibly short time he
begins to look shabby and broken-down--begins to look, in fact, like
one of life's derelicts, and, of life's derelicts, employers are apt to
fight shy.
"Another reason why a man hesitates to throw off his chains is that
some employers have been known to refuse a character to the clerk or
assistant who has asserted his independence, and the independence of
his class, by discharging himself; and at the man who comes seeking
work, without a 'character,' no other employer will look. For an
employee to dare to prove that he has been overworked and underpaid
by discharging himself, and finding new employment, where the work is
less and the rate of pay higher, would be an example (your employer
argues) which would demoralise the whole staff. Such a state of things
approaches to sacrilege, blasphemy, anarchy. It must not be permitted.
Of the man who dares so to act, so to set employers as a class at
defiance, an object-lesson must be made, lest so dangerous an example
infect the workers who remain. I have known cases where, to such a man,
not only has a character been refused, but where a trumped-up charge
of theft, or insubordination, or other misconduct, has been brought
against him, that he and his fellow-slaves may be taught the salutary
lesson that, against Capital, Labour has no chance; against the
employer, the employee has no appeal. It is slavery, a thousand times
worse than that of the Chinese coolies about which some good folk have
such tender consciences.
"In England we do not flog our white slaves. We only break their
nerves, crush their spirit, and bully the manhood out of them. Two of
my fellow-workers went out of their minds; one of us took his own
life. You look incredulous--you think that sort of thing uncommon. They
haven't enough mind left, most of them, to go out of it, so abject and
cringing and timid do they become; and they haven't enough pluck left
in them--broken-spirited as they are--to take their lives. So they only
die, the weakly ones, or drag out their wretched lives, the strong
ones, in daily terror of being discharged and of being thrown homeless,
moneyless, to starve upon the streets. Perhaps to starve, and so to
make an end of it, would be the best thing that could happen to them.
For many employers, in addition to the sweating, encourage a system
which leaves their employees with less spirit to call their own than a
dog, less soul in their wretched bodies than a worm.
"In many business houses a system of espionage is established by which
the wretched workers are encouraged to sneak and pry and play the
cut-throat upon each other. If your fellow-slave gets two shillings a
week more than you get, and you can detect him in a moment's slackness,
a single mistake, and report it to the employer, it is possible that
the poor wretch may be discharged and you may get his post and his
extra pay. But you, in your turn, know that the man immediately below
you is watching you greedily and in the same way, lest you, also,
be guilty of a slip or an omission that, by reporting the matter
to his principals, he may work you out, as you had worked out your
predecessor, and so he may slip into your vacant shoes and your pay.
"It is a system of infamy--a system which breeds men and women who are
lower in the scale of being than a louse. You think I exaggerate. But
do you know what it is to wake up each morning so weary that you had
scarce the strength to struggle up that you might go forth to work for
the day's bread?
"I do, and so do tens of thousands in this London to-day.
"Do you know what it is to be so broken of spirit, so weary of the
cringing and the fawning, as to feel, each morning, that if death
had come to you in the night, and so spared you this waking, you had
counted it a happy release?
"I do, and so do tens of thousands in this London to-day.
"And, more terrible still, do you know what it is to be so abject
a thing, so infamous a creature, that you are content to play the
cut-throat to your fellow-slave, to pry and spy and carry tales, in
the hope that you may be appointed to replace him, and so put another
shilling a week in your own pocket, and another sovereign in that of
the tyrant and blood-sucker, to curry favour with whom you are ready to
do this infamous thing?
"Again I say I do; again I say, and so do tens of thousands in this
city of London to-day.
"For me those days of slavery and infamy are gone. For millions of my
fellow-men and fellow-women those days of slavery and infamy remain;
but a man who has once been through what I have, who has lived and
starved and eaten his heart out among the poor in their squalid, sordid
surroundings, can never forget it so long as he lives. Their cry is
ever in my ears; the cry of men whom these monsters have made less
than men, breaking the man's heart in them, turning them into curs
and cravens, robbing them of the very birthright of their manhood,
that, like bullocks and steers, they may be broken to bow themselves
to the yoke and lash, and meekly to obey their tyrant's bidding. The
cry of wan-faced, hollow-eyed women, working a week of winter days
and nights in a fireless garret till their chilled fingers can scarce
hold the needle, and for a wage, that on the streets to which--small
wonder!--such women are, by starvation and despair, too often driven,
can be earned at so light a cost. But most of all, the cry of little
children--little hollow-eyed children, crying silently because they are
hungry and cold, stretching wan hands for the bread----My God! I cannot
bear to think of it; I shall go mad. I sometimes think I _am_ mad when
I brood over their sufferings and their wrongs. A great writer has put
it on record that when he looks upon his fellow-men and fellow-women,
and remembers that pain and sorrow and disease, for themselves and
their dear ones, are the inevitable lot of all, and death the only
certainty--when he sees them smiling, flirting, posturing, grimacing on
the very edge of Eternity, he is filled with amazement and contempt.
"Contempt! To me the sight of haggard, careworn men, of weary-faced
and unlovely women, leading starved and joyless lives, out of which
all hope and beauty and poetry are irretrievably crushed and gone,
yet forcing themselves, in face of such terrible odds, to smile and
laugh and take life lightly--is a sight for gods to wonder at, is
magnificent, is heroic, is sublime.
"And me, God has upraised to right the wrongs of the poor. The love
that I bear to these my people, of whom I am one, burns more steadily
than ever within me; but side by side with it there has sprung up
a fiercer flame--the fires of fierce and relentless hate of their
oppressors. Me, God has marked out to be the avenger of the poor.
"As God sent the rainbow as a sign to his servant Noah, so to me by a
sign has He signified His will. To me, as I walked the streets of this
great city, a message came, bidding me turn my steps to the nation's
museum, there to seek the sign. And in the Egyptian court of the museum
I found it. There, stretching half the length of that great hall,
where stand the sarcophagi of Israel's taskmasters, the Pharaohs, is a
clenched arm and fist, of solid granite, and of such giant proportions,
that one single blow from it would make to fall the side of a house,
and bring to death and destruction all who dwell therein.
"And as I looked the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 'Behold, I
make of thee My fist and arm of granite, that thou mayest strike and
slay without mercy My enemies and thy enemies, them that oppress and
grind down My people. Strike then, slay and spare not, else shall it
be to thee as to Saul, who, when bidden by Me utterly to destroy the
Amalekites, spared many, bringing thereby upon himself and upon his
house the just and heavy vengeance of God.'"
The man was mad--mad as it is possible for a man to be; but there was
method in his madness. In all that had been said, no single word had
been dropped which afforded any clue in regard to the crimes he had
committed or meant to commit. Passionate as had been his outpourings
in the cause of the poor and of the oppressed, and vehement as had
been his declaration of war against the oppressor, he had given me no
inkling of the means at his command for the carrying on of the war he
was waging, no clue in regard to his associates, their methods, or
their meeting-places. Not one word of all he had said could be adduced
against him in court, as evidence in connection with any crime with
which he might be charged.
Then from under his cape of Christ-like compassion, the cunning and
cruel eyes of the madman peeped.
"But I mustn't tell you too much--anything you could use against me,"
he said with a leer, "until I know whether you are for the oppressor
or the oppressed. Tell me you are on our side, Rissler, and none shall
raise finger to harm or to injure you.
"But"--and now his voice was terrible to hear, the blue blaze in his
eyes terrible to see--"let me have cause to suspect you of assisting
the enemy, the people's enemy, God's enemy, and I'd throttle the life
out of you, tear the heart out of you, this night, this moment, in this
place. Which is it to be?"
CHAPTER XIX.
THE DUMPLING'S SECRET.
The man, as I have said before, was mad--stark, staring mad, and
with a madman one must go warily. Had I too profusely protested my
sympathy, too readily declared myself an adherent, his cunning would,
I am persuaded, have led him to doubt my sincerity, in which case his
promise to strangle the life, or to tear the heart out of me, would, I
believe, have been fulfilled.
Under the circumstances I thought it best not to appear too eager.
"You can't frighten me with your threats," I said, quietly. "I did lose
my nerve some time ago. But I've got it back again now, and while I'm
willing to hear all you have to say about a cause with which I'm not
only ready but anxious to throw in my lot, I'm not going to be bounced
or threatened into doing so. The co-operation of a man who, in making
so momentous a choice, is capable of being threatened or talked into
standing in with you, who jumps, in fact, to your whistling, isn't
worth having. There are more momentous matters than my life hanging to
this, and before I say definitely I'm with you--as is my wish--there
are one or two more questions I must ask."
With no one will an appeal to sanity find more favour than with the
insane. "Do let us be reasonable" is the best of all arguments to use
to those whose reason is affected. Evidently the man before me was
favourably impressed by what I had said.
"You are quite right," he replied cordially. "We want the co-operation
of no one who is not persuaded in his own mind of the righteousness of
our cause. From what I've seen of you, Mr. Rissler, you are just the
sort of man with whom I should like to be associated in my work. Your
getting out of that opium den with a whole skin when, believing you
to be Grant, I'd given the strictest orders that you shouldn't leave
the place alive, proves you to be a man ready of resource and quick
of brain, just such a man whose co-operation would ensure the final
success of the cause. It will be a red-letter day for us if we could
induce you to throw in your lot with us. Ask your questions, then, and
I'll give you a straight reply."
"Well," I said, "tell me in a word what is the end at which you are
aiming."
"I'm aiming," he said, "to create first in England, and afterwards
all over the world, such an upheaval of the social order of things as
took place in France at the time of the Great Revolution. But with
this difference. The French Revolution was aimed at the aristocrat.
You'll think me inconsistent, I fear, when I say that it is not
with the aristocrat that I have my chief quarrel. I hold no brief
for the aristocracy. Many of them--most of them, perhaps--are lazy,
extravagant, self-indulgent, luxury-loving, selfish, and vicious,
as I know to my cost. I don't blame them very much for that, any
more than I blame the very poor for their want of cleanliness,
their thriftlessness, their hand-to-mouth methods of living, and
for seeking solace from the cold, the squalor, and the misery of
their surroundings, in the warmth and light and companionship of
the public-house. Both classes are to some extent the outcome of
circumstances. The aristocracy have most of them their sense of
_noblesse oblige_, and have the honour of a great name to keep up.
On the whole, they do it tolerably well. They distribute largess
generously, they entertain lavishly, they pay those who work for them
fairly, and they treat those who work for them well. The aristocracy,
it is true, has got, first, to give way, and, ultimately, to go, just
as the monarchy has got to give way and to go before the advance of
democracy.
"Do you know what King Edward--wise man! foreseeing man!--is reported
to have said? I tell it to you as it was told to me. It may be true, or
it may not. Personally, I believe it is, and it adds to the admiration
to which, in spite of myself, I am compelled, for his wisdom and for
his foresight. He is reported to have said, 'My grandson is likely to
be the last King of England. The whole face of things is changing, not
in this country only, but in Germany, Austria, Russia, in Europe, and
all over the world. The monarchy will last my time. It may last my
son's. Possibly it will last his son's time. I shall not be there to
see. But those who are alive, when my grandson dies, may possibly see
an end of the monarchy in England!'
"That is what King Edward is reported to have said, and whether he
said it or did not say it, it is true. We are on the verge of a death
struggle between the masses and the classes. Much will depend upon the
side with which the great middle classes throw in their lot. If the
middle classes decide for what we call the classes, the struggle will
necessarily be prolonged. If the middle classes decide, as I believe
they will, for the masses, the end will come soon, and with awful
swiftness. One of the two--the masses or the classes--must go. Can you
doubt for one moment which it will be? Even now the death-knell of the
monarchy and the aristocracy is sounding. Already the day of democracy
has dawned. King Labour is coming into his own.
"But the democracy of to-day doesn't see the real danger in front of
it. It is so busy, abusing and striving to sweep away the monarchy and
the aristocracy, that it doesn't see that it is playing into the hands
of an infinitely greater danger--the plutocracy.
"As things stand now, King and Court and House of Lords are some sort
of check upon the encroachments of the plutocracy. Sweep King and
Court and House of Lords away, and the country will be at the mercy of
the mere man of money. And what will the poor get out of _him_? Better
a thousand times for the poor to be in the hands--be under the heels,
if you like--of the monarchy and the aristocracy, than be given over,
tied hand and foot, to the tender mercies of the mere money-grabber,
with no name to uphold, no sense of chivalry to inspire, no conscience
to control, no object in life, save to get and keep and grind out
money from man, woman, and child. It is _not_ the monarchy or the
aristocracy who is the enemy of the people. It is your capitalist,
your mill and factory owner, your middleman, your wholesale and retail
merchants, your employers of labour. It is against him and all of his
tribe that I would stir up a revolution in England which should make as
clean a sweep of the lot of them as the French Revolution made of the
aristocrat.
"Do I carry you with me thus far, Mr. Rissler? If not, it were idle to
say more."
"You carry me completely," I replied, "But--forgive me asking--how is
what you propose accomplishing to be done? Thus far you have dealt
only in generalisations, but generalisations by themselves never yet
brought about a revolution."
"You are absolutely right," he replied quickly. "In the ordinary way
I should say it could not be done for another twenty, thirty, perhaps
another hundred years. There is only one way; but there _is_ a way.
There is only one man who can do it; but there is such a man, as you
yourself will admit when you hear his name."
He stopped, and for at least half a minute looked at me searchingly, as
if uncertain how far he was justified in taking me into his confidence,
but muttering to himself meanwhile, in language which, by the word or
two I caught, I knew to be French. So close was his face to mine that I
saw what at first I thought was my own face mirrored in his eyes. But,
as I looked, the picture-face in his eyes became more definite, and I
knew that the face I saw there was not mine. It was a face there was
no mistaking; a face which every schoolboy, every child, would have
recognised at sight.
And now it seemed to be growing larger until what had been a tiny
picture, in the pupils of the Dumpling's eyes, was the life-size head
of a man, looking at me with eyes of its own--eyes so stern, so cold,
so cruel, so commanding, that the bidding of the set lips beneath them
few men would dare to disobey. At the bidding of those lips, at one
glance from those eyes--men, regiments, an army, even, had gone forth
unhesitatingly to die.
That all this could be seen in the picture, which is formed in the
pupils of one man's eyes, sounds incredible, and I can only explain it
by saying that what I saw lay not in the pupils themselves, but lay
behind those pupils, through which I looked as one looks through a
window.
Then suddenly the face which I had seen faded away. Silhouetted against
the sky, I saw the solitary figure of a man standing upon the rocky
point of an island, and looking out--the soul of him more lonely than
that lone island, so far away from other land, and surrounded by a
wasteful wilderness of waters--the heart of him torn with unrest,
wilder, sadder, more hopeless, than the surging, sobbing unrest of
those surrounding seas.
Then, too, this picture faded, and I was looking upon the face of the
Dumpling, and listening to the words which fell sharply, incisively,
from his lips.
Clearly he had decided to trust me with his great secret, and something
of the excitement which I saw upon his face communicated itself to me
as I listened.
"Why has the Great Revolution, why has the cause of Labour failed
thus far?" he asked, turning upon me almost savagely. "I will tell
you," he went on, without waiting for an answer. "Because great
revolutions are only brought about by great men; and for ten, twenty,
thirty years, perhaps more, the womb of England has been barren of
great men. The histories of religions, we are told, are written in
the life-stories of great men. The histories of politics are no more
than the life-stories of great men. To-day there are parties, but
no politics. What are your Labour party, your Liberal party, if you
like--your Campbell-Bannermans, Asquiths, Bryces, Birrells, Morleys,
Burnses, Keir Hardies? Amiable men, able men, capable men, well-meaning
men, conscientious men, but spoken of in a comparative sense, as
compared with your real makers of history, of statecraft, what are
they? Mediocrities, every one of them. Parnell had it in his power
to have been a great man had he lived, and had he not made a mess
of his life, but for the rest"--he stopped short for a moment--"for
the rest," he went on, "judged by any standard of greatness, for the
rest"--he snapped his fingers contemptuously--"that! The whole of
them combined couldn't do in a year what one great man--a Napoleon,
for instance--could do in an hour. The great revolution has failed
of coming thus far, the cause of Labour has failed thus far, for one
reason, and one reason only--there is no Napoleon to lead the people to
victory. Once find Labour her Napoleon, and Labour will rule the land.
"Listen!
"I who stand before you am he--not Labour's Napoleon only, not merely
the Napoleon of Labour, but Napoleon the Corsican, Napoleon the First
Consul, Napoleon the Emperor himself! In me you see not only Napoleon
re-incarnate, but Napoleon's very self--the conqueror of Europe, the
Cæsar of France, now come again to earth, even as the Christ came two
thousand years ago, to save and to redeem the people. I am here to
lead the leaderless armies of Labour to victory--I am here to set King
Labour on his rightful throne. The world has waited over-long for the
coming of Napoleon. But at last he is come. I who stand before you am
he!"
CHAPTER XX.
THE NEW NAPOLEON.
"You say--I read it in your eyes--that I am mad," the Dumpling went
on, after a pause. "Wait and see. If mad I am, then mad were Cæsar,
Alexander, Moses--mad even perhaps the Christ Himself.
"You say--again I see it in your eyes--you say: 'This man claims to be
Napoleon, and condescends to become a criminal, a thief, a concocter
of plots to entrap and kidnap millionaires.' But listen. Napoleon is
unchanged. Should I, a hundred years ago, have hesitated to torture
a rich Jew--had I so chosen--to wring from him his millions for the
carrying on of my wars? Money I must have. Money I will have, if I am
to lead the legions of Labour to victory. These millionaires, these
wealthy parvenus whom I hold to ransom, are but the base pawns in the
game, from whom I wring the means of carrying on my war. I stop at
nothing. I scruple at nothing, so long as I achieve my end. At this
moment the mines are laid for a revolution which shall shake England
to its centre. I, who hold the strands of the whole network of the
conspiracy in my single hand, have not scrupled, in laying and carrying
out my plans, to use base tools--thieves and rogues and criminals. What
are they to me? I achieve my purpose. That is enough.
