The Hole in the Wall

CHAPTER XVIII

ON THE COP

When the limy man left Blue Gate he went, first, to the Hole in the Wall, there to make to Captain Kemp some small report on the wharf by the Lea. This did not keep him long, and soon he was on his journey home to the wharf itself, by way of the crooked lanes and the Commercial Road.

He had left Blue Gate an hour and more when Musky Mag emerged from her black stairway, peering fearfully about the street ere she ventured her foot over the step. So she stood for a few seconds, and then, as one chancing a great risk, stepped boldly on the pavement, and, turning her back to the Highway, walked toward Back Lane. This was the nearer end of Blue Gate, and, the corner turned, she stopped short, and peeped back. Satisfied that she had no follower, she crossed Back Lane, and taking every corner, as she came to it, with a like precaution, threaded the maze of small, ill-lighted streets that lay in the angle between the great Rope Walk and Commercial Road. This wide road she crossed, and then entered the dark streets beyond, in rear of the George Tavern; and so, keeping to obscure parallel ways, sometimes emerging into the glare of the main road, more commonly slinking in its darker purlieus, but never out of touch with it, she travelled east; following in the main the later course of the limy man, who had left Blue Gate by its opposite end.

The fog, that had dulled the lights in Ratcliff Highway, met her again near Limehouse Basin; but, ere she reached the church, she was clear of it once more. Beyond, the shops grew few, and the lights fewer. For a little while decent houses lined the way: the houses of those last merchants who had no shame to live near the docks and the works that brought their money. At last, amid a cluster of taverns and shops that were all for the sea and them that lived on it, the East India Dock gates stood dim and tall, flanked by vast raking walls, so that one might suppose a Chinese city to seethe within. And away to the left, the dark road that the wall overshadowed was lined on the other side by hedge and ditch, with meadows and fields beyond, that were now no more than a vast murky gulf; so that no stranger peering over the hedge could have guessed aright if he looked on land or on water, or on mere black vacancy.

Here the woman made a last twist: turning down a side street, and coming to a moment's stand in an archway. This done, she passed through the arch into a path before a row of ill-kept cottages; and so gained the marshy field behind the Accident Hospital, the beginning of the waste called The Cop.

Here the great blackness was before her and about her, and she stumbled and laboured on the invisible ground, groping for pits and ditches, and standing breathless again and again to listen. The way was so hard as to seem longer than it was, and in the darkness she must needs surmount obstacles that in daylight she would have turned. Often a ditch barred her way; and when, after long search, a means of crossing was found, it was commonly a plank to be traversed on hands and knees. There were stagnant pools, too, into which she walked more than once; and twice she suffered a greater shock of terror: first at a scurry of rats, and later at quick footsteps following in the sodden turf – the footsteps, after all, of nothing more terrible than a horse of inquiring disposition, out at grass.

So she went for what seemed miles: though there was little more than half a mile in a line from where she had left the lights to where at last she came upon a rough road, seamed with deep ruts, and made visible by many whitish blotches where lime had fallen, and had there been ground into the surface. To the left this road stretched away toward the lights of Bromley and Bow Common, and to the right it rose by an easy slope over the river wall skirting the Lea, and there ended at Kemp's Wharf.

Not a creature was on the road, and no sound came from the black space behind her. With a breath of relief she set foot on the firmer ground, and hurried up the slope. From the top of the bank she could see Kemp's Wharf just below, with two dusty lighters moored in the dull river; and beyond the river the measureless, dim Abbey Marsh. Nearer, among the sheds, a dog barked angrily at the sound of strange feet.

A bright light came from the window of the little house that made office and dwelling for the wharf-keeper, and something less of the same light from the open door; for there the limy man stood waiting, leaning on the door-post, and smoking his pipe.

He grunted a greeting as Mag came down the bank. "Bit late," he said. "But it ain't easy over the Cop for a stranger."

"Where?" the woman whispered eagerly. "Where is he?"

The limy man took three silent pulls at his pipe. Then he took it from his mouth with some deliberation, and said: "Remember what I said? I don't want 'im 'ere. I dunno what 'e's done, an' don't want; but if 'e likes to come 'idin' about, I ain't goin' to play the informer. I dunno why I should promise as much as that, just 'cos my brother married 'is sister. She ain't done me no credit, from what I 'ear now. Though she 'ad a good master, as I can swear; 'cos 'e's mine too."

"Where is he?" was all Mag's answer, again in an anxious whisper.

