When Ghost Meets Ghost Part 108

"This customer's not your sort. He's a bad kind. Bad before he was first lagged, and none the better for the company he's kept since! You're an elderly man now, Mo, and I'll go bail you haven't so much as put on the gloves for ten years past. And suppose you had, ever so! Who's to know he hasn't got a Colt in his pocket, or a bowie-knife?" Those of us who remember the fifties will recall how tightly revolvers clung to the name of their patentee, and the sort of moral turpitude that attached to their use. They were regarded as giving a mean advantage to murderers; who otherwise, if they murdered fair, and were respectably hanged, merely filled _roles_ necessary to History and the Drama.

"Couldn't say about the barking-iron," said Uncle Mo. "He's got a nasty sort of a knife, because he was flouris.h.i.+ng of it out once to frighten M'riar. I'll give him that." Meaning--the advantage of the weapon. A trivial concession from a survivor of the best days of the Fancy! "Ye see, Jerry," he continued, "he'll have to come within arm's length, to use it. _I'll_ see to him! Him and his carving-knives!"

But Mr. Jerry was far from easy about his friend, who seemed to him over-confident. He had pa.s.sed his life in sporting circles, and though he himself had seen more of jockeys than prizefighters, their respective circ.u.mferences intersected; and more than one case had come to his knowledge of a veteran of the Ring unconscious of his decadence, who had boastfully defied a junior, and made the painful discovery of the degree to which youth can outcla.s.s age. This was scarcely a case of youth or extreme age, but the twenty years that parted them were all-sufficient.

He began to seek in his inner conscience excuses for a course of action which would--he was quite candid with himself--have a close resemblance to treachery. But would not a little straightforward treachery be not only very expedient, but rather moral? Were high principles a _sine qua non_ to such a humble individual as himself, a "bookmaker" on race-courses, a billiard-marker elsewhere in their breathing-times?

Though indeed Mr. Jerry in his chequered life had seen many other phases of employment--chiefly, whenever he had the choice, within the zone of horsiness. For he had a mysterious sympathetic knowledge of the horse.

If pressed to give an account of himself, he was often compelled to admit that he was doing nothing particular, but was on the lookout. He might indicate that he was getting sick of this sort of thing, and would take the next chance that turned up; would, as it were, close with Fate.

There had never been a moment in his sixty odd years of life--for he was very little Uncle Mo's junior--when he had not been on the eve of a lucrative permanency. It had never come; and never could, in the nature of things. Nevertheless, the evanescencies that came and went and chequered his career were not quite unremunerative, though they were hardly lucrative. If he was ever hard up, he certainly never confessed to it.

He, however, looking back on his own antecedents to determine from them how straitlaced a morality conscience called for, decided, in view of the possibility of a collision between his friend and this ex-convict, that he would be quite justified in treating Aunt M'riar's feelings as negligible, set against the risk incurred by deferring to them as his friend had done. No doubt Mo's confidence had been reposed in him under the seal of an honourable secrecy, but to honour it under the circ.u.mstances seemed to him to be "cutting it rather fine." He resolved to sacrifice his integrity on the altar of friends.h.i.+p, and sought out Mr. Simeon Rowe, who will be remembered as the Thames Policeman who was rowing stroke at Hammersmith that day when his chief, Ibbetson, lost his life in the attempt to capture Daverill; and who had more recently been identified by Mo as the son of an old friend. Jerry made a full communication of the case as known to him; giving as his own motive for doing so, the wish to s.h.i.+eld Mo from the possible consequences of his own rash over-confidence.

"I collect from what you tell me," said the Police-Inspector, "that my men have been going on the wrong tack. That's about it, Mr. Alibone, isn't it?"

"That's one way of putting it, Mr. Rowe. Anyhow, they were bound to be let in. Why, who was to guess Aunt M'riar? _And_ the reason!"

"They'll have to look a little sharper, that's all." It suited the Inspector to lay the blame of failure on his subordinates. This is a prerogative of seniors in office. Successes are officially credited to the foresight of headquarters--failures debited to the incompetence of subordinates. Mr. Rowe's att.i.tude was merely human. He expressed as much acknowledgment of indebtedness to Mr. Jerry as was consistent with official dignity, adding without emotion:--"I've been suspecting some game of the kind." However, he unbent so far as to admit that this culprit had given a sight of trouble; and, as Mr. Jerry was an old acquaintance, resumed some incidents of the convict's career, not without admiration. But it was admiration of a purely professional sort, consistent with strong moral loathing of its object. "He's a born devil, if ever there was one," said he. "I must say I like him. Why--look how he slipped through their fingers at Clerkenwell! That was after we caught him at Hammersmith. That was genius, sir, nothing short of genius!"