"And now again I read your thoughts, and this time you say: 'This man,
this Cæsar in conception, this criminal in act, preaches humanity and
practises inhumanity; this man speaks of the poor with Christ-like
compassion, even while his hands are red with his fellow-creatures'
blood.' But whom have I slain? _My_ enemies? Never! _My_ enemies,
_my_ deadliest enemy, I would not stoop so much as to strike across
the face. But God's enemies, the enemies of God's cause, against them
I will use all the cunning and craft of my brain, to wipe them off
the face of the earth. This negro of whom you have spoken, this man
Black Sam--he was slain at my command because he was the enemy of God,
the enemy of God's cause. It was he who betrayed us to Grant, the
detective. Therefore I slew him. Therefore would I slay a thousand
such as he. When I was on earth a hundred years ago, I never counted
the cost. I have sent regiments to certain destruction that I might
carry out my end. And am I changed? Yes; changed, inasmuch as, to-day,
I would sacrifice not a regiment, but an army--not a legion, but a
whole nation--so long as I attained my end. Am I not Napoleon? And does
Napoleon ever count the cost?"
Then, all in a moment, he ceased his restless pacings, starting back
and staggering wildly at some sudden thought, as a hit soldier starts
and staggers when he feels the bullet.
"My God!" he cried piteously, "I am forgetting! This man, this young
Grant whom to-night I killed, thinking him to be his brother, was no
enemy of the Cause! My hands are red with innocent blood. I have done
murder! I have slain an innocent man. Ah! if he have wife and child--a
wife whom I have made a widow, a child whom my hands have orphaned! My
God! My God! Have pity on them! Protect them, comfort them, for I Thy
servant have done this thing. I have taken innocent blood!"
I have seen strange sights in my somewhat adventurous life, but a
stranger spectacle than this madman, this wholesale murderer, the
blood of whose recent victims was surely as yet wet and warm upon his
hands, pacing backwards and forwards, his face literally distorted by
anguish of soul, as he cried out upon God to have pity upon the victims
of his crime, I am not likely soon to see again.
As he spoke, and as I stood watching him in amazement, there was a
sound like the scrunching of feet on the loose gravel outside.
Then a voice:
"There's someone in there, I'll swear, sergeant. Didn't you hear 'em
speaking? Turn your bullseye this way a moment, will you?... Ah! Would
you? Lay hold of him, sergeant; he's past me. Quick--or he'll get away!"
At the first hint of a sound outside, the Dumpling had turned off
the gas and stepped softly, swiftly to the door. As it opened I
saw the figures of the two policemen, their helmets and shoulders
outlined darkly but clearly against the light which streamed from the
incandescent gas-lamp in the side street, their lower limbs and feet
lost in the shadow thrown by the garden wall. I was too dazzled by
the sudden flashing of the bullseye to see more than that the Dumpling
was making a desperate dash for liberty; but my ears told me the rest.
[Illustration: "THE DUMPLING WAS MAKING A DESPERATE DASH FOR LIBERTY."]
The Dumpling had got clean away, perhaps to put the fuse to the mines
of which he had spoken as laid and ready, and to spring upon a startled
country the surprise of his great rebellion.
I heard his footsteps and the footsteps of his out-distanced, defeated
pursuers die away in the distance, and then, creeping noiselessly out,
I scaled the wall and made my way home to my own rooms and to bed. I
had had more than enough of adventure for one night.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE KINDNESS--AND UNKINDNESS--OF KATE.
When I awoke next morning it was with a singular feeling of
depression--the reaction, I told myself, from the excitement of the
last few days. Life seemed flat and at loose ends. I was in love, with
small prospect of bringing my suit to a successful issue. Nor, in the
matter of the Dumpling, could I persuade myself that I had any reason
for self-congratulation. I had heroically set out to trap and to catch
a criminal, instead of which I had been made a prisoner myself.
That I was here in bed, and between the blankets, was due neither
to my own skill nor to my own strength, for I had been hopelessly
outwitted in the former quality, and ignominiously made to feel my own
inferiority in the latter. That I was here at all, instead perhaps of
lying strangled in a cellar, was due to the arrival of the police on
the previous evening.
Had their appearance not cut short my discussion with the Dumpling,
the issue of that discussion might have been disastrous to myself. The
most difficult part of my task--to convince the Dumpling that I was
sufficiently in sympathy with himself and with his projects, safely to
be allowed at large--was all to come. In dealing with a madman, one
never knows what sudden warp his cunning and his mania will take; and
but for the interruption, it might have been my life, instead of the
conversation, which was prematurely cut short.
Another reason for my feeling thus stale and "cheap" on this particular
morning was that the ardour with which I had taken up the hunting down
of the Dumpling had considerably cooled. I am sympathetic by nature,
and, mad though he was, this man's passionate denunciation of the
wrongs of the poor, and the terrible and, I fear, only too true picture
which he had drawn of their sufferings, had strangely moved me. The
tragedy of poverty, the fact that a man's spirit could be so broken,
that he could be brought to such infamy as to pawn his very manhood,
to become, as the Dumpling had said, like bullocks and steers, and to
bow his head to the yoke, for the sake of a roof to cover the heads
of wife and children; the fact that women could be brought to such a
pass as to be compelled to choose between starvation or the streets,
had come home to me with new and awful significance. Even as out of
the mouth of babes and sucklings God brings forth wisdom, so out of
the mouth of a madman and a fanatic had some of the sternest and most
terrible facts of life been brought to my realisation.
When such things could be, it seemed to me that to be spending time
and strength in playing at being a detective, and in writing what a
newspaper once aptly described as "harmless little tales with titles
that appal," was almost criminal. I was more than minded to throw the
whole thing up, and to occupy myself, instead, in doing what little I
could to relieve the suffering of my less fortunate fellow-creatures.
With these thoughts still seething in my brain, I dressed, and after
breakfasting, sallied out to make my report to Miss Clara.
She received me with the same cordiality with which we had parted, and
on learning that I had news to impart, sent word to that effect to
Kate, who, she said, would be equally interested to hear it.
I told my story, just as I have set it down in the previous chapter,
omitting nothing, and giving the Dumpling's words in regard to the poor
and their sufferings almost as those words had fallen from his lips.
Upon one of my listeners, at least, the narrative had a most unexpected
effect. Kate heard me throughout with very evident sympathy, and was
clearly alarmed and disturbed at the risk I had run in my encounter
with the Dumpling. Otherwise she was not in any sense moved. But
upon the elder woman's face, as I unfolded my story, there suddenly
came a look like that of one who has received a crushing blow. For a
moment or two I feared she was about to faint; but by an effort she
collected herself, and sat out the remainder of the recital quietly and
impassively.
When I had made an end of my narrative her only comment was, "Quite
exciting, I'm sure!" Then she rose, and walking to the door, beckoned
Kate to her. Whispering a few words in the girl's ears--not more than a
dozen at most--she passed out.
Kate turned to me.
"Mr. Rissler," she said, "I want you to promise that you will do
nothing of the sort again."
"Nothing of what sort, Miss Carleton?" I asked, wondering whether she
was speaking for herself, or from instructions she had received from
her aunt.
"This detective work?" she replied.
"But why?" I asked. "What difference can it make to you in what way I
employ myself?"
"For one thing," she said ruefully, "you'll be killed to a certainty.
This dreadful man is clearly too clever for you."
"I fail to see the certainty, either of my being killed or of my being
so hopelessly outwitted in cleverness," I replied stiffly; for it was
somewhat mortifying to one's pride thus to be pronounced a fool and a
failure.
"Besides, even if it be so," I added ungenerously, "my getting killed,
or not killed, is my own affair, and cannot greatly concern you, to
whom--as you reminded me yesterday--I am a stranger."
"Well, so you were--then. Almost a stranger, that is," she added,
diplomatically. "But, you see, we know something more of you now.
Promise you'll give it up from this time forth--'d'reckly moment,' as I
used to say when I was a child, and was too impatient to wait for what
I wanted."
On my first meeting with this extraordinary young woman I had been
very properly snubbed and put in my place. On my second, I had been
coldly informed that I must consider myself a stranger--as if only
by effacing my previous behaviour entirely from her memory could my
undesirable presence be endured at all. Yet now, on our third meeting,
she was pouting her dainty lips at me, and pleading, in the prettiest
way possible, that I would reconstruct and re-order my entire life to
humour her unaccountable caprice.
Extraordinary, inexplicable, as her conduct was, the novelty of
finding myself in the _rôle_ of someone who was to be considered and
conciliated, instead of a nobody who was to be effaced and ignored, was
highly agreeable. Even had I been disposed to accede, off-hand, to her
request--which I certainly was not--the situation was too pleasant for
me to wish prematurely to end it.
"But why," I asked, "should you wish me to give up my detective work,
or trouble yourself about me at all?"
"You are very unkind," she said, suddenly breaking down and, to my
indescribable astonishment and dismay, bursting into tears.
Recalling, at this lapse of time, the course of our conversation on
that occasion, I do not consider that I was guilty of any unpardonable
offence against good taste or good manners; but at the moment, and
at sight of her tears, my behaviour struck me as blackguardly beyond
belief.
"Oh, please, Miss Carleton, don't cry!" I gasped imploringly. "I was
a beast, a blackguard, a bully. Forgive me--won't you forgive me?
I wouldn't do or say or even think a thing that would hurt you for
worlds--for--for--I--I--love you. I loved you from the moment I saw you
in the boat. I shall love you as long as ever I live."
When, for the first time, a man tells a woman, and with evident
sincerity, that he loves her, he not unnaturally expects that she would
receive his declaration with some consciousness of the fact that what
he says is, to him at least, a matter of supreme importance. Kate, on
the contrary, took my avowal with what I considered ill-timed levity.
Possibly that avowal told her nothing of which she was not already
aware; possibly she did not approve of the suddenness with which I had
sprung it upon her, or of the unconventionality of my wooing; possibly
she merely wished to gain time before giving me an answer. Be that as
it may, she not only proved herself to be a very self-possessed young
person, but a calculating little body into the bargain. Having brought
me metaphorically to my knees, having reduced me to a condition in
which I was not likely to deny her anything, she suddenly released one
eye from the eclipsing handkerchief which, a moment before, had hidden
both. Regarding me out of the corner of this eye, but with the other
still behind the handkerchief--like a horseman who, with one foot in
the stirrup, waits the final word which shall decide whether he is to
ride away or to stay--she smiled at me through her tears, and with the
air of one making a bargain said:
"Then you promise?"
"Promise what?" I asked.
"To give up this detective work."
"Why, no! I can't promise that," I replied.
"I hate you! I hate you!" she cried, and, springing to her feet, flung
angrily out of the room.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE INEXPLICABLE CONDUCT OF MISS CLARA.
A younger and more pessimistically disposed man than I might
conceivably have been plunged into the depths of despair at being thus
told by the woman he loved that she hated him. But, on the whole, I
was not inclined to be altogether dissatisfied with the interview.
Never before--even though her words were sympathetic and her manner
not unkindly--had she failed to make me realise that I was kept at a
distance; that I was an unvouched-for stranger, between whom and her
the barriers of custom and convention still necessarily existed. But
her words and her acts of to-day--so it seemed to me--were a tacit
admission that the barrier had been removed. She had concerned herself
sufficiently in my career to express a wish in regard to it (though
here I fear she acted on her aunt's instigation rather than from any
impulse or inclination of her own); she had made the granting of that
wish a favour to herself, and had even suffered me to declare my love
unreproved. Her tears had, I admit, at the moment utterly dismayed me;
but remembering the subsequent by-play of the uneclipsed eye, I was
now disposed to think either that those tears were caused by pique at
the fact that I had not more promptly acceded to her request, or that
they were no more than the legitimate use of a woman's natural weapon
for the confounding and undoing of man. Possibly, too--so I tried to
persuade myself--the exclamation "I hate you--I hate you!" was less an
expression of personal dislike than a pretty woman's very pardonable
exhibition of captiousness at finding herself thwarted where she had
expected immediate submission and consent. With the assistance of Miss
Clara, I hoped soon to regain whatever ground I had lost in her niece's
favour, and as, after leaving us, the older lady had made straight for
the garden, and had (as I could see from the window) been pacing it
bareheaded, hands clasped behind her and deep in thought, I ventured to
lift the window, and to ask her to spare me a moment before I went.
She came in at once, looking, I thought, a trifle tired and pale, but
otherwise all trace of agitation was gone, and she spoke with all her
usual self-possession.
"Mr. Rissler," she said, coming to the point as usual, the instant the
door was closed; "what have you and Clara been talking about?"
"My work," I answered laconically. "I'm to throw up crime
investigation, and devote myself to something else."
"And you have promised?"
"Well, no, I haven't. I had the temerity to ask for some reason why
I should be called upon to take so extraordinary a course, with the
result that your niece first burst into tears, and then flung out of
the room in a passion. Do you know why?"
She did not condescend to answer.
"Mr. Rissler," she said, "give up this detective work at once. Devote
all your time to book-writing, and I'll stand your friend. Refuse, and
you do not enter the house or see Clara again."
"The devil is in it!" I exclaimed rudely and with exasperation. "I'll
do anything to please you, who have proved yourself so true and so
generous a friend. But surely I'm entitled to a reason. I admit
frankly that I'm less keen on this work than I was before I heard the
Dumpling's passionate plea for the poor--a plea which seemed to me a
sort of conscription, calling upon and compelling every able-bodied man
to enlist himself and to take up arms in so sacred a cause. I don't
say that I mightn't see my way, sooner or later, perhaps even at once,
to give up the detective business, if giving it up means pleasing you
and winning your niece--who, by the bye, has just done me the honour
to declare that she hates me, so there seems small enough occasion to
consider that aspect of the case. But when a man has devoted years of
his life to any particular career, and has even made some small success
at it, you can hardly expect him to throw up everything at a moment's
notice, and without any sort of reason being given for the request.
What is your reason? What is your niece's reason? For some reason the
two of you must surely have."
"It isn't respectable, for one thing," replied Aunt Clara doggedly.
"Respectable!" I said. "Is that it? Frankly, I have always felt that
there isn't very much difference, after all, between the man who uses
his brains to track down and to capture a criminal--as a detective
does--and the man who uses his brains to make out a case against the
criminal and get him convicted--as the barrister does--and the man
who, after he has listened to all that can be said about the case
by everybody concerned, sums it up, and, when a verdict has been
returned, passes sentence. They are all three--judge, barrister, and
detective--officers of the law and servants of the King and of the
public; and I'm not sure that the detective's isn't the most important
and useful work of the three. Anyhow, it is the most difficult."
"Bosh!" said Miss Clara shortly. "You'll be telling me next that you
might just as well be a hangman, for _he's_ as much an officer of the
law and a servant of the King and of the public as the other three; and
so, according to your showing, equally respectable. Bosh, Mr. Rissler!
Bosh!"
"All right. Bosh it is, then!" I replied amicably. "Anything for a
quiet life, and I admit I hadn't thought of your holding trumps all
the time, and playing the hangman card. Anyhow, I'm answered on that
score. What a wonderful woman you are! Judge, barrister, and detective
all rolled into one. A great lawyer was lost to the world when it was
decided that you should come into it wearing petticoats instead of a
wig and gown."
"You're a fool!" said Miss Clara, not ill-pleased, in spite of the
uncompromising plainness of her language.
"And now, what about the detective business?" she went on. "Are you
going to give it up, or are you not? For you have got to decide one way
or the other before you come here again. I wouldn't see my niece for
the present, if I were you. She'll come round in time, like the rest
of us, if she's left alone. There's nothing a woman hates so much as
being taken at her word, and left alone. There are many more women who
have gone back on what they'd said, and let a man have his own way,
after swearing they wouldn't--there are many more who have done that,
and been brought round to another way of thinking, just by being left
alone, than by any other way. Pestering a woman, pleading with her,
imploring her, is precious little use. You take the tip from me, young
man--I know."
"You're a wonder, Miss Carleton, as I said before," I answered. "And
I'll take a tip from you as eagerly as I'd take a kiss, if you'd give
me one."
"Oh, bosh! Don't bother me! You're a fool--as I told you before," she
retorted. "But think it over; take time, if you like, but think it
over, and if you are a wise man and decide to do as I wish, as both of
us wish, I'll stand your friend."
"Miss Carleton," I said, "I'll be frank with you. It doesn't want
much thinking over. I had thought it over before I came here, and
had practically decided for the present, at all events, to leave the
detective work alone. The singular and to me entirely inexplicable
attitude which you and your niece have chosen to take up, in giving
me, so to speak, an ultimatum either to drop the work or to consider
myself forbidden this house, aroused, just for a moment, an Irishman's
love of fight, an Irishman's cussedness and contradictoriness. But
I'll do as you say, and for the present, at all events, will leave
Dumpling-hunting and detective work alone. I don't make any great
sacrifice in doing so, as far as the Dumpling is concerned; for when he
went away he was in too much of a hurry to leave me his visiting card,
and I don't know where to find him if I wanted to. The only clue I have
to him is concerned with this house, the doors of which, unless I drop
detective work, must, you say, be closed to me. Moreover, whatever may
have been his purpose in coming here and in watching this place (and I
still suspect that he intends, or intended, to kidnap your brother), it
is likely that that purpose he has for the present dropped. In fact,
after so narrowly escaping capture here at the hands of the police,
this house--for some time, at least--he is likely carefully to avoid.
So even that clue is 'off.'"
"I'm very glad to hear it," was her reply. "Yes, what is it, Metcalfe?
Do you want me?"
"If you please, m'm," answered Metcalfe, who had opened the door while
Miss Clara was speaking, and was standing in an apologetic way with one
hand on the handle. "I knocked twice, but you were talking and didn't
hear me," he went on. "Miss Kate sent me. She'd like a word with you at
once, please, and before Mr. Rissler goes."
"All right--I'll come."
Then, Metcalfe having made his bow and gone, she turned to me:
"You'll find the _Times_ there on the table. I shan't be away long."
But she was away long--so long, indeed, that she did not return at all.
For almost an hour I was left alone, and then the door opened a few
inches, and instead of Miss Clara, Kate slipped quickly in.
Closing it, but with one hand still holding the handle, she faced me.
She looked deadly pale, and trembled violently.
"Mr. Rissler," she said, "my aunt tells me that you have promised her
what you refused to promise me--that you will in future abandon the
dangerous and not altogether creditable line of work you have taken up
in constituting yourself a detective. Is that so?"