"Unnerstand?" the limy man went on. "I'm about done with the pair on 'em now, but I ain't goin' to inform. 'E come 'ere a day or two back an' claimed shelter; an' seein' as I was goin' up to Wappin' to-night, 'e wanted me to tell you where 'e was. Well, I've done that, an' I ain't goin' to do no more; see? 'E ain't none o' mine, an' I won't 'ave part nor parcel with 'im, nor any of ye. I keep myself decent, I do. I shan't say 'e's 'ere an' I shan't say 'e ain't; an' the sooner 'e goes the better 'e'll please me. See?"

"Yes, Mr. Grimes, sir; but tell me where he is!"

The limy man took his pipe from his mouth, and pointed with a comprehensive sweep of the stem at the sheds round about. "You can go an' look in any o' them places as ain't locked," he said off-handedly. "The dog's chained up. Try the end one fust."

Grimes the wharfinger resumed his pipe, and Mag scuffled off to where the light from the window fell on the white angle of a small wooden shelter. The place was dark within, dusted about with lime, and its door stood inward. She stopped and peered.

"All right," growled Dan Ogle from the midst of the dark. "Can't ye see me now y' 'ave come?" And he thrust his thin face and big shoulders out through the opening.

"O Dan!" the woman cried, putting out her hands as though she would take him by the neck, but feared repulse. "O Dan! Thank Gawd you're safe, Dan! I bin dyin' o' fear for you, Dan!"

"G-r-r-r!" he snorted. "Stow that! What I want's money. Got any?"

CHAPTER XIX

ON THE COP

It was at a bend of the river-wall by the Lea, in sight of Kemp's Wharf, that Dan Ogle and his sister met at last. Dan had about as much regard for her as she had for him, and the total made something a long way short of affection. But common interests brought them together. Mrs. Grimes had told Mag that she knew of something that would put money in Dan's pocket; and, as money was just what Dan wanted in his pocket, he was ready to hear what his sister had to tell: more especially as it seemed plain that she was unaware – exactly – of the difficulty that had sent him into hiding.

So, instructed by Mag, she came to the Cop on a windy morning, where, from the top of the river-wall, one might look east over the Abbey Marsh, and see an unresting and unceasing press of grey and mottled cloud hurrying up from the flat horizon to pass overhead, and vanish in the smoke of London to the West. Mrs. Grimes avoided the wharf; for she saw no reason why her brother-in-law, her late employer's faithful servant, should witness her errand. She climbed the river-wall at a place where it neared the road at its Bromley end, and thence she walked along the bank-top.

Arrived where it made a sharp bend, she descended a little way on the side next the river, and there waited. Dan, on the look-out from his shed, spied her be-ribboned bonnet from afar, and went quietly and hastily under shelter of the river-wall toward where she stood. Coming below her on the tow-path, he climbed the bank, and brother and sister stood face to face; unashamed ruffianism looking shabby respectability in the eyes.

"Umph," growled Dan. "So 'ere y'are, my lady."

"Yes," the woman answered, "'ere I am; an' there you are – a nice respectable sort of party for a brother!"

"Ah, ain't I? If I was as respectable as my sister I might get a job up at the Hole in the Wall, mightn't I? 'Specially as I 'ear as there's a vacancy through somebody gettin' the sack over a cash-box!"

Mrs. Grimes glared and snapped. "I s'pose you got that from 'im," she said, jerking her head in the direction of the wharf. "Well, I ain't come 'ere to call names – I come about that same cash-box; at any rate I come about what's in it… Dan, there's a pile o' bank notes in that box, that don't belong to Cap'en Nat Kemp no more'n they belong to you or me! Nor as much, p'raps, if you'll put up a good way o' gettin' at 'em!"

"You put up a way as wasn't a good un, seemin'ly," said Dan. "'Ow d'ye mean they don't belong to Kemp?"

"There was a murder at the Hole in the Wall; a week ago."

"Eh?" Dan's jaw shut with a snap, and his eye was full of sharp inquiry.

"A man was stabbed against the bar-parlour door, an' the one as did it got away over the river. One o' the two dropped a leather pocket-book full o' notes, an' the kid – Kemp's grandson – picked it up in the rush when nobody see it. I see it, though, afterward, when the row was over. I peeped from the stairs, an' I see Kemp open it an' take out notes – bunches of 'em – dozens!"

"Ah, you did, did ye?" Dan observed, staring hard at his sister. "Bunches o' bank notes – dozens. See a photo, too? Likeness of a woman an' a boy? 'Cos it was there."