"Dressed himself in his own warder's clothes, didn't he, and just walked over the course? What's become of your man he knocked on the head with his leg-iron?"

"Oh--him? He's got his pension, you know. But he's not good for any sort of work. He's alive--that's all! Yes--when Mr. Wix pays his next visit at the Old Bailey, there'll be several charges against him. He'll make a good show. I'll give him three months." By which he meant that, with all allowances made for detention and trial, Mr. Wix would end his career at the time stated. He went on to refer to other incidents of which the story has cognisance. He had been inclined to be down on his old chief Ibbetson, who was drowned in his attempt to capture Wix, because he had availed himself of a helping hand held out to him to drag its owner into custody. Well--he would think so still if it had not been for some delicate shades of character Mr. Wix had revealed since. How did he, Simeon Rowe, know what Ibbetson knew against the ex-convict? Some Walthamstow business, as like as not! It was wonderful what a faculty this man had for slipping through your fingers. He had been all but caught by one of our men, in the country, only the other day. He was at the railway-station waiting for the up-train, due in a quarter of an hour, and he saw our man driving up in a gig. At this point Mr. Rowe stopped, looking amused.

"Did he run?" said Mr. Jerry.

"Not he! He made a mistake in his train. Jumped into the Manchester express that was just leaving, and got carried off before our man reached the station. At Manchester he explained his mistake, and used his return ticket without extra charge to come back to London. Our man knew he would do that, and waited for him at Euston. But _he_ knew one better. Missed his train again at Harrow--just got out for a minute, you know, when it stopped--and walked the rest of the way!"

Ralph Daverill must have had a curious insight into human nature, to know by the amount of his inspection of that police-officer--the one who had ridden after him from Grantley Thorpe--whether he would pursue him to Manchester or try to capture him at Euston. How could he tell that the officer was not clever enough to know exactly how clever his quarry would decide he was?

Aunt M'riar, haunted always by a nightmare--by the terrible dream of a scaffold, and on it the man who had been her husband, with all the attendant horrors familiar to an age when public executions still gratified its human, or inhuman interest--was unable to get relief by confiding her trouble to others. She dared to say no more than what she had already said to Uncle Mo, as she knew he was in communication with his friend the police-officer and she wanted only just as much to be disclosed about the convict as would safeguard Sapps Court from another of his visits, but at the same time would not lead to his capture. If she had thought his suggestions of intimidation serious, no doubt she would have put aside her scruples, and made it her first object that he should be brought to justice. But she regarded them as empty threats, uttered solely to extort money.

She knew she could rely on Mo's kindness of heart to stretch many points to meet her feelings, but she felt very uncertain whether even his kind-heartedness would go the length of her demand for it. He might consider that a wife's feelings for a husband--and _such_ a husband!--might be carried too far, might even be cla.s.sified as superst.i.tion, that last infirmity of incorrect minds. If she could only make sure that the convict should never show his face again in Sapps Court, she would sacrifice her small remainders of money, earned in runs of luck, to keep him at a distance. An att.i.tude of compromise between complete repudiation of him, and misleading his pursuers, was at least possible. But it involved a slight amount of duplicity in dealing with Mo, and this made Aunt M'riar supremely uncomfortable. She was perfectly miserable about it. But there!--had she not committed herself to an impracticable constancy, with a real altar and a real parson? That was it. She had promised, five-and-twenty years ago, to love, honour, and obey a self-engrossed pleasure-seeker, and time and crime and the canker of a gaol had developed a devil in him, who was by now a fine representative sample--a "record devil" our modern advanced speech might have called him--who had fairly stamped out whatever uncongenial trace of good may have existed originally in the premises he had secured on an indefinite lease. It _was_ superst.i.tion on Aunt M'riar's part, but of a sort that is aided and abetted by a system that has served the purposes of the priesthoods all the world over since the world began, and means to last your time and mine--the more's the pity!