"That is so," I answered hotly; "but in regard to its being a
discreditable occupation, and in regard to my having promised Miss
Carleton what I would not promise to you, I must protest----"
"Forgive me," she said coldly, "but I cannot argue the matter, or
listen to any explanation or protestation. I have come here to ask
you--to bid you--for my aunt, as well as for myself, to leave this
house instantly, and never, under any circumstances, to enter it
again."
CHAPTER XXIII.
KATE'S CONFESSION.
"I will give no such promise," I began furiously. "I will----"
Then I stopped short.
"Forgive me. I have some decent instincts left, I hope--in spite of my
being a detective," I added bitterly. "You are, of course, within your
rights; and if you so command, I have no option but to obey. But even
you cannot command me or compel me to cease from loving you. Am I to
have no explanation?"
"You are to have no explanation," she repeated in a dull, dreamy voice,
as if her thoughts were elsewhere, and with her eyes fixed on a far-off
space of sky which she could see through the window.
"Except, perhaps--you have already said it--it is because you hate me,"
I prompted bitterly.
Moveless as a listening sleep-walker, she made answer:
"It is _not_ because I hate you."
"Do you, or do you not, hate me?" I pleaded.
And again, dully, indifferently, like one speaking in her sleep, she
replied:
"I do _not_ hate you."
"But you dislike me," I urged.
With the same troubled, far-off look in her beautiful eyes, she
repeated, automatically:
"I do _not_ dislike you."
For a moment, like the defiant fluttering of a banner over a besieged
and well-nigh surrendered city, Hope sprang up to raise her red
flag upon the ramparts of my heart; but at the sight of the dull
indifference in the girl's eyes, banner and banner-bearer sank back.
"Perhaps even," I said in a foolish and feeble spirit of attempted
irony, "perhaps even you like me."
"Perhaps even," she echoed, "I like you."
"Kate," I cried, all the blood in my veins running riot, "it is
not possible--for God's sake don't play with me--but it is not
possible--tell me--it is not possible, it can't be--that--that--you
care."
In a moment she was alive again. Her eyes, all her soul in them, left
the far-off skies, and leapt to meet mine.
"I care," she said, softly.
The next instant, and before I could stay her, she was gone.
* * * * *
It is fortunate I did not see Miss Clara as I left the house. Had I
met that dear creature on my way out, I should, to a dead certainty,
not only have kissed her on the spot, but with never a thought for
horrified servants or scandalised neighbours, should have put my arm
around her capacious waist, and then and there have compelled her
to dance a Highland fling with me. That Metcalfe thought I had been
drinking (as I had--deep draughts of the most intoxicating of all
elixirs, the elixir of love), I am positive. Detecting me in the act
of tweaking the nose of the stone bust of a celebrated Nonconformist
divine, which stood in a recess at the bottom of the stairs, and of
painstakingly (mere absence of mind that!) wiping my boots on the
doormat, as if I were about to enter a drawing-room instead of passing
out into a muddy street, he inquired solicitously whether I wouldn't
like a cab, remarking with a surreptitious glance at the boots with
which I had been performing such unnecessary antics on the doormat:
"Yes, sir; the streets _is_ very muddy, but you'll get home nice and
dry and comfortable in a keb."
Telling him that I was tired out and half asleep from my long watch
overnight, and that to walk home would be the surest way to awaken and
freshen me, I slipped a sovereign into his palm, and made my way into
the streets, all the blood in my body dancing in my veins, all the joy
of first love singing in my brain.
At my rooms I found the expected notice requiring me to attend and
to give evidence at the inquest to be held that day at noon upon the
bodies of the three men who had been found drowned in the Thames.
That the inquiry was not wanting in painful interest the reader will
readily surmise, but except to say that I was subjected to a severe
and suspicious examination, I do not propose further to enter upon the
details of the inquest here.
I come now to a point in my narrative when the trend of events takes
a new turn, and when I shall have to relate happenings of infinitely
greater importance than the circumstances under which Parker and
Smudgy, the negro Black Sam, and the two Grants, met their death.
These were but the "curtain-raisers" preceding the drama in which the
man known to the readers of this history as "the Dumpling" took so
remarkable a part. Up to this point my tale--I had to tell it as it
happened--has been little more than a detective story. Now we shall
soon come to a story of quite another sort.
CHAPTER XXIV.
I DISCOVER THE IDENTITY OF THE DUMPLING.
The inquest over--for two mortal days I was kept hanging about
Southend, to the mortuary of which the bodies had been taken--I
returned to town, eager to see Kate, and to compel from her dear
lips a second sweet admission that I was not without a place in her
heart. Something there was in the look of the house--the drawn blinds
of the reception rooms, the fact that, except for the hall and the
basement, the place was in darkness--which turned me cold and sick with
apprehension and with a sense of coming evil.
"Good evening, Metcalfe," I said, when the door was opened by that
worthy. "Are the ladies in?--Miss Carleton, or Miss Kate?"
"No, sir," he said, looking at me queerly. "They have left town, but
there's a letter--two letters--for you, sir. If you'll come in I'll get
them."
"Left town?" I said, blankly. Then, recovering myself--for I did not
desire to enliven the _ennui_ of Metcalfe and his fellow-servants by
providing them with matter for speculation and discussion concerning
the relations which existed between their young mistress and myself--I
added, unconcernedly:
"Oh, yes--of course. I had forgotten it was to be so soon, and I have
been out of town myself. Where are the letters, Metcalfe?"
"On the library table, sir. Perhaps you'll walk in. Can I get you some
coffee, sir?"
"No, thank you. I'm just up from the country, and haven't dined. But
I'll go into the library to read my letters. If any answer should
happen to be wanted, I could write it there, and so catch an early
post. I shan't want you any more, Metcalfe. Don't wait."
The man withdrew, and I opened the first of my letters.
It was from Kate.
Good-bye, dear Max; good-bye for ever. Something horrible has
happened, and you and I must never see each other again. So we have
gone--my aunt and I. It was the only way. If you love me, do not
try to find us. It will be quite useless. If you love me, keep your
promise--the promise, I mean, that you refused to me. You will not
refuse it to me now, I know--the first and last promise I shall ever
ask from you. One thing more, only, I will ask you--not to promise,
but to believe; and that is that the answer I gave to your last
question, as we stood together by the window, was true.--KATE.
I suppose it was because I had opened it, prepared for some shock,
some calamity, that I read this letter with such calmness, such
impassiveness. Instead of springing up to stride the room, like one
beside himself, instead of gasping "Gone!--and for ever! My God! What
can it mean?" I rose quietly from my chair, and, thrusting the letter
into my pocket, walked over leisurely to stir the fire. That there
was an obstacle of some sort between Kate and me, I had realised
the last time she and I had stood in this same room together, and
she had confessed her love. But bogeys--most of all the bogeys of a
woman's making and imagining, paralyse and appal her as they may--do
not greatly alarm the average man. That which she pronounces to be
an insurmountable obstacle, he first surveys on all sides to satisfy
himself that it is an obstacle at all, and then calmly goes to work to
discover how that obstacle can best be overcome. Kate loved me; I loved
her. Given these facts, I saw no reason to despair.
So, as I say, instead of indulging in the usual heroics with
which--when the heroine by word of mouth, or by letter, informs the
hero that there is some occult reason why she "can never be his"--we
are all familiar in the pages of a novel, or on the stage, I merely
stirred the fire meditatively.
"Now for Miss Clara's epistle," I said, opening the second letter. "Let
us see if _she_ can throw any light on the mystery."
MY DEAR BOY (it ran),--I have some very bad news for you. I kept it to
myself while you were telling us your adventures the other morning,
for I did not want to upset you, until the actual necessity for
action had come. It concerns myself and Clara, very nearly and very
terribly--how nearly and how terribly Clara does not know, for I wish
to spare her as much pain as I can. All the time you and she and I
were together that morning I knew, though she and you did not, that it
would be our last meeting for, perhaps, a long time. During that time
it will be a great relief to Clara and to me to be assured of your
personal safety; and that you are safe--so long as you are engaged in
detective work--neither she nor I can ever be sure. In all probability
you noticed that before leaving you and Clara together, I took her
aside for a moment to give her some instructions. These instructions
were that she was to use all her influence to get you to promise to
abandon the dangerous pursuit in which you are engaged, and to devote
yourself instead to novel-writing. As Clara failed to obtain such a
promise, I returned, to see if I could not obtain that promise myself.
You were very good to me. You always have been good to me, and gave
me the required promise at once. I am very grateful, my dear boy, for
that and for all the consideration and affection you have shown to an
ugly old woman.
Then I went back to Clara and told her that for the present she
and you must not meet again. I did not tell her the truth; for the
truth--of which she has no suspicion--is too horrible to tell. All
she knows is that something terrible has happened, and that for some
time--whether long or short I cannot now say--you and she must not
meet again. Knowing me and my affection for you as you do, you will
realise that I should not say this were the necessity not absolute and
imperative. Please God, all will come right one day. Good-bye, my dear
boy. God bless you. Your affectionate and faithful friend,--C.C.
As I read this extraordinary letter, the explanation of Miss Clara's
and Kate's inexplicable attitude came to me in a flash. Dolt,
blockhead, addle-brained idiot that I was! I--a detective! It was
well for me--it was high time, indeed--that I had decided to give up
detective work. Fool that I was not to have seen it before!
The Dumpling and Kate's father, the elder Miss Carleton's brother, were
one and the same man!
CHAPTER XXV.
JOHN CARLETON'S DOUBLE.
That Kate and her aunt were now aware of the identity of John Carleton
with the Dumpling, I was absolutely sure. I could point back, even,
to the moment when--to the latter, at least--the suspicion which
afterwards became certainty was first aroused.
It was when I was repeating, word for word, as they had fallen from
his lips, the Dumpling's expressions about the poor, that the first
sign of agitation had been noticeable in the elder woman. Then, when I
went on to speak of his mania in regard to his being none other than
Napoleon--then it was, as I clearly remembered, that the self-possessed
and by no means impressionable Miss Clara had astonished and alarmed me
by looking as if she were about to faint.
Doubtless she had heard him say the same thing before and in the same
words, and so had no difficulty in identifying the speaker as her
brother.
Kate, on the contrary, had apparently heard me out without connecting
her father with the Dumpling. She had shown no sign of dismay or
agitation, while listening to my story, and when her aunt had called
her aside, at its conclusion, and had urged her to obtain from me the
promise to give up my detective work, Kate had undertaken the task
somewhat light-heartedly, as witness the episode of the uneclipsed eye.
It must have been after Kate had left me, that the elder woman had
spoken of some great and impending danger. How much of the truth she
had told her niece I did not know; but when the poor girl returned
alone to speak to me, she seemed visibly aged, and was trembling in
every limb. Then it was that, by her aunt's command, she forbade me
ever again to enter the house. Were I to do so, John Carleton and I
must sooner or later come face to face, and that I should be the means
of arresting--perhaps of bringing to the gallows--the father of the
girl I loved, was too horrible to contemplate.
Of all conceivable happenings, nothing could so irretrievably part
Kate and myself for ever as that, whereas could Miss Clara contrive
to obtain a medical certificate, to the effect that her brother was of
unsound mind, and have him put under restraint, the further committal
of crimes by him would effectively be prevented, and Carleton, once out
of the way, Kate and I might come together again. That, I believed,
was the end for which Miss Clara was working, and as it was an end
which would spare Kate from being publicly branded as the daughter of a
madman and a murderer, I could not but feel myself in sympathy with it.
That John Carleton and the Dumpling were one and the same man, there
was no room for doubt. That fact explained everything. That was why
Mr. John Carleton had absented himself unexpectedly from his home, and
caused thereby some anxiety to his sister and daughter. He had intended
no doubt to return thither, after superintending the carrying out of
the projected kidnapping operation--instead of which my unexpected
appearance, and subsequent escape from the opium den, had compelled
him to devote himself to the clearing out of the bombs, chemicals, and
other contents of the place, before the arrival of the police. The
telegram from Glasgow was, of course, a fake. He might have instructed
some accomplice of his to despatch a telegram from that place, or the
whole thing, post-mark and all, might have been a forgery.
Which of the two suppositions was true I did not greatly care. It was
enough for me to know that in discovering the reason for Mr. John
Carleton's non-return to his family that night, I had discovered also
the reason for several of his subsequent acts. I had discovered, for
instance, his reason for watching No. 5, Taunton Square, not, as in my
anxiety to form a theory of some sort, I had supposed--because one of
the millionaires whom he was scheming to kidnap, and to hold to ransom,
lived there, but because that house was his home, and because, before
returning to its shelter, he wished to satisfy himself that all was
secure, and that no police trap had been set for him. It was because
the house was his own that he had taken shelter in the garden after the
murder of young Grant. A hiding-place of some sort it was necessary
speedily to find, for the police were everywhere on the watch; and once
he could obtain entrance to his own house he would be safe. Nor would
that entrance be difficult to obtain. None knew better than he that,
by the breaking of a certain pane of glass in the conservatory, he
would be able to shoot back the bolt on the conservatory door; and but
for my accidental presence, he would in all probability have effected
undisturbed the purpose at which he aimed.
He had, no doubt, done his best to deaden the noise he made in breaking
the glass; and, far away as the conservatory was from the living
rooms and from the servants' quarters, the sound would have passed
unheeded but for my abnormally acute sense of hearing. Even if it
had been heard, and had Metcalfe or Miss Clara hurried thither, some
plausible story of his having been accidentally shut out, or other
explanation, would have been forthcoming, and no one was likely to give
a respectable householder in charge for forcing his way into his own
residence, or to connect the fact of his doing so with a recent murder.
That was why, having failed in the first attempt, he had returned, at
dead of night--to discover me emerging from the wine cellar. That was
why he knew there was a gas-jet laid on there, though he had tried to
explain away his knowledge of the fact, and had done his best to throw
dust in my eyes, by telling me that he made it a rule never to enter a
place without finding out all he could about it beforehand.
I could have kicked myself for my density in not having seen daylight
before, but the possibility of connecting my lovely Lady of the Lake
and her eminently respectable, if somewhat unconventional, aunt with a
criminal of the Dumpling type, was so unthinkable that I may, perhaps,
be forgiven for not having entertained it until it was thus forced upon
me.
Of one thing I was certain--that whatever the explanation, the good
faith of Kate and Miss Clara was above suspicion. Unknown to them, the
man was leading a double life. They may, perhaps, have wondered at
his absences from home, and at his trouble in contriving a pretended
burglar alarm, which, I had little doubt, had been invented for quite
another purpose than was pretended. The fact that he had fitted up a
police call for protection against burglars, seemed to point to him
as a reputable member of society and a person of means. No doubt,
when he was absent from home, the use to which the thing was put was
actually that of a burglar alarm. But when he was at home, I thought
it more than possible that he would be at the trouble of making a
disconnection (it could be done by the turning of a switch) between his
house and the police station, and that in cases of emergency--as, for
instance, a surprise visit by the police--the so-called burglar alarm
could as effectively be used against the officers of the law as against
burglars. The simultaneous locking of all doors and windows must
necessarily delay the entrance of the officers who had come to arrest
him, and in the meantime Mr. Carleton would no doubt be making good his
escape by some secret means of exit, known only to himself.
That his sister and his daughter and possibly his servants were his
dupes, and in no sense his accomplices, I was absolutely convinced. But
dupes his sister and daughter could be no more. They, at least, knew
something of the truth, if not the whole of it. Hence their letters to
me; hence their endeavours to induce me to give up Dumpling hunting and
detective work; and hence their disappearance. And now that I, too,
knew the truth, later though my knowledge might be, I was confronted
with the question, "How, in view of what you know, do you propose to
act?"
CHAPTER XXVI.
"ONLY STARVING!"
Given the fact that I had promised to refrain from further detective
work, the fact that the two Miss Carletons had disappeared and had
forbidden me to try to find or to follow them, "How did I now propose
to act?" was the question before me.
It was answered next morning as I sat at breakfast.
Opening my newspaper, I read that, owing to the removal of the works
of two of the greatest ship-building firms from Thames Side to the
North, thousands of men had been thrown out of work, and the greatest
destitution prevailed. "The condition of things in East London"--so
it was stated in the newspaper--"is more terrible than has been known
within the memory of anyone now alive, and it is no exaggeration to say
that at this moment hundreds, if not thousands, of women and children
are starving." Some instances which had come under the personal notice
of the writer of the article were then given. Even to read them was
painful; to try to realise them was heart-breaking.
"This may, or may not, be a piece of newspaper exaggeration, for the
purpose of sensationalism," I said; "but if the half of what this man
says be true, what right have I to be sitting here before a comfortable
breakfast while little children are crying vainly for bread?"
I pushed my almost untasted breakfast away from me. I felt as if, with
the wail of starving children in my ears, another mouthful of food
would choke me.
"I can, of course, sit down and send a cheque to a church fund for
the unemployed or to a charitable institution," I went on, "and in
the majority of cases that is the wisest and best course to pursue.
Organisation, especially expert organisation, can make even a small
sum go further than can any amount of inexpert individual effort; in
addition to which, nine out of ten of the people who happen to be
charitably disposed are unable, for various reasons, to distribute
their charity at first hand, and in person. I don't know that it
is always desirable that they should do so. Their very kindness
of heart makes them easy to be imposed upon; and promiscuous and
amateur almsgiving is, I fear, often responsible for the springing
up of a class of anything but amateur alms-cadgers and spongers.
But I know the 'ins' and 'outs' of the East End of London. I'm not
altogether unacquainted with the fact that the greater the need, the
more pitiful and deserving the case, the harder is it to find. Your
decent, deserving, hard-working man, whom ill-health and misfortune
have brought to want, will creep away secretly to starve, in silence
to suffer and to die, while your rascally loafer, who has never done
an honest day's work in his life, seizes upon every opportunity of
'times being bad,' or of men being known to be out of work, to parade
the streets, hymn-howling and copper-cadging for the wherewithal to
spend in the public-house. I know something of the ways and wiles of
gentlemen of this kidney, something of the silent suffering and dogged,
splendid pride of the other class; and being myself, for the present,
at least, a genuine member of the unemployed, and having, moreover, a
system of my own invention for getting at the facts, I think I'll go
east and investigate things for myself. For novel writing or other
literary work my mind is just now too unsettled, and as I am not one
who can for any length of time remain inactive, I will make the start
this morning and this moment, and be off."