Mrs. Grimes stared now. "Why, yes," she said. "But – but 'ow do you come to know? Eh?.. Dan!.. Was you – was you – "

"Never mind whether I was nor where I was. If it 'adn't been for you I'd a had them notes now, safe an' snug, 'stead o' Cap'en Nat. You lost me them!"

"I did?"

"Yes, you. Wouldn't 'ave me come to the Hole in the Wall in case Cap'en Nat might guess I was yer brother – bein' so much like ye! Like you! G-r-r-r! 'Ope I ain't got a face like that!"

"Ho yes! You're a beauty, Dan Ogle, ain't ye? But what's all that to do with the notes?" Mrs. Grimes's face was blank with wonder and doubt, but in her eyes there was a growing and hardening suspicion. "What's all that to do with the notes?"

"It's all to do with 'em. 'Cos o' that I let another chap bring a watch to sell, 'stead o' takin' it myself. An' 'e come back with a fine tale about Cap'en Nat offerin' to pay 'igh for them notes; an' so I was fool enough to let 'im take them too, 'stead o' goin' myself. But I watched 'im, though – watched 'im close. 'E tried to make a bolt – an' – an' so Cap'en Nat got the notes after all, it seems, then?"

"Dan," said Mrs. Grimes retreating a step; "Dan, it was you! It was you, an' you're hiding for it!"

The man stood awkward and sulky, like a loutish schoolboy, detected and defiant.

"Well," he said at length, "s'pose it was? You ain't got no proof of it; an' if you 'ad – What 'a' ye come 'ere for, eh?"

She regarded him now with a gaze of odd curiosity, which lasted through the rest of their talk; much as though she were convinced of some extraordinary change in his appearance, which nevertheless eluded her observation.

"I told you what I come for," she answered, after a pause. "About gettin' them notes away from Kemp – the old wretch!"

"Umph! Old wretch. 'Cos 'e wanted to keep 'is cash-box, eh? Well, what's the game?"

Mrs. Grimes in no way abated her intent gaze, but she came a little closer, with a sidling step, as if turning her back to a possible listener. "There was two inquests at the Hole in the Wall," she said; "two on the same day. There was Kipps, as lost the notes when Cap'en Kemp got 'em. An' there was Marr the shipowner – an' it was 'im as lost 'em first!"

She took a pace back as she said this, looking for its effect. But Dan made no answer. Albeit his frown grew deeper and his eye sharper, and he stood alert, ready to treat his sister as friend or enemy according as she might approve herself.

"Marr lost 'em first," she repeated, "an' I can very well guess how, though when I came here I didn't know you was in it. How did I know, thinks you, that Marr lost 'em first? I got eyes, an' I got ears, an' I got common sense; an' I see the photo you spoke of – Marr an' 'is mother, most likely; anyhow the boy was Marr, plain, whoever the woman was. It on'y wanted a bit o' thinkin' to judge what them notes had gone through. But I didn't dream you was so deep in it! Lor, no wonder Mag was frightened when I see 'er!"

Still Dan said nothing, but his eyes seemed brighter and smaller – perhaps dangerous.

So the woman proceeded quickly: "It's all right! You needn't be frightened of my knowin' things! All the more reason for your gettin' the notes now, if you lost 'em before. But it's halves for me, mind ye. Ain't it halves for me?"

Dan was silent for a moment. Then he growled, "We ain't got 'em yet."

"No, but it's halves when we do get 'em; or else I won't say another word. Ain't it halves?"

Dan Ogle could afford any number of promises, if they would win him information. "All right," he said. "Halves it is, then, when we get 'em. An' how are we goin' to do it?"

Mrs. Grimes sidled closer again. "Marr the shipowner lost 'em first," she said, "an' he was pulled out o' the river, dead an' murdered, just at the back o' the Hole in the Wall. See?"

"Well?"

"Don't see it? Kemp's got the pocket-book."

"Yes."

"Don't see it yet? Well; there's more. There's a room at the back o' the Hole in the Wall, where it stands on piles, with a trap-door over the water. The police don't know there's a trap-door there. I do."

Dan Ogle was puzzled and suspicious. "What's the good o' that?" he asked.

"I didn't think you such a fool, Dan Ogle. There's a man murdered with notes on him, an' a photo, an' a watch – you said there was a watch. He's found in the river just behind the Hole in the Wall. There's a trap-door – secret – at the Hole in the Wall, over the water; just the place he might 'a' been dropped down after he was killed. An' Kemp the landlord's got the notes an' the pocket-book an' the photo all complete; an' most likely the watch too, since you tell me he bought it; an' Viney could swear to 'em. Ain't all that enough to hang Cap'en Nat Kemp, if the police was to drop in sudden on the whole thing?"