It was the day after her conversation with Mo about the convict--the day, that is, after Gwen's last visit to Sapps Court--that Aunt M'riar said to Dave, just departing to absorb erudition at his School, that if he should see Michael Ragstroar he might tell him she had a note for his, Michael's, aunt at Hammersmith; and if he was a-going there Sunday, he might just every bit as well make himself useful, and carry it and save the postage. Dave said:--"Whoy shouldn't oy carry it?" An aspiration crushed by Aunt M'riar with:--"Because you're seven!" So Dave, whose nature was as docile as his eyes were blue, undertook to deliver the message; and Michael presented himself in consequence, just after Uncle Mo had took a turn out to see for a newspaper, for to know some more of what was going on in the Crimaera. It was just as well Uncle Mo had, because when it's two, you don't have to consider. If this is obscure, Aunt M'riar, who used the phrase, is responsible, not the story. Its opinion is, that she meant that the absence of a third person left her freer to speak. Perhaps if Mo had been present she would merely have handed Micky the letter directed to his aunt, which would have been palpably no concern of Uncle Mo's, inquirin' and askin' questions.

As it was, she accompanied it with verbal instructions:--"Now you know what you've got to do, young Micky. You've just got to give this letter to your great-aunt Treadwell. And when she sees inside of it, she'll find it ain't for her, but a party."

"What sort of a party, that's the p'int? Don't b'leeve my great-aunt knows no parties. Them she knows is inside of her farmily. Nevoos, sim'lar to myself as you might say. Or hequal value." An Academical degree would have qualified Micky to say "or its equivalent." The expression he used had its source in exchange transactions of turnips and carrots and greens, antic.i.p.ating varied calls for each in different markets.

"She may know the address of the lady she'll find in this envelope. And if she don't, all _you_ got to do is to bring the letter back."

"Suppose she don't know the address and I do, am I to tell her, or 'old my tongue?"

"Now which do you think? I do declare you boys I never! Nor yet anyone else! Why, if she don't know the address and you do, all you got to do then is take the letter and leave it."

"Without any address wrote? Wery good! 'Ave it your own way, missis.

'And it over."

Aunt M'riar handed it over. But before Micky was half-way up the Court, she called him back. "Maybe you know the party's name? Miss Julia Hawkins--on the waterside, Hammersmith."

"Her! Not know her! Juliarawkins. Why, she's next door!"

"But do you know her--to speak to?"

"Rarther! We're on torkin terms, me and Juliar. Werry often stop I do, to pa.s.s the time of day with Jooli_ar_." An intensification in the accent on the name seemed to add to his claim to familiarity with its owner. "Keeps the little tiddley-wink next door. Licensed 'ouse. That's where they took Wix--him as got out of quod--him as come down the Court to look up a widder."

Aunt M'riar considered a moment whether it would not be better to instruct Micky to find out Daverill and deliver her letter to him in person. She decided on adhering to the convict's instructions. If she had understood his past relations with Miss Hawkins she might have decided otherwise. She affected not to hear Micky's allusion to him, merely enjoining the boy to hand her letter in over the bar to its Egeria. "You won't have any call for to trouble your aunt," said she.

For she felt that the fewer the cooks, the better the broth. Questioned as to when he would deliver the letter, Micky appeared to turn over in his mind a voluminous register of appointments. But he could stand them all over, to oblige, and would see if he couldn't make it convenient to go over Sunday morning. Nothing was impossible to a good business head.

As the appointments had absolutely no existence except in his imagination--though perhaps costermonging, at its lowest ebb, still claimed his services--he was able to make it very convenient indeed to visit his Aunt Elizabeth. History repeats itself, and the incident of the half-and-half happened again, point for point, until settlement-time came, and then a variation crept in.

"I got a letter for you, missis," said Micky.

"Sure it ain't for somebody else? Let's have a look at it."

"No 'urry! Tork it over first--that's my marxim! Look ye here. Miss Juliar, this is my way of putting of it. Here's three-halfpence, over the beer. Here's the corner of the letter, stickin' out of my porket.

Now which'll you have, the letter or the three-halfpence? Make your ch'ice. All square and no deception!"

"Well--the impidence of the child! Who's to know the letter's for me onlest I see the direction? Who gave it you to give me?"

"Miss Wardle down our Court. Same I told you of--where the old widder-woman hangs out. Him the police are after's mother!" Micky was so confident of the success of this communication that he began picking up the three-halfpence to restore them to his pocket, and stood holding the corner of the letter to draw it out as soon as his terms were accepted.

The acceptance came unconditionally, with a nod; and Micky departed with his jug.