Taking the train to Shadwell, I deliberately set to work to find the
most squalid and poverty-stricken slum in the whole district. Then I
entered the nearest baker's shop.
It is curious how readily the poor sum up a new comer. The slatternly
but not unkindly-looking woman who popped out from a back room saw at
a glance that I had not called in the usual course of business, and
as she came forward, her foolish, expressionless face lost something
of its normal vacancy, until her vague eyes, indeterminate nose, open
mouth and dropped chin, seemed for all the world to shape themselves
into a human note of interrogation.
"Yes, sir?" she inquired respectfully, with a slight inclination.
"Good morning," I said, with an effort to make voice, manner, and
expression as pleasant as possible. "Good morning. I hope I haven't
disturbed you. I'm not a customer--for the present, at all events."
"No, sir?" she replied, in a non-committal interrogative tone of voice,
which implied, though it left unspoken, the question, "Now I wonder
what in the world he wants?"
"It's this way," I went on. "I have been reading in my paper (I live
in quite another part of London, by the bye) that there are hundreds,
thousands even, of women and children starving out this way. Well,
now, I don't accept for gospel truth everything I read in the papers,
but it seemed to me that if I came out for myself to a place like
Shadwell, found a poor street like this, and made my way to the nearest
shop--which happens to be yours--anyone like yourself could tell me
something of the real facts of the case. It seems to me, too, that if
you would be so good as to help me--which I'm sure you will--you could
put me in the way of getting at the genuine, the deserving cases. I
mean the cases which, perhaps because the people in question don't
attend any particular church, and so, not having their names on the
visiting list, get overlooked by the clergy and ministers who are
doing such splendid work; as well as the cases where, perhaps because
of a pride, to which I take off my hat, the sufferers can't humble
themselves to beg or to apply for parish relief.
"Understand me, please. I don't come from any newspaper. I'm not
working in connection with any charity, or any church, and I haven't
very much money to spend. But if women and children are really
starving, as I read in the newspapers, I want to do what little I can
to help. Do you know of any such cases?"
"The last customer I served before you came in, sir, was a woman," she
made answer. "I served her with a farthing's-worth of bread. That's all
she and her three children have for to-day."
The unemotional, matter-of-fact way in which she spoke was infinitely
more significant than if she had put the point of exclamation to her
statement by any melodramatic show of feeling, any play of features, or
gestures of hands.
"But such cases are not common!" I protested.
"No," she said dully. "They're not. It's much commoner not to have the
farthing's-worth of bread."
"Would you mind giving me that poor woman's name and address? I pledge
you my word," I added, perhaps unnecessarily, "that I'll say no word to
hurt her pride or wound her feelings."
"18, Cripps Court," was the reply; "and her name's Frost. But there's
five families living in the house, most of 'em in one room, and two of
them are Frost. The one you want is Mrs. Fred Frost."
"Thank you very much. It is very good of you to take this trouble," I
said. "Are there any other cases equally bad that you know? If so, I'd
be grateful to be told of them."
"Lots," was the laconic reply. "I can give you enough names, without
your going out of this street, to keep you busy for a week. There's a
couple at No. 9, in the top room. They've pawned every stick they've
got, and are sleeping on bare boards on the floor. I know they haven't
had anything to eat for two days. But you won't want anything to do
with them, I expect. The man's a thief by trade, and the woman--well,
she's worse, and I know for certain they ain't husband and wife."
"I don't care what they are," I replied hotly. "They're
fellow-creatures, made of the same flesh and blood as we are, and
they're in want. What name shall I ask for them by?"
"Lowe," she said. "That's the name they go by, anyway."
Thanking the good woman behind the counter for her help, I set out to
find Mrs. Fred Frost.
The door of No. 18, Cripps Court, was opened by a wan, haggard-looking
woman, whom the summons had apparently disturbed in the act of suckling
a sickly-looking baby, which she held on one arm, while the hand of her
other arm was fumbling at the unbuttoned bosom of her dress.
"Good morning," I said, raising my hat. "Can you tell me, please, if
Mrs. Fred Frost is in?"
"No, sir, she's not," she answered civilly; "her baby's dead, and she's
gone to find her husband, who's trying to get a job at the docks."
"Oh! Poor woman! I'm very sorry!" I said, gently. "The fact is, her
name has been given me as one whose husband is out of work, and I
ventured to call to see if she'd allow me to send in some groceries,
and other things by way of being of some small assistance during the
hard time. If you'll allow me, I'll call again."
"She'll be very grateful to you, sir, I'm sure," the woman replied.
"Having the child ill has made it very hard for her just lately."
"Is there anybody else living here with whom things are going badly? If
so, perhaps you'd tell me! I can't do very much, but what I can do, in
the way of sending in some tea and some meat and a few groceries, I'd
be very glad to."
"Well, sir," answered the woman, "there's an old couple in the back
room, living alone with their little grandson (the child's father and
mother are dead). But they've gone out--all three of them--to try and
get a relief ticket somewhere. If you were to ask for them when you
come back to see Mrs. Frost, you'll see for yourself by the very look
of them how things are. The little boy--he's all right. They've managed
it, though I don't know how, between them, 'cept by starving themselves
to give to him, for skin and bone is about all that's left of the two
old people."
"I'm very much obliged to you," I said. "And I shall venture, as I say,
to call in again, perhaps in an hour's time. Good morning."
"Good morning, sir, and thank you," she said quietly.
As I was turning away the sun, which had not before been visible that
morning, suddenly broke out from behind the clouds. Standing, as she
had been, in a dark passage, and partly behind the half-opened door,
she was so much in the shadow that I could not observe her closely;
nor, for the matter of that, had I tried to do so, being anxious not to
seem curious or inquisitive. But as the sun fell full upon her face,
and I marked the hollows in her cheeks, and the dark rings around her
eyes, I stopped suddenly, impulsively.
"Please don't think me impertinent," I said. "But you look far from
strong yourself. I hope--I do hope--your husband isn't out of work,
too."
"Yes, sir; he's been out five weeks now, come Tuesday."
"And have you any children? Again I ask you to forgive me."
"There's no offence, sir," she said quietly, but I saw that she was
trying hard to stay the trembling of her lips.
"Yes, sir, I've five, and--and--there's been no food in the house since
yesterday."
"Yet you never asked help for yourself!" I said, gentle reproach
perhaps in my voice, but wonder and reverence at my heart. "You are a
brave woman, a true woman, and I honour and respect you. But, for the
children's sake, you mustn't refuse, if I ask you to let me try to be
of some little help while the hard time lasts."
She was sobbing piteously now--more, I suspect, because she was faint
and weak and in want of food than for any other reason.
"I'm sure I've--I've--I've tried hard to get some work, and so's Joe."
Then she pulled herself together.
"Will you come in, sir?"
Uncovering, I followed her into the wall-bare room. I say wall-bare
advisedly, for, except for an old box in the corner, every stick of
furniture had, as I discovered, been pawned or sold for food. Yet here
seven of my fellow-creatures, made in the image of God, were herded
together, within the space of a few square feet.
A wan, ragged, and unkempt man was sitting on the upturned box, his
elbows on his knees, his hands thrust in the hair that was bushed over
his ears.
He leapt up morosely, savagely, at my entrance, and muttered something
about "More ---- spies!"
But I was not born an Irishman for nothing. Three minutes had not
passed before I had won him to friendliness; five minutes had not
gone by before the youngest child was sitting on my knee, listening,
open-mouthed, to stories about a performing dog.
After a little time I said:
"Now I wonder if Timmy there--he's nine, you said, Mrs. Wright--I
wonder whether he's a good hand at shopping, and if he'd come with
me to get a few things at the butcher's, and the baker's, and the
grocer's, and then help me to bring them back? Do you know, Timmy, I'm
a very, very greedy man, and want a cup of tea badly; and somehow I've
got an idea that your mother, here, is a good hand at making tea; and
when you and I come back, I'm going to beg her to be so very kind as to
make me a cup, and then, while all the rest of you have a cup too, and
something to eat with it, I'll finish that story of mine about the dog."
But I had miscalculated Timmy's strength. He and I stopped at the
first shop we came to--a grocer's--and borrowed a wicker basket. It
had the word "Margarine" stencilled or painted in big black letters on
one side; and by the same token, as, for weeks to come, I had occasion
to borrow that same basket, and came to be a familiar figure in the
streets, I was known and spoken of in the district as "Mr. Margarine."
Into this basket Timmy and I stacked away tea, sugar, butter, and other
groceries. Then we returned to my friend the woman in the baker's shop,
and added to our store a loaf or two of bread.
"And now, Timmy," I said, "I daresay this kind lady could find you a
piece of cake and a glass of milk. Meanwhile, I'll run across the road
and interview the butcher."
I had hardly entered the butcher's shop before I heard the sudden
pulling up of a horse and cart in the street, and saw the driver
hastily dismounting.
Timmy, supposing I had meant him to follow at once with the basket,
had taken it up, and must have passed out almost at my heels. Half-way
across the street he had suddenly reeled and fallen, and now lay white
and unconscious.
"What's the matter?" I asked the woman who was kneeling beside him with
his head on her arm.
"Oh, nothing!" she answered, bitterly. "You've got eyes in your head,
haven't you, and can see for yourself? He's fainted for want of
food--that's what's the matter. He's only starving!"
CHAPTER XXVII.
RE-ENTER THE DUMPLING.
"He's only starving!" the woman had said. But as I stooped to lift the
frail little figure from the ground, as I hurried with it across the
street and into the baker's shop, there to wet the white lips with a
restorative--a prayer that was like the spurting of blood from a wound,
a prayer that shot a pang of actual physical pain to my heart--so
poignant, so terrible was my remorse--surged up unuttered but not
unheard, within me.
"Lord Christ, lover of little children, spare and heal this Thy
stricken little child. Forgive and pardon such as I, who, living our
selfish, easeful lives, have closed our ears and shut our eyes to the
suffering and the misery around us. Help us to repent. Lash us, if need
be, with Thy whip of pain, burn us, if it seem good to Thee, with the
scorching of fire, but awaken us, arouse us, thaw this cruel, frozen
heart within us, that we be forgetful of the sufferings of these our
fellow-creatures no more. Amen."
And the prayer was heard--as every prayer that is uttered in earnest
is heard--on high. The restorative did its work. The cup of warm milk,
which--perhaps with a thought of Him who said, "And whosoever shall
give to drink one of these little ones a cup of cold water only ...
shall in no wise lose his reward"--was held to his lips by the good
woman, put new life into him; and before long Timmy and I were able to
gather together our belongings, and to return to No. 18, Cripps Court.
There, his mother brewing the tea, and the rest of the household
sitting around discussing the contents of my basket, I made the
happiest meal of my life. The Wright family were equally happy, and
listened to the continuation of my story of the performing dog with
uproarious laughter.
The mere fact that one, not in their own station of life, could, by
coming among them as one of themselves--asking no questions, laying
down no laws, but by talking to the children, taking the little
ones upon his knee, to show his watch or the dog's head on his
walking-stick--so please and delight them, was to me tragic.
The good fellowship, the realisation of the common bond of human
sympathy which--whether they wear corduroy or broadcloth, silk hats
or coster caps, satin gown or cotton frock--should bind men and women
together, seemed to cheer them in spirit as much, if not more, than
their bodies had been cheered by the food.
After a time Mrs. Wright departed, taking the children with her, to
execute some shopping commissions for me, and then Wright and I settled
down for a chat.
It was not long before I learned his reason for fearing, when I had
first entered, that I was what he had called "another of the ----
spies."
"It's this way, sir," he said. "Two ladies called afore you come. The
missis was out, or she wouldn't have let 'em in, but they came in
without bein' asked, and sat down--at least, one on 'em did--on this
box, and the other, she walked all around the place, sniffing like to
herself, and talking aloud about what she called the 'dirt.'
"'So your name's Wright, and you're out of work, are you?' says the
sitting-down one to me.
"'Yes,' I says, short like.
"'And what church do you attend?'
"'I don't attend none,' I says. 'The missis she goes sometimes of a
Sunday evening, and the kids goes to Sunday school.'
"'And wot church does your wife go to--and what Sunday school do the
children attend?' puts in the other lady, having done all the sniffing
round she could.
"'Wesleyan,' I says.
"'H'm!' she says. 'Dissenters! That's bad! Don't you and your wife
know that the Church of England is the Established Church of the land,
and that it's displeasing to Almighty God--not to say anything about
your wife's duty--in letting the children attend a sectarian place of
worship?'
"'No,' I says; 'I don't.'
"'And what wages do you earn when you're in work, Wright?' she says.
"'Well,' I says, 'when I was a farm labourer I only made thirteen bob
a week, but since I come to town I got about eighteen shillings when I
was in work.'
"'And how much did you save out of that?'
"'Why, nothink,' I said. 'I 'ad a 'ouse then, and the rent was eight
and six a week; and nine and six don't go far to feed and clothe five.'
"'Nonsense!' she says. 'You should always put by a percentage of
what you earn, no matter how small it is, against a rainy day. The
improvidence, the thriftlessness, of you poor is criminal! I'm afraid
you're an idle, worthless fellow, Wright,' she says, 'and not deserving
of any help until I see that you've reformed your ways.'"
Then, moved perhaps by the memory of his recent privations, he suddenly
seemed to lose all self-control. Springing to his feet, he shook his
clenched fist in the air, as with flaming face and voice hoarse with
frenzy, he shouted:
"Reform my ways? Idle, worthless fellow, am I? Ah! but the days of
grinding us down are gone. The days of them that oppress the poor are
over! It's Labour that's going to lord it now, and make the laws,
and rule the land. The millions on millions who starve and sweat and
labour are no longer to be the toys and tools of the few thousands that
sweat them, so that the idle few may live on the fat of the land. The
millions have found their leader at last--the man to organise them into
armies, and to lay the mines of the revolution that's close at hand,
the man that's----"
"Cease your ranting!" I interrupted sternly, for his voice had risen
to a screech. "Do you want to arouse the neighbourhood? I've heard
all that stuff before, and from the lips of the man who first uttered
it--for you are not speaking your own words. You are only speaking
words that have been put into your mouth. Wrongs you have, no doubt,
but rant and rioting won't right them, and I tell you----"
I was not allowed to finish the sentence. Someone who had no doubt been
listening in the passage outside suddenly sprang in, and before I could
turn--for my back was to the door--had seized me so as to pin both my
arms to my sides.
I did not need to be told the name of my assailant, to see his face, or
to hear his voice. Only one man whom I had ever met had arms of such
gorilla-like length, of such giant strength.
It was the Dumpling!
CHAPTER XXVIII.
MUTINY AND A MESMERIST.
"You noisy fool, Wright!" he said, still holding me in his iron grip.
"I heard you ranting in the street outside." Then, "Am I hurting you,
Mr. Rissler?" he asked.
Foolishly I opened my mouth to reply, but hardly had I done so before a
handkerchief was thrust between my lips, and stuffed the next instant
half-way down my throat.
"Now, Wright," he said, "you can tie his hands and feet while I hold
him. Do it so that the knot won't give, but carefully, so as not to
hurt him. Come along, my good man! You are very slow! Do as I bid you,
and be quick about it!"
Somewhat to my surprise, and more so, evidently, to the Dumpling's,
Wright refused point-blank.
"I won't," he said, not budging from where he stood. "The gentleman's
been kind to me and mine, and lift a hand against him I won't."
"Do as I bid you!" was the answer, in a voice that was almost a hiss.
"I won't," was the dogged reply.
The next jiffey I was lifted off my feet by the Dumpling's powerful
arms, and, before I knew what he was about, I was lying upon my back on
the floor, bewildered but unharmed.
Putting a knee upon my chest, and holding me down meanwhile with both
hands, he raised his head and looked Wright straight in the eyes.
For the space of a few seconds the fellow stood gaping at the Dumpling
as if fascinated. Then his eyes dulled to a fixed, foolish stare, and
finally the lids of them drooped and closed. He was mesmerised--that
fact was evident.
"Open your eyes," the Dumpling commanded.
Wright did so.
"Put your hand in my right-side pocket, and you'll find a strap."
Automatically the other obeyed.
"Strap his ankles securely. No; it is no use your struggling, Rissler,"
he went on, as, getting my feet against the wainscot for leverage, I
put all my strength into an effort to throw him off.
Then, looking over his shoulder, he inquired:
"Have you got that strap, Wright?"
"I have got the strap," the other replied mechanically.
"Then be ready to use it," said the Dumpling. "Slip it around his
ankles when I say 'Now'!"
Still holding me down with both hands, he suddenly straddled his
powerful knees open, as if they had been a pair of nut-crackers,
and the two legs of me--outside which his own legs now lay--the two
halves of a walnut. Then he closed his knees, clipping mine together
within them, as the pair of crackers might clip the shell; and though
I struggled with all my strength, for I was furious at finding myself
proved to be not only as a child in his hands, but as an infant upon
his knees--or between them--I knew, when I heard him say 'Now,' that I
was as neatly hobbled as any horse.
"It's a pity you put us and yourself to all this unnecessary trouble,"
he said philosophically. "Now, then, Wright, look in his pockets for a
handkerchief, and lash his wrists while I hold them together."
As he spoke, the five fingers of his right hand closed on my left hand,
as the talons of a pouncing hawk close upon a field-mouse.
Then, in spite of my futile efforts, he drew my left hand towards my
right, and suddenly spanning the two with the fingers of his single
hand, nonchalantly arranging the set of his collar with the other
meanwhile, he said:
"Now, Wright, just tie his wrists together, will you?" and once again
the mesmerised man did as he was bidden.
Rising, the Dumpling turned from me to Wright. Looking that worthy full
in the eyes, he said, in a low voice:
"You are awake."
"I am awake," repeated Wright, automatically, as his eyes, still fixed
in a stupid stare, turned sluggishly in their sockets, following his
master's movements.