Dan's mouth opened, and his face cleared a little. "I s'pose," he said, "you mean you might put it on to the police as it was Cap'en Nat did it; an' when they searched they'd find all the stuff, an' the pocket-book, an' the watch, an' the likeness, an' the trap-door; an' that 'ud be evidence enough to put 'im on the string?"

"Of course I mean it," replied Mrs. Grimes, with hungry spite in her eyes. "Of course I mean it! An' dearly I'd love to see it done, too! Cap'en Nat Kemp, with 'is money an' 'is gran'son 'e's goin' to make a gentleman of, an' all! ''Ope you'll be honest where you go next,' says Cap'en Kemp, 'whether you're grateful to me or not!' Honest an' grateful! I'll give 'im honest an' grateful!"

Dan Ogle grinned silently. "No," he said, "you won't forgive 'im, I bet, if it was only 'cos you began by makin' such a pitch to marry 'im!" A chuckle broke from behind the grin. "You'd rather hang him than get his cash-box now, I'll swear!"

Mrs. Grimes was red with anger. "I would that!" she cried. "You're nearer truth than you think, Dan Ogle! An' if you say too much you'll lose the money you're after, for I'll go an' do it! So now!"

Dan clicked his tongue derisively. "Thought you'd come to tell me how to get the stuff," he said. "'Stead o' that you tell me how to hang Cap'en Nat, very clever, an' lose it. I don't see that helps us."

"Go an' threaten him."

"Threaten Cap'en Nat?" exclaimed Dan, glaring contempt, and spitting it. "Oh yes, I see myself! Cap'en Nat ain't that sort o' mug. I'm as 'ard as most, but I ain't 'ard enough for a job like that: or soft enough, for that's what I'd be to try it on. Lor' lumme! Go an' ask any man up the Highway to face Cap'en Nat, an' threaten him! Ask the biggest an' toughest of 'em. Ask Jim Crute, with his ear like a blue-bag, that he chucked out o' the bar like a kitten, last week! 'Cap'en Nat,' says I, 'if you don't gimme eight hundred quid, I'll hit you a crack!' Mighty fine plan that! That 'ud get it, wouldn't it? Ah, it 'ud get something!"

"I didn't say that sort of threat, you fool! You've got no sense for anything but bashing. There's the evidence that 'ud hang him; go an' tell him that, and say he shall swing for it, if he doesn't hand over!"

Dan stared long and thoughtfully. Then his lip curled again. "Pooh!" he said. "I'm a fool, am I? O! Anyhow, whether I am or not, I'm a fool's brother. Threaten Cap'en Nat with the evidence, says you! What evidence? The evidence what he's got in his own hands! S'pose I go, like a mug, an' do it. Fust thing he does, after he's kicked me out, is to chuck the pocket-book an' the likeness on the fire, an' the watch in the river. Then he changes the notes, or sells 'em abroad, an' how do we stand then? Why, you're a bigger fool than I thought you was!.. What's that?"

It was nothing but a gun on the marsh, where a cockney sportsman was out after anything he could hit. But Dan Ogle's nerves were alert, and throughout the conversation he had not relaxed his watch toward London; so that the shot behind disturbed him enough to break the talk.

"We've been here long enough," he said. "You hook it. I'll see about Cap'en Nat. Your way's no good. I'll try another, an' if that don't come off – well, then you can hang him if you like, an' welcome. But now hook it, an' shut your mouth till I've had my go. 'Nough said. Don't go back the way you come."

CHAPTER XX

STEPHEN'S TALE

My father's death wrought in Grandfather Nat a change that awed me. He looked older and paler – even smaller. He talked less to me, but began, I fancied, to talk to himself. Withal, his manner was kinder than before, if that were possible; though it was with a sad kindness that distressed and troubled me. More than once I woke at night with candle-light on my face, and found him gazing down at me with a grave doubt in his eyes; whereupon he would say nothing, but pat my cheek, and turn away.

Early one evening as I sat in the bar-parlour, and my grandfather stood moodily at the door between that and the bar, a man came into the private compartment whom I had seen there frequently before. He was, in fact, the man who had brought the silver spoons on the morning when I first saw Ratcliff Highway, and he was perhaps the most regular visitor to the secluded corner of the bar. This time he slipped quietly and silently in at the door, and, remaining just within it, out of sight from the main bar, beckoned; his manner suggesting business above the common.