What were the contents of this letter to Mr. Wix, care of Miss Julia Hawkins, at The Pigeons? That was all the direction on the envelope, originally covered by another, addressed to Micky's great-aunt. It was worded as Daverill had worded it in a hurried parting word to Aunt M'riar, given when Gwen's knock had cut his visit short. This letter, in an uneducated woman's hand, excited Miss Hawkins's curiosity. Of course it might only be from the old woman he supposed to be his mother. If so, there did not seem to be any reasonable objection to her reading it. If otherwise, she felt that there were many reasonable objections to leaving it unread. Anyhow there was a kettle steaming on the fire in the bar, and if she held the letter over the spout to see if it would open easy, she would be still in a position to shut it up again and deliver it with a guiltless conscience. Eve, no doubt, felt that she could handle the apple and go on resisting temptation, so as not to seem rude to the Serpent. The steam was not wanted for long, the envelope flap curling up in a most obliging manner, and leaving all clear for investigation. Miss Hawkins laid the letter down to dry quite dry, before fingering it. Remember to bear this in mind in opening other people's letters this way. The slightest touch on paper moistened by steam may remain as a tell-tale.

This woman was so cautious that she left the paper untouched where she had laid it on the table while she conferred with a recently installed potboy on points of commercial economy. When she returned it was dry beyond suspicion, and she drew the letter out to see if it contained anything she need hesitate to read. She felt that she was keeping in view what is due to the sensitive conscience of an honourable person.

The note she read was short, written so that the lines fell thus:--

"RALPH DAVERILL--The police are on the look out for you and it is now not safe to come to the Court--This is written by your wife to say you will run great risk of being took if you come-- For you to know who I am I write my name--

POLLY DAVERILL.

Sapps Court Dec 9 1854."

The lines were ill-s.p.a.ced, so that blanks were left as shown. At the end of the second, a crowded line, the word _not_ was blurred on the paper-edge, and looked like a repet.i.tion of the previous word.

One does not see without thought, why this letter sent its reader's heart beating furiously. Why should she turn scarlet with anger and all but draw blood from a bitten lip? She knew perfectly well that this gutter Don Juan's depravity could boast as many victims as his enforced prison life had left possible to him. But no particular one had ever become concrete to her, and jealousy of a mult.i.tude, no one better off than herself, had never rankled. Jealousy of Heaven-knows-who is a wishy-washy pa.s.sion. Supply a definite object, and it may become vitriolic. Polly Daverill, whoever she was, was definite, and might be the wife the convict had acknowledged--or rather claimed--when he first made Miss Julia's acquaintance, over twenty years ago.

The lip was perhaps saved from bloodletting by an idea which crossed the mind of the biter. A look of satisfaction grew and grew as she contemplated the letter; not for its meaning--that was soon clear. It was something in the handwriting; something that made her hide half-words with a finger-point, and vary her angle of inspection. Then she said, aloud to herself:--"Yes!" as though she had come to a decision.

She examined an inkstand that the dried ink of ages had encrusted, beyond redemption, in a sunken cavity of restraint in an inktray overstocked with extinct and senile pens. Its residuum of black fluid had been glutinous ever since Miss Julia had known it; ever since she had written, as a student, that Bounty Commanded Esteem all down one page of a copybook. The pens were quill pens past mending, or overwhelmed by too heartfelt nibs; or magnum bonums whose upstrokes were morally as wide as Portland Place, or parvum malums that perforated syllables and spluttered. The penwiper was non-absorbent, and generally contrived to return the drop it refused to partake of on the hands of incautious scribes, who rarely obtained soap and hot water time enough to do any good.

Miss Julia first remedied the ink. A memory of breakfast unremoved still hung about the parlour table--a teapot and a slop basin. The former supplied a diluent, the latter a haven for the indisputably used-up quill whose feather served to incorporate it with the black coagulum.

With the resultant fluid you could make a mark about the same blackness as what the letter was, using by preference the newest magnum bonum pen, which was all right in itself, only stuck on an old wooden handle that scribes of recent years had gnawed.

What this woman's jealous violence was prompting her to do was to alter this letter so as to encourage its recipient to put himself in danger of capture. It was an easy task, as the only words she had to insert could be copies from what was already written. The first line required the word _not_ at the end, the fourth the word _no_. The only other change needed was the erasure of the word _not_, in the second line, which already looked like an accidental repet.i.tion of _now_. Was an erasure advisable? she decided against it, cleverly. She merely drew her pen through the _not_, leaving the first two letters intentionally visible, and blurring the last. She then re-enveloped the letter, much pleased with the result, and wrote a short note in pencil to accompany it; then hunted up an envelope large enough to take both, and directed it to W.

at the Post Office, East Croydon. This was the last address the convict had given. Where he was actually living she did not know.