Lifting his dropped left arm slightly, the Dumpling touched, with a
finger tip, the finger tips of the other's loosely open hand. Then he
put his right hand on Wright's shoulder, and with a gentle shake, said:
"Wake!"
Wright came to himself with a start, and looked foolishly around.
"What did you mean by disobeying me just now?" asked the Dumpling with
sudden fierceness.
"I'm sorry, sir; I never done it before, as you know, and I'm sorry
if I opened my mouth too wide and made a noise. Me and mine has gone
through hard times since you were here last. The money you left us
was finished nigh upon two weeks ago, and not knowing where you
was, and not being able to get any work, we've had nothing to eat.
This gentleman here has been very kind to us, and though I've never
disobeyed you before, sir, I couldn't lift hand against him, and that's
a fact."
The Dumpling seemed genuinely concerned.
"Has it been so bad as that with you, my poor fellow?" he said gravely.
"Humphreys shall answer to me for this. I had to be away, it's true,
but I left plenty of money with him for all requirements, and I
particularly told him that no one, who is in with us, should be allowed
to want.
"I'm glad my friend on the floor has been good to you," he continued.
"He's of the right stuff, and ought to be with us, Wright--will be with
us one day, I hope and believe. You needn't be anxious about him. I
don't mean to do him any harm. On the contrary, I want to do him a good
turn, if he'll let me. My reason for gagging him was because, when I
first came in, I thought you and he were quarrelling. One doesn't do
a man any serious amount of damage by sticking a piece of rag in his
mouth and tying him up for a half-hour. He, on the other hand, not
understanding the situation, and supposing himself to be in danger,
might have called out and brought the police about our ears. He'd be
sorry for it after, when he knew the facts, so we protected ourselves,
and protected him against himself, by taking the precaution of making
sure of him first. See?
"Well, now, I want to have a few words with the gentleman, and I can do
so better if he and I are alone. You stay outside the door meanwhile,
Wright, and see that no one comes in."
Wright gone, and the door closed and locked, the Dumpling turned to me.
"Now, Mr. Rissler, to finish our interrupted conversation of the other
night. But first of all about that gag. If I take it off, will you give
me your promise, your parole, not to call or cry out, or do anything to
bring outsiders in? Nod if you agree. Shake your head, if not."
I nodded.
"All right," he said. "But you'll be more comfortable sitting up, with
your back to the wall, than lying on the floor full length. See, I'll
prop you up that way, and now to take off the gag."
While he was doing so I was planning a little surprise for him. Up to
now he had, no doubt, for reasons of his own, been very careful to
conceal his name from me. He had, to be sure, declared himself to be
Napoleon, but Napoleon's present address is not to be found in any
directory available for the purpose.
That my theory of the identity of John Carleton, of No. 5, Taunton
Square, with the man whom I knew as the Dumpling was correct, I was,
in my own mind, entirely persuaded; but I was shy of theories, and
anxious to replace them by actual knowledge. I was curious, too, to see
what effect the fact that his real name was known to me would have
upon him. Would he admit it? Would he deny it? Would it arouse him to
anger or to fear? Means of knowing I had none, other than by putting
the matter to the test; so, no sooner was I sitting up, with the gag
removed, than I looked him straight in the face and shot my bolt.
"Well, and how are you, Mr. John Carleton?" I said.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE MYSTERY OF THE THIRD MAN.
That my knowledge of his identity would come to him as a surprise, I
was tolerably sure; and, in springing it thus suddenly upon him, I
hoped to gather by his face, which I was watching narrowly meanwhile,
whether he were moved by anger or by dismay.
The result was a fiasco, a fizzle, an abject failure. Either he was the
most consummate of actors, or, as is more likely, I the most consummate
of fools; for he looked at me at first with bewilderment, and then with
amusement, and finally burst into a hearty laugh.
"So _that's_ who you think I am, is it?" he chuckled. "I saw by that
speaking countenance of yours that you were hatching an egg (you are an
Irishman, aren't you? so you won't mind my mixing my metaphors), but I
didn't expect so weird a fowl as this."
He took that morning's paper from his pocket, and holding it open
before me, pointed to a paragraph, which ran as follows:
"The freedom of the City of Carlisle will to-day, at noon, be conferred
upon Mr. John Carleton, the eminent inventor, who was born in that
city, and has devoted a large portion of the fortune he amassed in
America to improving the homes of the poor in the place of his birth.
Miss Clara Carleton and her niece, Miss Kate Carleton, have left 5,
Taunton Square, W., for Homburg, where Mr. Carleton will shortly join
them."
"I admit," commented the Dumpling ironically, "that the fact of Mr.
Carleton devoting a portion of his fortune to improving the homes
of the poor, points suspiciously to me. How are you to be sure, Mr.
Rissler, that I didn't send that paragraph myself to the newspaper,
in the expectation of meeting you here, and, by showing it to you, to
put you off the scent? And the portrait! Stop a minute--there is a
portrait. It's in another part of the paper. Ah! here it is."
The portrait, which was inscribed "John Carleton, Esq., the eminent
inventor and philanthropist," was that of a flat-foreheaded,
clean-shaven man, absolutely bald, and so shrunken and fleshless of
face as to seem all skin and bone. The striking resemblance to a skull,
caused by his singular fleshlessness, was heightened by the fact that
he wore huge glasses of great magnifying power, out of which his hollow
eyes loomed cavernously.
"It's like me, isn't it?" said the Dumpling. "But then _you_ are not
to be deceived by anything of that sort, are you? It may dupe the
police, but _you_ will see at a glance that that portrait is only
myself, cleverly got up to look like somebody else. And when you read
in to-morrow's papers an account of the ceremony at Carlisle--and, by
the bye," pulling out his watch, "it's just about taking place now--you
will say to yourself, 'What a thing it is to be a detective! Here's
all this hullaballoo about the conferring of the freedom of the City
of Carlisle upon Mr. John Carleton at noon yesterday; and all the time
_I_ could have told them--if they'd only asked me, which for some
inexplicable reason they didn't--that the real John Carleton was at 18,
Cripps Court, Shadwell.'"
Then the bantering tone died out of his voice.
"I've chaffed you a bit about the mistake, Mr. Rissler, but it was
a very natural mistake to fall into," he said. "My coming to No. 5,
Taunton Square, twice in a night, my shadowing it beforehand, my
knowing all about it--no, I can't see, as I say, that you are very much
to blame, after all. It is curious that you should have thought me to
be John Carleton when, if there is _one man_ in all the world with whom
I would not, for all the world can offer, change places, that _one_ man
is John Carleton.
"When I tell you the story of my life, as I hope I shall one day,
you will understand and appreciate--but not till then--my reason for
speaking as I do. But now to talk of other matters. You have thought
over what I said to you the other night?"
"I have," I answered.
"And you are going to throw in your lot with us?"
"No."
"Rissler," he said gravely, "don't compel me to kill you, as kill you I
must under certain circumstances. There is blood on my hands already,
and more blood on my hands there must, of necessity, be before my
work is done; but, of all men in the world, you are the one man whom I
am most anxious to spare. You must see for yourself that you know too
much, that you are too dangerous to be left at large, except as one of
us. I have shown my heart, my hopes, my dreams, to you, as I have shown
them to no other man. Can I do nothing, say nothing, to influence you?
You feel as I do about the poor, as witness the fact of what you have
done for Wright and his family. What moved you to do that? What brought
you here, in Wright's house, at all?"
He stopped, as if expecting an answer; so, briefly as possible, I told
him of the impression that had been made upon me by his words about the
poor, and that, for the time, at least, I had thrown up my detective
work, in order to devote myself to doing what lay in my power to
alleviate the sufferings of my fellow-creatures.
He was genuinely moved, and when he inquired how I came to know of
Wright, and I told him of my system of making inquiries at a small
shop, in the very poorest district, he put a hand upon my shoulder,
and said excitedly:
"Rissler, you have no choice in this matter. God has called you to the
task, and you may not say Him nay. It is only a question of time. Two
days--only two days ago, you were against us. You announced yourself
as my enemy, as one who was set upon hunting me down. Now you tell me
of your own accord--and I believe you--that you have abandoned this
ignoble work of hunting down a fellow-creature who, whether his methods
be right or wrong in your eyes, is at least consumed with a passionate
desire to spend and to sacrifice everything he has, life itself, if
necessary, to succour and to help the poor and the oppressed.
"Two days ago, Rissler, as I say, you were against us. To-day you are
against us no more. Two days ago you cared nothing for the sufferings
of the poor, you gave no thought to them. To-day you are here amongst
them, ministering to them with your own hand. If two days have wrought
this change in you, what change may not another two days work? Another
two days may see you working with us, one of us, leading the Labour
hosts in this battle of the Lord.
"Now, listen to me. I'll be frank with you, and tell you that from
the first moment I saw you something within me warned me to beware of
you, and cried out, 'Kill! kill! kill!' That night in the wine cellar,
to-day in this squalid room, I should, had I followed my impulses, have
strangled you without mercy, without remorse, and without a thought.
Why don't I kill you? Why do I spend time which I can't afford to
spend? Why do I run risks which I never ought to run, in talking to
you, in explaining things to you, in trying to persuade you to join us?
"I will tell you. It is because God has revealed to me that you are
destined to play a great part in the history of this rising. It was
by no chance that you came that night to the opium den. It was by no
chance, it was not entirely by your resourcefulness and skill, that you
escaped with your life. It was no chance which drew you to the house in
Taunton Square, no chance which sent you here to Cripps Court.
"The part you are to play, God has not yet revealed to me; but I will
tell you what I believe that part to be. The army I command may be
counted by many millions, but leader there is only one--myself. And
the battle--which shall be called Armageddon--the battle which shall
set Labour upon the throne as Lord and Ruler of this land--that battle
approaches, and in that battle I shall fall. If I fall, all falls,
unless God raise up a second in command who shall be the leader of the
people after I am gone. That leader I believe you are marked out to
be. That is why I dare not kill you; that is why I am going to do the
maddest thing a sane man ever did.
"Of my own will I set you free to go from here unharmed. As yet you
are not with us. As yet God has not made known His will to you. As
yet, though I have twice appealed to you to throw in your lot with
us, you have resisted my entreaty. But I am not dismayed. Once again
I shall come to you. Once again I shall appeal to you, and that third
time I shall give you such assured proof of the triumph of our cause,
that after that third time I shall need to appeal to you no more. The
victory will be won. Our cause, the people's cause, God's cause, you
will, on that third appeal, espouse. Of my own accord I set you free."
As he spoke these last words, he stooped to unfasten my bonds,
and, in doing so, looked me for a moment in the eyes. Once again a
dream-tableau seemed to shape itself before me.
I saw myself--as one might see another person--in some dark place
underground. By my side stood the Dumpling, and far back in the shadow
was another man.
In my dream I could not see the face of the third man. I could see
the Dumpling's face, and upon it was a look of fiendish triumph as he
pointed me to the third man. But I could see my own face, and on my own
face, as it was turned to the face of the third man, was such a look of
incredulous horror as, waking or dreaming, I shall never see upon human
face again.
Then the dream passed. I was free of my bonds, and the Dumpling was
holding open the door.
"Good-bye, Rissler!" he said. "We shall meet again and soon; and that
meeting will mean great things for both of us."
Without a word, without so much as a "Thank you" or a "Good day,"
I passed out, like one who walks in his sleep. I could think of
nothing save the unseen face of the third man in my dream, and of the
incredulous horror which had been upon my own face on realising who
that third man was.
CHAPTER XXX.
FORTY MILES IN A PERAMBULATOR!
My discomfiture at the Dumpling's derisive repudiation of the
supposition that he was John Carleton was completed next morning, when
John Carleton himself returned to town, and John Carleton in the flesh
I with my own eyes several times saw, as he went in and out of his
house in Taunton Square.
"That man," said I to myself, "should be an object-lesson to you in
the futility of theory building. First, you called yourself a fool for
not having seen that John Carleton was the Dumpling, and the Dumpling,
John Carleton. Now, you have the pleasure of knowing yourself a
double-distilled donkey, for ever having supposed anything of the sort."
Upon the theory--the fact, as I had thought it to be--that John
Carleton and the Dumpling were one and the same man, rested the only
explanation I had to offer in regard to the letter I had received from
the two Miss Carletons, aunt and niece. That theory being now entirely
exploded, their extraordinary behaviour remained as much, if not more,
of a mystery than ever.
A mystery--so far as I was concerned--I decided that it might remain.
Of detective work and of theory building I had had more than enough,
and so I betook myself that very afternoon to Shadwell, to renew the
investigations which my meeting with the Dumpling had interrupted.
The first name on my list was that of a tailor's "hand," named Holmes,
a widower who, I was told, had five young children, and was out of
work. He was a consumptive-looking creature, hollow of cheek, eye, and
chest, and with a hacking cough.
"Yes, sir," he said civilly, in reply to my inquiries. "It is quite
true that I am out of work, and that I have children; but I can't take
your help, asking your pardon all the same, sir, for seeming rude and
ungrateful."
"On the contrary," I said, "it is I who have to apologise to you, Mr.
Holmes, for what you might very well think my impertinence in coming
here at all. But I happened to hear, quite by chance, how beautifully
you keep your children; and how nice they always look; and learning
that you were out of work, and being very, very fond of children (I
haven't any myself: I wish I had), I thought there wouldn't be any
harm, at least, in calling, just to see whether there were any little
thing I could do for you, until you're in work again. I'm a working
man, as you are, though I happen to work with a pen, while you happen
to work with a needle. And I'm a poor man, too, for the matter of that;
but just lately I chanced, by a stroke of luck, to make a pound or two
more than usual, and when I have a stroke of luck I like to share it
with someone who has been less lucky--just as I believe you'd be ready
to share your good luck, when it comes, with me, if I happened to need
it. But I respect your independence and pride, and I ask you again to
forgive me for calling."
"It isn't pride, sir," he said; "and, if the children were in absolute
want, I'd take your help and thank God for it. It's this way, sir. This
week we have just enough money left out of my savings to last us--me
and the children--in bread. It has only been bread, and dry bread, it's
true; and if when Monday comes I haven't got work, there won't even be
bread, for my money will be entirely gone. If you should be this way
then, and would look in, and I haven't found work, I will take your
help--putting it the way you do, sir--and thank God for it. But when
I know of hundreds of little children who haven't had even a piece of
bread for days, I can't take----But I thank you kindly. God bless you,
sir. I must go now. I hear one of the children calling. Good afternoon."
He closed the door in my face--not rudely, but in haste, lest I should
see how shaken he was by emotion; and bowing my head, and with my own
heart rising strangely in my throat, I turned away.
Just for the moment, I did not feel like facing the eyes in the street;
so, as a slight rain was falling, I took shelter in a dark passage
leading to a court, and stood there out of sight of passers, to collect
my thoughts.
It was not long before my attention was attracted by a curious sight.
A gipsy-like, wolf-faced man was wheeling a child's perambulator, in
which, to my astonishment, I saw curled up the figure of a full-grown
woman. I recognised the couple at a glance. Walking once along the
high road from Epping to London, I had seated myself upon a five-barred
gate by the wayside for a quiet smoke. The gate stood between thick
hedge-rows, and, as it was set back a little, the folk passing along
the road could not see me until they were almost level with the gate.
By and by I heard what struck me as a very pretty altercation between
a man and a woman who were approaching me slowly, but whom as yet I
could not see. The man, as I discovered when they came into sight, was
wheeling a perambulator (the same perambulator, in fact) in which were
a number of ferns and primrose roots that he was carrying to London to
sell. This perambulator the woman was pleading to be allowed to take a
turn at pushing, urging that as the man had been up since four in the
morning to gather the ferns and primroses, and had had to wheel the
perambulator five miles out and five miles back, he must consequently
be very tired. He, protesting that he was not tired at all, point-blank
refused, declaring that, as she had only just come out of hospital, she
must be much more tired than he. And so the petty quarrel continued,
until the pair came opposite to the gate, and I saw that she was a
sickly, blear-eyed, unlovely woman, and he an unkempt, gipsy-like
fellow with lean face and hungry, wolf's eyes.
Well, to cut a long story short, I had contrived to make their
acquaintance, and had found that, underneath their rags and dirt, beat
two honest and unselfish hearts. I had told them to come always to me
if in need of assistance of any sort--an invitation of which they took
advantage only once, and then when their straits were desperate. On
every other occasion I had found them touchily independent, and though
I sometimes bought flowers, bullrushes, mistletoe, or fern-roots from
them for the decoration of my house or garden, they would not accept a
farthing from me in the shape of charity. If I wished to buy the wares
they had for sale, that was another matter; and even then I have reason
to know that I got more flowers, bullrushes, or fern roots for sixpence
than their usual customers got for a shilling.
For some twelvemonth we continued the best of friends. Then suddenly
their visits ceased, and I set eyes on neither again until I saw the
pair of them at Shadwell--the woman curled up in the perambulator, and
the man pushing it.
"Nash!" I called out, running after them. "Nash, where _have_ you been
all this time? And why haven't you and Mrs. Nash been to see me?"
"We have been doing pretty much the same as usual, sir," he replied
stiffly; "and thank you for asking." Then touching his ragged cap, he
said brusquely, "Good day, sir," and, pushing the perambulator before
him, passed along.
But I was not thus easily to be shaken off. At first he stood very
much on his dignity, answering my questions, in regard to himself
and his doings, with civil but manifest unwillingness, but at last I
contrived--and then only with difficulty--to discover wherein I had
offended.
On the last occasion, when they had visited me, I had said to him, as
he was passing out: "Well, good-bye, Nash. Mind, if ever you get into
trouble, be sure to come or to send to me, and I'll do my best to get
you out."
By "trouble" I had meant illness, or the inability to scrape together
the small sum they paid as rent for the miserable hovel in which they
lived.
But in George Nash's world "trouble"--so I learned for the first
time--has only one meaning when applied to a man (the word is used in a
different sense in regard to a woman), and that meaning--jail.
"I don't see why you should have thought that of us, sir," Nash said
with quiet dignity. "Poor we may be, but at least we've managed to keep
honest. And the inside of a prison we're never likely to see. We thank
you kindly for what you've done for us, sir, the missis and me, but if
you think as we're that sort, well, sir, we've made a mistake about
you, and you've made a mistake about us, and we wish you good-day."