But my grandfather only frowned grimly, and stirred not as much as a finger. The man beckoned again, impatiently; but there was no favour in Grandfather Nat's eye, and he answered with a growl. At that the man grew more vehement, patted his breast pocket, jerked his thumb, and made dumb words with a great play of mouth.

"You get out!" said Grandfather Nat.

A shade of surprise crossed the man's face, and left plain alarm behind it. His eyes turned quickly toward the partition which hid the main bar from him, and he backed instantly to the door and vanished.

A little later the swing doors of the main bar were agitated, and an eye was visible between them, peeping. They parted, and disclosed the face of that same stealthy visitor but lately sent away from the other door. Reassured, as it seemed, by what he saw of the company present, he came boldly in, and called for a drink with an elaborate air of unconcern. But, as he took the glass from the potman, I could perceive a sidelong glance at my grandfather, and presently another. Captain Nat, however, disregarded him wholly; while the pale man, aware of he knew not what between them, looked alertly from one to the other, ready to abandon his long-established drink, or to remain by it, according to circumstances.

The man of the silver spoons looked indifferently from one occupant of the bar to the next, as he took his cold rum. There was the pale man, and Mr. Cripps, and a sailor, who had been pretty regular in the bar of late, and who, though noisy and apt to break into disjointed song, was not so much positively drunk as never wholly sober. And there were two others, regular frequenters both. Having well satisfied himself of these, the man of the silver spoons finished his rum and walked out. Scarce had the door ceased to swing behind him, when he was once more in the private compartment, now with a knowing and secure smile, a cough and a nod. For plainly he supposed there must have been a suspicious customer in the house, who was now gone.

Grandfather Nat let fall the arm that rested against the door frame. "Out you go!" he roared. "If you want another drink the other bar's good enough for you. If you don't I don't want you here. So out you go!"

The man was dumbfounded. He opened his mouth as though to say something, but closed it again, and slunk backward.

"Out you go!" shouted the unsober sailor in the large bar. "Out you go! You 'bey orders, see? Lord, you'd better 'bey orders when it's Cap'en Kemp! Ah, I know, I do!" And he shook his head, stupidly sententious.

But the fellow was gone for good, and the pale man was all eyes, scratching his cheek feebly, and gazing on Grandfather Nat.

"Out he goes!" the noisy sailor went on. "That's cap'en's orders. Cap'en's orders or mate's orders, all's one. Like father, like son. Ah, I know!'"

"Ah," piped Mr. Cripps, "a marvellous fine orficer Cap'en Kemp must ha' been aboard ship, I'm sure. Might you ever ha' sailed under 'im?"

"Me?" cried the sailor with a dull stare. "Me? Under him?.. Well no, not under him. But cap'en's orders or mate's orders, all's one."

"P'raps," pursued Mr. Cripps in a lower voice, with a glance over the bar, "p'raps you've been with young Mr. Kemp – the late?"

"Him?" This with another and a duller stare. "Him? Um! Ah, well – never mind. Never you mind, see? You mind your own business, my fine feller!"

Mr. Cripps retired within himself with no delay, and fixed an abstracted gaze in his half-empty glass. I think he was having a disappointing evening; people were disagreeable, and nobody had stood him a drink. More, Captain Nat had been quite impracticable of late, and for days all approaches to the subject of the sign, or the board to paint it on, had broken down hopelessly at the start. As to the man just sent away, Mr. Cripps seemed, and no doubt was, wholly indifferent. Captain Nat was merely exercising his authority in his own bar, as he did every day, and that was all.

But the pale man was clearly uneasy, and that with reason. For, as afterwards grew plain, the event was something greater than it seemed. Indeed, it was nothing less than the end of the indirect traffic in watches and silver spoons. From that moment every visitor to the private compartment was sent away with the same peremptory incivility; every one, save perhaps some rare stranger of the better sort, who came for nothing but a drink. So that, in course of a day or two, the private compartment went almost out of use; and the pale man's face grew paler and longer as the hours went. He came punctually every morning, as usual, and sat his time out with the stagnant drink before him, till he received my grandfather's customary order to "drink up"; and then vanished till the time appointed for his next attendance. But he made no more excursions into the side court after sellers of miscellaneous valuables. From what I know of my grandfather's character, I believe that the pale man must have been paid regular wages; for Grandfather Nat was not a man to cast off a faithful servant, though plainly the man feared it. At any rate there he remained with his perpetual drink; and so remained until many things came to an end together.