Turning doggedly to the perambulator, he touched his hat and passed on.
"Why, my dear fellow," I said hotly, following him, and taking him by
the hand, "such a thought never entered my head. I'd leave you--and for
the matter of that I _have_ left you or your wife--in my room alone
with every farthing I possess lying about openly, and never even dream
of counting it, or of thinking of it at all.
"Well," I went on, when I had at last persuaded him that he had done
me an injustice, "well, and what on earth is the meaning of Mrs. Nash
being cooped up in this perambulator? She looks very white and thin. I
do hope she isn't ill."
"Yes, sir; she's very ill," was the answer. "Got something wrong inside
her, the doctor said, that'll have to be cut out. I'm taking her to
Reading now."
"To Reading?" I said. "But why to Reading? I can easily arrange to get
her into a good hospital for women here."
"No, sir, thank you kindly. She's set on going to Reading, and nowhere
else. The doctor there (she's been there afore, you know) don't treat
poor folk as some other doctors do. They don't mean not to be kind, but
they speak so sharp, it frightens her. The doctor at Reading--ah! he is
different. She ain't a bit afraid of him. She won't go anywhere but to
Reading. She's set on it, sir, and so am I."
Knowing the man as I did, I could see that it was no use to argue with
him.
"I see," I said. "Quite right, George. I'll come with you as far as
Paddington, if you'll let me. Shadwell Station is some way yet. You
look hot and tired already, and so I'll take a turn at pushing the pram
while you rest. But if I may make a suggestion, I should say that the
best thing to do is to steer for the nearest place where we're likely
to find a four-wheeled cab and let me drive you to Paddington. How did
_you_ propose taking Mrs. Nash there?"
"Same way as I'm taking her to Reading, sir," he said unconcernedly;
"in the pram, of course."
"The pram!" I ejaculated. "My dear Nash, what nonsense! It's forty
miles! You can't wheel a grown woman forty miles in a child's
perambulator."
"Can't I, sir?" he said, smiling with an air of superiority. "I've
taken her there twice before in the perambulator, and by picking up a
bit of work on the way we've managed nicely."
Then he looked at me queerly.
"Mr. Rissler," he said in a low voice, "will you take a word from a man
as you've been a friend to, and as'd like to prove himself a friend
of yours? I can't answer no question, and I didn't ought to say what
I'm going to say. I know as you're the poor man's friend, though you
are one of the gentry. But there's them as don't know it; and, sir,
believe me, there's trouble ahead for the likes o' you--bitter trouble,
bloody trouble. You take my word for it. And this is what I want to
say to you, sir. When the trouble comes, if you should find yourself
among enemies, if you should find yourself in danger o' your life,
as'll happen to many like you afore long, just you throw up your left
arm with your fist closed, and say, 'God and Napoleon and the Dumpling
strike with a granite arm!'"
He looked furtively around him as if afraid of being overheard by
eavesdroppers, and then repeated the sentence, "'God and Napoleon and
the Dumpling strike with a granite arm!' That's the word, sir. Do you
think you can remember it?"
Inwardly amused at the seriousness with which the foolish fellow was
taking the Dumpling's rhodomontade, but hiding my amusement under a
face portentously grave, lest I should give my well-meaning friend
offence, I replied:
"Yes, I can remember it, and I'll be sure to bear your words in mind,
if necessity comes. Thank you very much, Nash."
But to myself I said:
"A grown woman! Wheeled forty miles in a perambulator to undergo an
operation! And for no other reason than that the doctor at Reading is
kind and doesn't speak sharp to the poor! My God!"
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE GREAT INSURRECTION BEGINS.
Looking back now upon the time of which I am writing, I cannot
altogether acquit myself of criminal negligence for failing to
realise--until it was too late to take action--how insidiously and how
thoroughly the Dumpling was doing his work. Nash's warning--though I
was by no means disposed to take it seriously--had not been altogether
a surprise to me, for I knew already that inflammatory speeches were
being delivered, inflammatory literature circulated broadcast. To
these I attached small importance, having too much faith in the common
sense and in the conservatism of my fellow-countrymen to believe that
the Dumpling could induce them to take concerted action upon any
considerable scale. I have since learned that secret meetings were
held nearly every night; but instead of one mass meeting, which must
inevitably have attracted the attention of the police, the Dumpling, a
prince of organisers, had arranged for innumerable small gatherings
in every part of London. At each of these meetings some member of
the General Council, and therefore in close touch with the Dumpling
himself, would preside, and in this way their leader's plans were made
known, a plan of campaign laid down, and concerted action arranged
in the most secret yet thorough way. Immense sums of money, so I
afterwards learned, were expended in the purchase and in the secret
storage of arms; and foreign mercenaries and expert marksmen, whose
services the Dumpling had requisitioned, were constantly pouring into
London to place themselves at his orders.
Had I still been engaged in detective work, something of all this must,
I think, have come to my notice; but I am so constituted as to be able
to do one thing only at a time. Whatever pursuit I take up, into that
pursuit I throw myself heart and soul, to the exclusion of everything
else. This temperamental defect--if a defect it be--may be the secret
of some of my many failures; it may be the secret of my few successes.
Concentration of interests generally means limitation of interests,
and whether one be racking the heavens nightly through a telescope
in search of new worlds, or only peering through a microscope, to
isolate bacilli of this or that disease--one is equally apt to become
absent-minded in other matters. So entirely had I given myself up to
studying the problem of the poor, that I had eyes for nothing else.
It is not, however, my intention further to describe, in these
pages, the harrowing scenes I witnessed while so occupied. Were I a
commissioner, appointed to report to a Committee of Inquiry upon the
condition of the poor, I should, it is true, have painful, revolting,
and even incredible facts to recount. I could give chapter and verse in
proof of inconceivable infamy. I could give instances of men, women,
and even children living under circumstances more degrading than could
be found in any so-called savage race. I should, in common honesty, be
compelled to admit that by many of these who are most in evidence, as
in search of work--work is the very last thing in the world that they
really desire to find. Hymn-bawling in the streets is the nearest most
of them have ever come to earning their bread by the sweat of their
brow; a few hours processioning and posing as unemployed, the hardest
day's work many of them ever did.
And yet, admitting all this, and speaking as one who has seen something
of the poor, and of their homes, I say, and in all sincerity, of the
very poor as a whole, that I find it hard to express my admiration, my
respect, and my reverence for the unselfishness, the courage, and the
nobility which I have known them to display.
There came a time at last when the strenuousness of the work I was
doing began to tell terribly upon me. It has been said that profound
sympathies are always in association with keen sensibilities, and
that keen sensibilities expose their possessor to a depth of anguish
utterly unintelligible to those who are differently constituted. In
my own case the hopelessness of the struggle in which I was engaged
weighed constantly upon me. Men and women--and, worst of all, little
children--were starving literally by the thousand, and all my efforts
could do no more than bring relief each day to perhaps a dozen. My
money was gone; the health by which I could earn more money was fast
giving way, and what I had accomplished, and could hope to accomplish,
seemed, when compared with what remained to be done, like the taking of
a drop of water from the sea.
One evening, after visiting a case of destitution and misery so
harrowing that it was only by a tremendous effort I was able to control
myself, and to speak cheerfully and hopefully to the sufferers, I came
out into the dark street, and, once alone, to my unspeakable disgust
and dismay, burst into tears.
When a man of strong physique, normal by nature, and in no sense
hysterical, gets into a condition so over-wrought as this, he is on the
verge of a nervous breakdown, as was proved in my own person.
The next morning I was so seriously ill that I was compelled to keep my
bed for some days, after which I was ordered to Brighton.
* * * * *
I returned to my chambers in Adelphi Terrace on Sunday morning, to
find London dull to the very point of stagnation. So few people I do
not ever remember, even on a Sunday, to have seen in the streets.
The Strand was for once justified of its name, for it was like some
sea strand or beach from which the tide has withdrawn, leaving a
long stretch of untenanted sands. Yet that same night the returning
up-gathered tidal wave swept and broke over London like a devastating
sea.
A meeting of the unemployed was, I saw by the papers, to be held that
afternoon in Victoria Park. Instead of the few thousands whom the
public had expected to assemble, the meeting--no doubt by pre-concerted
action--mustered nearly half a million. The organisation of this
unwieldy mob was wonderful.
At five minutes to three the people were sullenly, suspiciously silent.
At three a bugle-call was heard, and suddenly in their midst the red
flag was raised, and at that sight the hounds of insurrection gave
tongue, baying for blood, in one prolonged and awful roar, that might
have been heard a mile away.
Then the Dumpling, who was standing on the pedestal of a drinking
fountain, raised his hand, and again the bugle-call rang out. Another
roar burst forth as, in every part of the open space of the park, poles
were set up, on the top of which were immense black boards, each with
a letter of the alphabet printed prominently upon it in white. With
one accord the multitude broke up to sort itself into huge companies,
according to the letter of the alphabet under which each had been
previously instructed to place himself. Another bugle-call, and from
hundreds of houses, surrounding the park, companies of men were seen to
come forth, carrying weapons for distribution. For months this secret
storage of weapons in private houses had been going on all over London,
with the result that when the outbreak came, every man knew where to
obtain a weapon. In the neighbourhood of the park itself it was, of
course, not possible to store a sufficient number of rifles to arm more
than some few thousands of men; but those so armed had been more or
less drilled and trained to shoot. They were placed in the van of the
Labour army with the foreign mercenaries--expert riflemen--immediately
in the forefront, ready to resist the first attacking force, whether of
the military or of the police.
Then, at a signal from the Dumpling, the bugle was once again sounded,
and the westward march commenced by a route so planned that weapons
for those still unarmed could be picked up at the various storage
centres on the way.
The rebel army, more than half a million strong, and led by its new
Napoleon, was marching on London. The Revolution of which the Dumpling
had so often boasted had begun.
CHAPTER XXXII.
BLOODSHED.
When, at the head of his Labour legions, the Dumpling set forth
on that eventful Sunday afternoon to march westwards, he and his
lieutenants--and, by means of his lieutenants, his men--knew exactly
what work lay in front of them. That work done, the order had gone
forth that the multitude was to break up, and each man was to return
quietly to his home, so that next day, at the hour appointed, the
legions might re-assemble, rested and ready for the fray. It was known
that the Dumpling had told off a certain number of picked and tried
men to patrol the streets after the hour of dismissal, and through
the night, and that these patrols would deal summarily with all who
disobeyed orders.
The man with a genius for organisation is rare. The man who has not
only a genius for organisation, but has also a genius for compelling
other people implicitly to accept his orders, and to abide by his
organisation --the man who can, at will, mould mankind in the lump,
as the potter moulds clay--comes only once in a hundred years. Such
a man was the Dumpling. Instead of letting his vast army straggle
invertebrately westwards under his single command, his system of
subdividing it into companies, each under a separate picked leader,
taking orders from himself, worked out with surprisingly successful
results. There was no aimless moving from place to place. Though East
London was practically in the hands of the rioters, orders had been
given that no man was to leave the ranks, and that London Fields
was to be the first halting-place, each company to march thither by
a pre-arranged route. At every open space where two or more roads
met--as, for instance, Hackney Triangle--and where assailing forces of
police or military might be expected, expert riflemen, sent on slightly
in advance of the main body, were stationed. At Hackney Triangle it
was, indeed, that the first brush with the police occurred. Some two
or three hundred of the force, hastily gathered together, attempted
to stem the onward march of the rioters. The Dumpling at once came
forward, speaking to them considerately, even humanely.
"With you personally," he said, "we have no quarrel; you we have no
wish to harm. These people are your brethren, and you are theirs. The
only difference between you and them is that you wear the uniform of a
Social System to which we are here to put an end. By that ending you
will benefit as much as we. You, no less than we, are the servants of
an iniquitous system, by which all the hardship, the toil, and the
privations of life are apportioned to one class, and all the ease,
luxury, wealth, and comfort to another. You are poorly paid; you are
iron ruled. You must tramp the streets by day and by night, exposed
to burning heat and biting cold, risking your life daily--and for
no other reason than that the rich, the vicious, the luxurious, the
sweaters of the poor, the oppressors of the people, may increase their
ill-gotten gains and live their idle, easy lives of pleasure-seeking
and debauchery. In risking your lives to protect your fellow-citizens
against crime, you are doing noble and heroic work, for which you are
inadequately paid. But _we_ are not criminals. We have done wrong to
none. We are men and women like you, compelled at last, at the cost
of our lives if it must be, to assert the common right of all God's
creatures to live. We and our wives and children have starved and
suffered over-long. But our rights we will have, so help us God, and I
appeal to you, our brother men, who have many of you wives and children
of your own, not to shed our blood, or to compel us to shed yours, in
defending ourselves. You have done your work well and faithfully, as
witness your heroic attempt--mere handful as you are--to oppose this
army of God which, as surely as you and I still breathe the breath of
life, is marching on to victory. Brother Englishmen, brother citizens,
brother sufferers, let us not shed each other's blood. Join us; throw
in your lot with us; cast off the yoke of the tyrant, and you shall
share in the rewards which shall soon be ours."
He stopped, panting with passion; and then--the words snapping like
three pistol-shots following the one after the other--came the order of
the officer in command of the police: "Arrest--that--man!"
"For God's sake, for humanity's sake, don't compel us to violence,"
interposed the Dumpling with lifted hand. "If you wish to come to
hand-grips with us, if you wish to test the temper of the people, you
shall have plenty of opportunity, I promise, later on. You have done,
at this point, all that is required. You have done your duty bravely
and well. Few as you are, compared to us, you can do nothing more. For
the present, at least, retire until the odds are less unequal. It would
be suicide, at this juncture, to oppose us by force, for in that case I
warn you I shall give my sharp-shooters the order to fire, and you will
fall almost to a man."
Again he stopped, and again came the police officer's word of command:
"Officers, do your duty. Arrest that man."
They were the last words he was to speak on earth, for as they passed
his lips the Dumpling raised a hand.
"God's will be done!" he said. "I can say no more. Riflemen, make
ready! Present! Fire!"
The result was what he had foretold. The gallant little band of police
fell, dead or dying, almost to a man.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE BATTLE OF TOWER HILL.
From that moment onward the rebels carried all before them. The first
encounter with soldiery was at London Fields, where a regiment of
militia, hastily summoned from a neighbouring barracks, was drawn
up. The militia showed more discretion than the police, for after
discharging one volley, and being raked by a withering fire from the
rebel sharp-shooters in return, they retreated in disorder.
This time the Dumpling was less merciful.
"They have deliberately raised hand against the people, to do murder!"
he said. "And by the God whose instrument I am, for every life they
have taken, a score of them shall fall!"
Instructions were given to the rebel riflemen to continue firing so
long as one of the soldiers remained within range. The result was
disastrous to the retreating troops. In an open space with no available
cover, they could be picked off one after the other by the Dumpling's
practised marksmen, with the result that scarcely a round dozen escaped
to tell the tale.
Flushed with victory, the rebels re-formed, and the march was resumed,
this time to Tower Hill, where the Dumpling scored his first great
success of generalship.
Anticipating that at Tower Hill serious military resistance would
be offered, he had laid his plans accordingly. An enormous empty
warehouse, commanding the open space in front of the Tower, had been
rented by one of his agents, under the pretence that it was to be
the central office and storage house of a firm of tea merchants. At
this warehouse, chests and packages, purporting to contain tea, but
containing in reality rifles and ammunition, had for some days past
been delivered, and a number of men--nominally clerks, packers, and
warehousemen, but in reality expert riflemen, disloyal Boers and
foreign mercenaries--constituted the staff, and were, on the Sunday
afternoon in question, concealed upon the premises.
The secreting of these expert riflemen in a position where they could
command Tower Hill and riddle with bullets any troops assembled below,
was, however, only one item in the Dumpling's carefully planned
campaign. Knowing that it would be from the east or north-east the
rioters would approach, the officer in command of the troops had placed
his batteries so that the guns could rake both the Minories and Royal
Mint Street--the thoroughfares by which the rebel forces must almost of
necessity come. Upon Royal Mint Street and the Minories the attention
of the soldiers was consequently riveted, and when the military scouts,
who had been sent out to ascertain the movements of the enemy, came
galloping back to say that one half of the Dumpling's forces was
approaching from the north by way of the Minories and the other half
from the east by Royal Mint Street--the command was:
"Now, boys, they're coming down the two streets upon which we've got
our guns trained. Keep cool! Be ready! But don't fire and don't move,
any of you, until I give the word." And to Royal Mint Street and the
Minories every eye was turned.
All this the Dumpling had foreseen, and had laid his plans accordingly.
Why he should have been so anxious to time his arrival at Tower Hill
almost at the moment of five, those who were not acquainted with his
plan of campaign could not understand. They did not know that, at that
hour, a huge contingent of armed rebels, recruited from Bermondsey and
South London and under the leadership of the Dumpling's most trusted
lieutenant, was punctually to cross Tower Bridge, to the dismay and
consternation of the troops, who had looked for no onslaught from that
quarter. Nor did those who were not in the Dumpling's confidence know
that, at the same time, yet another contingent of armed rebels, under
able leadership, would converge upon Tower Hill from Thames Street and
Great Tower Street, so that the soldiers were simultaneously attacked
from the north, south, east, and west, and that at a moment when they
were looking for danger only from two quarters.
Everything worked out exactly as the Dumpling had planned it. At
five minutes to five the vanguards of the advancing armies were seen
approaching from Royal Mint Street and the Minories. Almost at the very
moment that the soldiers were preparing to fire, the windows of the tea
warehouse were opened, and a deadly volley poured upon the unfortunate
gunners by the riflemen who had been concealed within its walls.
Utterly taken aback and dismayed, the soldiers turned to see whence
the attack came--only to find hostile armies, in each case with picked
marksmen in the van, approaching on every hand.
Then the Dumpling gave the word to charge. In ten minutes scarcely a
soldier was left alive, their guns and their ammunition were taken,
and the Tower of London, and its armouries, were in the hands of the
Dumpling.
Contrary to the expectations of his lieutenants, he announced that
he had no intention of remaining there, or even of leaving men in
occupation.
"Clear out the place--take all we want," he said to the half-dozen who
were entirely in his confidence, "and then evacuate it. That's the
ticket! To remain here would be telling the King's troops where to find
us. That they must never know. Ours is to be a guerilla warfare. We
meet on no two days in the same place. Each night, our day's work done,
we disband--to re-assemble next day and to descend upon our enemies
from North, South, East, or West, or possibly from all four corners of
the compass together, as the chances of war may make necessary. As a
strategic position, the Tower of London is of no earthly use to us. But
we haven't done all our work here yet.
"First, call up the string of forage vans which I have ordered to keep
well in our rear, and give instructions to the men to have a good meal.
The last three vans have red crosses upon them, as if to indicate that
they contain hospital requirements. So they do--two of them, that is.
The third contains the bombs and explosives which we carried away
that night from the opium den. Before leaving this place we have to
construct a secret mine--you must do the work yourselves--by which we
can at any time blow up the Tower and everyone in it, in case the enemy
should garrison it and use it as vantage ground against us. Get to work
at once and report to me when all is ready, for we have other business
on hand to-night, that London and England and all the world may know we
mean to carry out what we have begun."
Two hours later, the bugle-calls to re-assemble were sounded, and the
rebel army re-formed to march westward by way of the Minories and
Leadenhall Street to Cornhill, and so to the Bank of England, the Stock
Exchange, the Royal Exchange, and the Mansion House, all of which were
sacked and looted by the revolutionaries.
This--so the Dumpling had decided--was to end the work for that day.
The bugles of dismissal were sounded; and little by little the great
armies of Labour melted away.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
LONDON IN REVOLUTION.
Because the Rising had seemingly broken out in one day, because on the
Saturday night London had gone to bed in peace and quietness, on the
Sunday night London was aflame, and, on the Monday morning, London
was apparently at peace again--because of all this, some hope was
entertained in certain high official quarters that the trouble would
subside as suddenly as it had arisen.
So, at least--possibly for the prevention of panic--it was pretended,
and when, at mid-day, there was no sign of a reassembling of the forces
under the Dumpling's command the belief was expressed in certain early
afternoon papers that the threatened safety of the Empire was assured.
But the police were wiser. They knew that though the firing of the fuse
had been but a night's, or even a moment's, work, the laying of the
mine had been going on for years; and though the suddenness of the
rising, coming as it did on a Sunday, had taken them unawares, it had
not found them altogether unprepared, as after-events proved.
But on Monday, at mid-day, a sudden reaction set in. The wildest
rumours were afloat of some awful danger that assailed not only London,
but the very Empire.
The fact of the Dumpling's extraordinary resemblance to Napoleon,
and of his claim to be the great Napoleon himself, had got abroad,
and religious fanatics proclaimed him to be the Beast of the Book of
Revelation, the anti-Christ who was to come. Them and their diatribes
no sane man heeded; but that something was afoot which directly
menaced our very existence as a nation, was believed by all. It was
openly stated that the Dumpling and the German Emperor were acting in
concert, and that it was from Germany that the arms and the funds which
furnished the rioters with the sinews of war had come.
The Kaiser was depicted as not only jealous of the popularity of King
Edward, but as hating the form of Limited Monarchy which exists in
England, and as anxious to establish, first in Europe, and finally all
over the world, the autocratic rule which prevails in his own country
and in Russia. The Dumpling--so it was openly stated--had succeeded
in convincing the Kaiser of the genuineness of his claim to be the
re-incarnation of Napoleon. An agreement had been come to between the
two men by which it was arranged that, if the Kaiser would assist
the Dumpling to obtain supreme power in England, this country should
be put under the rule of an Absolute Monarchy even more despotic and
more autocratic than that of Russia and Germany. That once achieved,
the German Emperor and the Dumpling would combine against France, and
re-establish the Monarchy there.
Already, so it was stated, the German war squadron was on its way
to England, and German vessels of every sort were conveying an army
of half a million of men to this country, nominally to assist King
Edward's troops in crushing the rebellion. Once, however, they had
succeeded in effecting a landing, the real purpose for which they
had come here would be revealed, and they would co-operate with the
Dumpling's forces, and officially recognise his claim to be Emperor
of England and of France. The fact that a German squadron had sailed
with sealed orders the day before the outbreak, lent some colour
to this preposterous theory, and the fact, also, that undoubtedly
something in the nature of a panic prevailed at Court, went far to
support it. What was wrong there nobody knew. The Prince of Wales and
the Prime Minister, it was known, had been hastily summoned, and had
driven to Buckingham Palace in hot haste, surrounded on every side by
escorts large enough to be spoken of as small armies. An hour after
their arrival, the King, so it was stated, had, in response to a loyal
demonstration outside the Palace, appeared for a moment at a window,
hurriedly bowed, and as hurriedly retired.
Clearly something was wrong at Court, and what that something was, and
how intimately concerned in it I was to be, I could not in my wildest
dreams have conceived.
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE GREAT FIGHT IN FLEET STREET.
Until three o'clock on Monday afternoon there was no new disturbance,
no reassembling of the rioters; but soon after that hour it was clear
that something was astir. This time there was no marching in companies,
but the vast crowds that were quietly but systematically pouring
cityward from every quarter were clearly acting under instructions, and
according to some method of organisation. So far as I could see, it was
towards the open space in front of the Royal Exchange that the crowd
was converging, and thither I allowed myself to be carried with the
stream.
On this occasion it was quite clear that the mob was neither sanguine
nor confident, and for this there were reasons. The first was the
absence of the Dumpling. That he was to have met his lieutenants at
a certain hour, and at a certain place, that morning, but for some
unaccountable cause had failed to keep the appointment, was already
common knowledge. When he was present, that heterogeneous gathering
seemed organic. It acted not as a mob, but as one man; and one man,
in a sense, it was, since each contingent--come as it might from
Bermondsey, from Poplar, or from Canning Town--seemed like one of
the limbs of a human body, of which this man, the Dumpling, was the
controlling brain.
By his absence, however, this body politic seemed dismembered. The
magnetism exercised by his single personality was extraordinary. So
long as he was known to be at their head, the rioters followed their
appointed leaders, his lieutenants, with fearless confidence, moving
and acting in concert, not like an undisciplined mob, but like drilled
troops, trained and controlled by a master of men. Now, in a single
day, the whole movement seemed, in his absence, to have gone to pieces.
Another reason for the nervousness of the rioters was the mysterious
action, or inaction, of the military and the police. No attempt
either to prevent the people from assembling, or to disperse
them when assembled, had been made; and no blue or red-coated
myrmidons of the civil or of the military forces had attempted to
bar the thoroughfares, or to offer opposition of any sort to the
revolutionaries. With the Dumpling present, as their leader and head,
the absence of the police and of the military would have been counted
by the mob as a signal proof of the completeness of their victory. With
him away, it seemed ominous of ambush, pregnant with evil; and when
the Dumpling's second in command announced that he intended, in their
leader's absence, to carry out the plan of campaign as arranged by
their leader himself, and gave the order for the riflemen to form up,
and for the rank and file to fall in behind, the order, though obeyed,
was obeyed spiritlessly and unwillingly.
Then came the news that troops, mounted and on foot, were approaching
by way of Queen Victoria Street and Cheapside; and as the trees of a
great forest sway and waver before the coming of a storm, so over the
rebel army there passed a sudden tremor, as if the members of that army
were undecided whether to fight or to fly.
Sharp and clear, however, came the words of command, and sullenly the
legions of Labour prepared for the fray. Once again victory rested
with the revolutionaries. Nor was I surprised, for to me, at that stage
of the struggle, it seemed as if the police and the soldiers had bided
their time too long. An armed mob gathered together in the space known
as the Poultry, and holding all the approaches, would be difficult
to dislodge, presenting as it did a solid phalanx to any opposing
force which, owing to the comparative narrowness of the converging
thoroughfares, would of necessity be compelled to present a somewhat
narrow front to the rebel army. Queen Victoria Street, it is true,
being broad, would allow the soldiery to come on in companies, forming
an attacking line of formidable length. This, however, the Dumpling's
second in command had realised, for, immediately facing Queen Victoria
Street, he placed the pick of the rebel riflemen. No sooner did the
troop of cavalry, which was advancing upon the rioters, come within
range, than the barrels of the riflemen, and the saddles of the front
row of soldiery, were almost simultaneously emptied. After each volley
Queen Victoria Street was for a moment blocked by a line of dead
and dying soldiers and horses, but no sooner was the opposing line
re-formed, and ready to come on, before another volley from the rebel
riflemen emptied every saddle again.
In Queen Victoria Street, at least, the victory of the rebels was
complete, and what happened to the troops in Queen Victoria Street,
happened upon a smaller scale to the police and to the military who
attempted to disperse the mob by making charges by way of Cheapside,
Lombard Street, and the other narrower approaches. Recognising the
hopelessness of the position, and anxious to husband their strength for
the final struggle, the officers in command of the police and of the
military gave the word for withdrawal. In this withdrawal the mob saw
a tacit admission of defeat, and became more reckless, more eager for
destruction, more difficult of organisation. Freed from the restraining
and controlling influence of the Dumpling, it swept along Cheapside to
St. Paul's and down Ludgate Hill, no longer an organised rising with
a definite end in view, but a rabble of reckless ruffians, ready and
greedy to rob, to rape, to wreck, and to destroy.
At Ludgate Circus it divided, part going westward by way of Fleet
Street and the Strand, another part by way of St. Bride Street, and
yet another by the Embankment.
Then it was that the police and the soldiery showed how prepared
they were for the outbreak, how admirable was their organisation.
Suddenly down St. Bride Street, and moving by some inside and unseen
motor-power, there appeared a procession of engines of war, the like
of which none of the rioters had ever seen. These engines had been
constructed secretly and in sections so as to be ready to put together
and run out at a moment's notice, and had been concealed at the various
fire stations till such time as they should be required.
Imagine, if you can, that a square-built fort had suddenly detached
itself at the corners, so as to break up into four armed sections, each
of which presented on either side an iron-plated front, almost as steep
and almost as high as the side of a house, with gun-mouths grinning
out at regular intervals. Armoured trains the rioters had heard of,
but armoured sides of an iron-built house, moving, each complete in
itself, upon unseen wheels in a long procession down St. Bride Street,
was something entirely new. For an instant the mob surged back, awed
and wondering. Then, like an angry sea leaping against a breakwater, it
flung itself forward upon the first of these new and advancing engines
of war.
But for the tragic loss of life, the impotency of the rush would have
been ludicrous. It was as if a child, by the throwing of a handful of
sand, had tried to stop a motor-car going at the top of its speed. The
huge instrument of war not only did not swerve an inch from its course,
but, so great was its weight, that it passed, without so much as a
bump, over the bodies of those who fell beneath it, scrunching bone and
limb into shapeless and quivering pulp.
Then from either side belched sheets of flame, and, for the first time
since the rising, the mob fell back and away, leaving the monsters of
war-mechanism to accomplish their manœuvres unhindered.
On the four moving walls filed, like a troop of ambling elephants. The
foremost wheeled heavily round the obelisk in the centre of Ludgate
Circus till it blocked London southwards by barricading off New Bridge
Street and Blackfriars Bridge. The second steered round the obelisk
westward, till it faced and closed Fleet Street. The third stretched
itself eastward across the foot of Ludgate Hill; and the fourth,
by spanning the road where St. Bride Street and Farringdon Street
bifurcate, thus closed those roads to all comers.
The four walls now formed a huge square, and as soldiers "dress" the
line and close up in a drill yard, so at a given signal--a shrill
whistle twice repeated--the four sides edged closer and closer
together, till, if I may use such a term, they touched elbows. Then
came a second signal--the same whistle three times repeated--and now
there were the clink and rattle of bolts and chains. The four walls
were locked impregnably together, thus forming a fort, facing London on
every side. No sooner was the locking accomplished than, upon the walls
of the fort, hundreds of policemen swarmed to complete the closing up
of the streets. At a word of command from above, iron barriers shot out
to the required lengths from the four corners of the fort below, and
when it was impossible to adjust these barriers with sufficient nicety,
absolutely to close every opening, huge sacks of sand were hurled from
the walls, so that in less than five minutes the army of rioters was
divided up into four separate wings, each for the moment effectually
cut off from holding any communication with any of the others.
The great body of the rebel army and the riflemen were, however, now
west of Ludgate Circus, and passing up Fleet Street and the Strand; so
that the closing of the ways seemed for a few minutes to have come too
late.
But the authorities who had anticipated this outbreak, and prepared
for it by constructing these street-barricading forts, knew what they
were about. From mouth to mouth of the rebels, passing up Fleet Street,
Strandwards, the word was repeated that similar forts now blocked
advance at Charing Cross.
Panic-stricken, the mob surged down the side streets to the Embankment,
only to find that similar barriers had been erected at either end.
Then the forts at every point opened fire, and with terrible results.
The scenes that followed I do not wish further to describe, except to
say that, for the present at least, the rout of the leaderless rebels
was complete, and only a shattered section escaped to press on to
Buckingham Palace, the point to which all contingents of that great
army had been instructed to converge.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
PRINCE DUMPLING.
At Charing Cross, soon after the defeat and dispersion of the rebels,
I had caught sight of a face which set my heart beating wildly--the
proud, pale face of Kate, who was sitting at the window of a hotel.
Sending up my name, I was at once admitted, Kate clinging to me, and
crying over me, as if I were a soldier returned from the wars.
"I won't leave you again, darling," I said, "no matter what you or your
aunt may command or urge. How is that kindest of friends of mine?"
"I haven't seen her since soon after you--you--you--left us," was the
reply. "She went away by herself on some important business, and was
to have returned to-day to Taunton Square, where I have been staying
for the last week by myself. But something happened there that--that
frightened and upset me, Max dear, so I came on here, and left word to
Aunt Clara where to find me. Ah! here she is."
Miss Clara kissed first Kate and then me, after which, turning to her
niece, she said:
"What was it that frightened you and drove you away from Taunton
Square? The rioters?"
"No, aunt. I--I--hardly know how to tell you and Max. It was so
terrible. It was--it was--the Dumpling."
"The Dumpling!" exclaimed Miss Clara and I together.
"Yes, the Dumpling," replied Kate, putting her hands before her eyes,
as if to shut out some hateful vision. "I wasn't so much afraid of him
as of what I saw in his eyes--that awful picture----"
"I have something to tell you about him myself," said Miss Clara,
quietly. "Something that it is time both you and Max knew. But, first,
let us hear your story."
"I was sitting alone one evening in the dark in the conservatory,"
said Kate, "and feeling suddenly cold and frightened--I did not know
at what--I put out a hand and switched on the electric light. There,
glaring in at me from the window outside, I saw a man's face. It was
the man Max called the Dumpling. I recognised him at once by the
description. The face was gone almost as I looked, but before it
went I saw a picture in its eyes--a picture that seemed to be--that
something tells me _was_ true, but is so awful that I can hardly bear
to think, still less to speak, of it. But speak of it I must, for I can
bear the suspense no longer.
"I saw myself as a girl, standing in a church before an altar, being
married to this terrible man! Aunt, darling! Tell me it was all a
dream, and that it isn't true. It seemed hideously, cruelly true as I
saw it; and I know, now, that I have seen him before--that the man is
no stranger to me, and that I knew him long ago."
"Yes, darling," said the elder Miss Carleton, taking the sobbing girl
in her arms, "it is quite true. Listen, and you shall hear the facts.
I can tell them in a very few words. You were a mere girl of seventeen
at a boarding school in America when you first met this man. He was one
of the masters, and was known as 'The Prince,' because he claimed to be
a son of Napoleon the Third, and, in fact, I believe there was truth
in his claim. But he fell desperately in love with you, and you, an
innocent girl, with no thought of husband or love-making, laughed at
him. All this you will remember yourself. What you will not remember is
that the man, who has strange occult powers, hypnotised or mesmerised
you one day, and when you were in that state, and did not know what you
were doing, compelled you to go through the form of marriage with him.
I was staying in the neighbourhood of the school at the time, so as to
be near you, your dear mother being recently dead; and hearing that you
had been seen going out with 'The Prince'--no one knew why--I found out
in what direction you and he had gone, and followed, for I disliked and
distrusted him from the first. But I was too late. The ceremony was
over. You were--and, I fear, are--the man's wife. Even if we had gone
to law, to attempt to upset the marriage, we might not have won, for
hypnotic influence is hard to prove in the unsympathetic atmosphere of
the law courts, and, even if we had won, the scandal and shock might
have killed you, for you were already worn to a shadow by fretting for
your mother. I shrank from the thought of such a scandal, as I knew you
would have shrunk; and, rightly or wrongly, I did what seemed best to
me under the circumstances. I am not long in making up my mind, and, my
mind once made up, I do not hesitate to act.
"You were sitting, white and trembling, in a pew near the door. 'The
Prince' had followed the minister into an inner room or vestry, perhaps
to pay the fee. The key of the vestry door was on the outside. Without
a moment's hesitation I turned the key, locking the two of them in,
so as to give us a few minutes in which to get away. Then I got you
out, half supporting you, half carrying you, to where my own carriage
was waiting, lifted you in, jumped in myself, and told the coachman
to drive with all possible speed to the railway station. Here we were
just in time to catch an express to New York, and when you recovered
from the mesmeric state into which you had been thrown, and I found
that you knew nothing of what had happened, I determined to keep my own
counsel, and have told no one--not even your own father--the facts.
From New York we went next day to Europe, travelling from country to
country, so that the villain who had ruined your life might never
find you. I had hoped that he was long since dead, and it was only
when Max was telling us of the Dumpling's claim to be Napoleon that
the horrible possibility--a possibility which afterwards became a
certainty--occurred to me.
"Even in those far-away days he had dreams of a revolution which he
was one day to accomplish in England; even then he was passionately in
sympathy with the poor, and talked about them exactly as he talked to
Max. I recognised, from Max's description, the man whom he called 'The
Dumpling,' as the man you and I had long ago known as 'The Prince,'
and realised that he had tracked us at last. That was why Max saw him
shadowing the house, and that is why you saw his face watching you
through the window-pane. That was why I sent Max away, for while that
man lives you can never be Max's wife."
"She _shall_ be my wife," I interrupted, "if only she will consent to
do me such high honour; for be this man 'Prince,' or be he 'Dumpling,'
he has no power to come between Kate and me. You have told your
story--now listen to mine."
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE MAN IN THE CELLAR.
"Yesterday night--so much has happened since then that it is difficult
to believe it was so short a time ago--yesterday night, after the
rioters had disbanded and gone home, I returned to my rooms in Adelphi
Terrace, and after I had had some supper, I stepped out on the balcony,
to smoke and to listen if all was quiet.
"As I re-entered my room, someone, concealed behind one of the heavy
curtains, seized me suddenly from behind, and as I turned angrily to
free myself and to see who was my assailant, another man stepped out
from behind the curtain on the other side of the window, and before I
could prevent him, clapped a handkerchief saturated with chloroform
over my nose and mouth.
"When I came to myself, I found myself sitting in a strange room in the
presence of the Dumpling.
"'Mr. Rissler,' he said, 'I am very sorry to have been compelled to
chloroform and to abduct you. Believe me, no harm is intended you.
That I should have an immediate interview at this point was imperative,
and to bring you here, in the way in which you have been brought, was
the safest, and quickest, and most convenient method. You might have
refused to come, or you might have frittered away invaluable time in
profitless discussions. And I, at least at the present juncture, have
no time to waste. You know that the revolution, of which I have already
spoken to you, has begun in earnest, and you know, no doubt, that
success has crowned our efforts to-day, and that London is practically
at our mercy.
"'My reason for sending for you is that I have something to show
you which will convince even you--difficult as you have been to
persuade--of the folly of refusing to make terms with us; something
that will induce you at last to throw in your lot with us, to become
one of us, and my acknowledged successor when I fall; something that
even you cannot deny is incontrovertible proof of our absolute and
complete success.
"'No, don't say anything at this point, please,' he interrupted,
holding up a repressing hand, for I was about to protest that nothing
he could say, or could show me, would have the slightest influence in
inducing me even to consider his proposition.
"'I know what you are going to say,' he went on. 'You are about to
repudiate me and all my work. But wait! Say nothing yet which you might
afterwards regret and wish to withdraw. God has marked you out for
this work as surely as He has marked me, and that God is behind us, is
working with us and for us, even you will admit when you see the proof
which I shall soon put before you. I have never despaired of winning
you, Rissler. Like Saul of Tarsus, you have fought against God and
against His prophets, but even as Saul was convinced and converted to
God's will by the sign which came to him on the road to Damascus, even
so will you be convinced and converted by the sign which I am about to
make known to you. As Saul hardened his heart before the coming of the
heavenly vision, even so have you hardened your heart against God's
will. But God can change your heart and open your eyes at a word, even
as He opened the eyes and changed the heart of Saul; and ere I die I
shall see you an acknowledged leader and hope of the armies of Labour
and of the Lord.'
"He walked over to a cupboard in a corner, and, to my astonishment,
took out a huge military cloak with an immense collar, and a
three-cornered hat like that worn by Napoleon.
"Drawing the cloak over his shoulders, and donning the hat, he stood
for some minutes, his huge head sunk between his shoulders till his
chin lay on his chest, his short legs straddled apart, and his hands
clasped behind him, deep in thought. Amused as I was by his ranting
and by the theatrical way in which he posed and dressed the part, his
likeness to the great Napoleon was so uncanny, so extraordinary, that,
in spite of myself, I was awed and impressed. Then, with the single
word 'Come,' he turned and went out, I following him.
"Coming to the front door of the house, he opened it cautiously and
looked out. We were in a narrow and shabby side street of what I judged
to be the East End of London. At the moment of our emergence not a
single soul was in sight. The Dumpling crossed the road and gave four
slow and deliberate knocks at a door.
"'Who is there?' said a voice inside.
"'God and Napoleon and the Dumpling strike with granite arm!' was the
reply, and the door was immediately opened, the Dumpling and I stepping
inside. We were in the narrow hall or passage of a small dwelling
house. The man who had admitted us closed the door, and then resumed
his chair, which was placed just inside the door. A newspaper which he
had been reading lay beside him on the floor, and two small paraffin
lamps burned--or, rather, smoked--beside him on another chair.
"'All quiet, doorkeeper?' asked the Dumpling.
"'All quiet, sir,' was the answer.
"Then the Dumpling took up one of the lamps.
"'This way, Rissler,' he said, walking along the passage, till he came
to a door leading to the basement or kitchen portion of the house.
Producing a bunch of keys from his pocket, he unlocked the door, and
when he and I had passed through, locked it carefully again.
"Passing down some stairs, we came to a stone-flagged passage, along
which we walked to another door, leading to a sort of underground
cellar. This door the Dumpling also unlocked, and, after we had
entered, re-locked; and as he did so, the dream-picture which I had
once seen in his eyes, the picture of the Dumpling, myself, and a third
and unknown man, standing together in an underground room, came back to
me, and I knew that the place I was now in was the place I had seen in
the tableau.
"Then the Dumpling touched a spring, and a hidden door flew open,
revealing a smaller inner room. A man, nonchalantly smoking a cigar,
was standing in a far corner, and as, obeying the Dumpling's signal, I
passed through the door and saw his face, I gave a short, sharp cry,
and fell back in incredulous horror.
"'My God!' I said. 'It is not possible! The King!'"
[Illustration: "I FELL BACK IN INCREDULOUS HORROR."]
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE MANTLE OF NAPOLEON.
"'On the contrary,' said the Dumpling, with a short laugh of devilish
triumph, 'on the contrary, it is quite possible with a King so trustful
that he goes out for an evening stroll unattended. I admit that it
cost us much laying of plans, and that we had mapped out, and prepared
for the abduction, half a hundred times before the actual chance came
which it was safe to take. But, as you know, my dear Rissler, I don't
do things by halves. London is practically in my hands, and when the
fact of the King's disappearance leaks out, and we carry out the
master-stroke which is planned to come off to-morrow, the campaign will
practically be at an end, and victory, absolute and assured, be ours.
They are doing their best at Court to keep the King's disappearance
secret, and have even gone so far, I am told, as to fix up an imitation
King, to come to the window and bow and show himself, and dupe the
public--as, for some inexplicable reason, they always do try to dupe
the public when the health or the life or the death of royal persons
is concerned. But they can't keep the secret much longer, and now that
London is in our hands, and his Majesty is here in safe keeping and our
prisoner, I trust and believe that he will prove reasonable and accede
to our very moderate terms.'
"It is, perhaps, not difficult for a King to impress onlookers with
his kingliness, when he is throned and robed and surrounded by bowing
courtiers, or when he is seen at the head of his army. But never had
King of England looked kinglier than King Edward the Seventh looked
when, a prisoner and alone, in squalid, sordid surroundings, he turned,
and thundered out:
"'Terms! I make no terms with murderers!'"
"'Murderers!'" hissed the Dumpling, menacingly. 'Remember that you are
in my hands, my prisoner, unarmed and defenceless, and take back that
word, or by God you shall answer for it with your life.'
"'I am in God's hands,' replied the King quietly, 'and He will see to
it that I am soon taken out of the hands of such as you. As for your
threats,' he laughed contemptuously, 'I will take back no word of what
I have said, even to save my life. But I waste breath arguing with one
who is a madman as well as a murderer!'
"'And when your Majesty is once more in possession of the liberty which
he is so convinced God is about to restore to him, what do you propose
to do with me?' inquired the Dumpling mockingly.
"'With you!' said the King stolidly, but with infinite contempt. 'With
you! Nothing. I am this country's King, not the common hangman. You
shall be dealt with by the proper authorities--make yourself easy
about that. You shall be examined, and if you are pronounced insane,
will be clapped between walls, out of the way of working mischief to
yourself or to others. If you are sane, you will be shot or hanged, or
whatever it is they do to traitors and treason-workers. I'm tolerably
well versed in methods of procedure, but fortunately you are the first
traitor who's directly crossed my path.
"'But listen to me, you sir. Whatever punishment it is that is meted
out to such as you--whether hanging by the common hangman or whether
it be to be shot like a dangerous dog--I'll lift no hand to stay it.
Not because of the personal indignity and affront you have dared to
offer to me, but because' (his voice rose, and he looked terrible in
his kingly wrath), 'because' (and now there was a tremor of pity in
his tone), 'because by you the blood of my loyal and true soldiers, my
brave officers, has been spilt, and because you have been the means
of bringing untold misery and suffering upon my people, whom you have
led away by your treason and by your devilries. For that, believe me,
unsparing vengeance shall be exacted.'
"The Dumpling, who was livid with passion, turned away, and taking off
his cloak (his hat he had placed on a chair when coming in) laid it
upon a table.
"As he did so, I saw the handle of a dagger protruding from an inner
pocket, and as he turned to face the King again, I whipped it out, and
thrusting it under my coat, clapped my left arm lightly against my
side, to keep the weapon from slipping down. Then the King turned to
me:
"'As for you, sir, I do not know who you may be, and do not greatly
care. But that you should be privy to this traitor and villain's
devilry, proclaims you villain and traitor too, and I promise that you,
as well as he, shall receive short shrift when you come into the hands
of justice.'
"'Sir,' I said, falling on one knee and bowing lowly, 'believe me that
I am no traitor, and no friend of this man, but your Majesty's loyal
and loving subject, who is prepared to defend, with his own life, your
Majesty's sacred person.'
"Then I rose and turned to the Dumpling, who was laughing derisively.
"'Very pretty indeed!' he said, slapping me jovially on the back. ''Pon
my word, Rissler, I had no idea you were such a born courtier--and
actor! It tripped off your tongue as readily as if you had been
rehearsing it for weeks, and the way you dropped on your knee, and
bowed, couldn't be beaten in the best Court circles--or on the stage.
Don't tell me that you didn't all along suspect the surprise I had in
store for you. You have been rehearsing that bow and knee-drop before a
cheval-glass, I'll wager, and many a time. It does you credit, anyhow;
and whether it was a rehearsed or an unprepared effect, it proves you
to be a man of parts, and one who is an acquisition to any cause.
"'But what you have said puts a different complexion upon my plans for
your future,' he went on. 'I should like a word with you in the other
room before we go any farther. Your Majesty must excuse my friend here
and myself if we retire for a few moments.'
"Taking up the cloak and hat from the chair, he put both on and walked
towards the door.
"'Have I your permission, Sir, to hear what this man has to say?' I
inquired, turning to the King. 'I go or stay, as you may command, and
am ready, if need be, as I have said, to prove my loyalty with my life.'
"There is no keener judge of character in all England than the King,
and the look which, for a moment, he bent upon me was so searching, so
penetrating, so compelling, that I admit I found it hard to face.
"'You keep queer company!' he said with stern bluffness; and something
there was, in the way he looked and spoke, which, even in that most
eventful moment of my life, recalled past scenes of English history
to my memory, and reminded me strangely of more than one of his great
ancestors.
"'My company,' I replied gravely, 'is not of my choosing. What has
happened to me might have happened to your Majesty's most loyal
subject--might conceivably have happened, I venture humbly to suggest,
to one who is subject to none in this kingdom. I am here, not by my
own consent, but by compulsion. An hour ago I was suddenly taken by
surprise, and from behind, by superior numbers, and before I could
resist or summon assistance, was forcibly drugged, abducted, and
carried senseless to this place. Believe me, Sir, that I am as little
deserving of reproach, on the score of the company I keep, as I am
unworthy to stand in the august presence in which I now find myself.'
"So saying, I dropped again upon one knee, and bent my head. When I
looked up, I saw that the knitting of the brows over the eyes, which
had been so sternly bent upon me, was relaxed. By a gesture he bade me
to rise, and then, without speaking, nodded to the door, to indicate
that I had his permission to withdraw. Walking backwards, I passed
out, to find the Dumpling, who had preceded me, on the other side.
"After closing the door, locking it, and pocketing the key, he took my
arm in a friendly way, and led me into another room, lit by a smoky
lamp.
"'My dear Rissler,' he began, 'I don't deny that you have disappointed
me, but, after all, it is only what I might have expected, and my
regard for you is so great that----'
"His hand was feeling, as he spoke, for the dagger which had been in
the inside pocket of his cloak. Missing it, he turned suddenly upon me,
his eyes blazing with maniacal fury and fire; but before he could lift
hand, I struck him squarely, with all my strength, between the eyes,
and, as he reeled back, I snatched at the handle of the dagger, and
stabbed him to the heart at one stroke."
CHAPTER XXXIX.
"GOD SAVE THE KING!"
Kate gave a terrible cry as the words fell from my lips, and snatching
away the hand which I had been holding, staggered, white and faint, to
the sofa.
"Don't turn from me, darling," I said, kneeling beside her. "No one
who fears God and honours his King, who loves his country, could
have acted other than I did. The man meant well, meant nobly, I
believe, originally, and his passion and devotion to the cause of the
poor I shall remember with reverence to the end of my life. But his
well-meaning had passed into mania, so that he had become, as you know,
a relentless and wholesale murderer, whose very existence was a menace
to the nation. I struck because I was compelled, and in self-defence. I
had no option, for his intention at the moment was to murder me. Had I
spared him, he would either have died at the hangman's hands, or, more
horrible still, have dragged out his remaining years in a madhouse.
You are a woman, darling; not a girl any longer--a brave woman, a true
woman, and must see that, terrible as it was and is, I should have been
a traitor to my King and country had I failed to act as I did, for, mad
for blood as the man was, he might--would, I believe, within the next
few minutes--have murdered the King himself."
"It is horrible!" she said, shuddering. "Horrible! But I will be brave,
dear, and I do see, horrible as it is, that you are right. Is he dead?"
"He is dead," I replied.
Again she buried her face in her hands and sank back sobbing. But soon
the sobs became less frequent, and at last she was composed enough to
motion to me with her hand to finish the story.
"And what happened then?" interposed Miss Clara.
"Then," I went on, "I took the keys out of the dead man's pocket, and
arraying myself in the Napoleon cloak, the huge collar of which I drew
up to my ears, and clapping the hat on my head, well down over my
eyes, I made my way to the front door. The man in charge was still at
his post, and looked up for a moment on hearing me turn the key in
the lock, but seeing the hat and cloak of his leader, did not trouble
himself to look again. Making a show of locking the door, I turned, and
with my head sunk on my chest, my legs straddled apart in imitation of
the Dumpling, and my hand--the right--holding the dagger behind me, I
walked slowly towards him. He slipped the paper he had been reading
into his pocket, and rose, as if to open the door for me, but, before
shooting back the bolt, he turned, and raising his hand soldier-wise in
salute, said:
"Shall I send word, sir, that----"
"He stopped short with a sudden gasp of surprise, realising, as his
eyes fell upon me, that something was wrong; but, before he could utter
a word or raise a hand, my dagger was in his heart."
Again Kate reeled, as if about to faint.
"More blood on your hands! Another life taken! The first, perhaps,
_had_ to be, but this man had done no direct harm, this man----"
"Kate," I interrupted her sternly, "this, too, as you put it, '_had_ to
be.' The issues at stake were too tremendous to justify me in running
any risk. And this man was an English-speaking foreign mercenary,
whom I, with my own eyes, saw deliberately murder two policemen and a
soldier in cold blood and without mercy."
"And the King?" she gasped, white to the lips.
"The King," I said, "is safe. I stayed only to put the body out of
sight, and to cover up the traces of the tragedy, before going back to
set him free. The rising is over. It is the King himself who has given
it its death-blow. When the contingent of rioters, who had succeeded
in passing the barriers, reached Buckingham Palace, the King declared
his intention of going out himself to meet them. Notwithstanding the
Queen's tears, the Prince's entreaties, his Ministers' prayers, he
refused to be turned from his purpose.
"'I am not afraid of my people,' he said unconcernedly, 'and I do not
think my people will harm me.'
"Walking to a window on the ground floor, he threw it up, and standing
upon a chair in sight of all, spoke to the crowd.
"'My friends!' he said. 'My people, whom I have loved, and who have
never yet before failed in love to me, you have been misled by a
madman and a murderer, who is now dead. The uproar began with him, and
with his death it will assuredly end. Your leaders, those who have
planned and carried out this treason and this devilry, and those who
have shed blood, must answer to the law for what they have done, and
must answer, it may be, with their lives.
"'But for you, my people, who have been blinded, duped, and misled
by the dead arch-traitor who called himself the Dumpling, to you, my
people, if you now disperse and go to your homes, free pardon and
forgiveness shall be extended. It is your King who says it, and your
King's word is enough.
"'And now, listen. I am not afraid of my people, and I do not think
there is one sane man among my people who would harm me. See, I come
out to you of my own accord, unescorted, unattended, and unarmed.'
"Stepping upon the window-sill, he said, laughingly:
"'I am not so young or as light-footed as I used to be. Will one of you
lend me a hand?'
"A hundred hands were extended, and then, hatless as he was, he leapt
down into the courtyard among his subjects, as much at home and with as
little fear as if he were among a crowd of sightseers on a race-course
or at a review.
"At the words and at the action, there arose such a cheer as London has
never heard before, and though some traitors there were, who murmured
among themselves, and looked at him darkly, not one of them dared raise
hand against the Sovereign, knowing that to do so would be the signal
for the people to tear the traitor limb from limb.
"The rebellion is over, Kate. The King himself, as I have said, gave it
the death-blow. Before I left the Palace, the people had thrown down
their arms to a man, and all London is ringing on every hand with the
cry 'God save the King!'"
"Thank God!" she said, "for the King's sake and the people's. But hush,
Max! What is that shouting in the street? It is coming nearer. Pray God
the rioting has not broken out again."
"I have no fear of that," I said. "But come, dear, let us see."
Together we walked to the window. The shouting and cheering in the
street were terrific, but this was no disloyal mob--these were no
revolutionaries. They were cheering a gentleman who, unattended, and
without escort, was riding slowly by in an open carriage.
"It is the King!" Kate gasped.
"Yes," I said. "It is the kingliest ruler, the bravest man, the truest
gentleman in Christendom!"
And raising the window, she and I stepped out hand in hand upon the
balcony, to join in the jubilation and welcome that rose from a
thousand throats in a roar louder than the roar of the central seas.
"The King! God bless him!"
"The King! The King! The King!"
"God save the King!"
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