Kitabı oku: «Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 728, December 8, 1877», sayfa 3

A CAST OF THE NET
THE STORY OF A DETECTIVE OFFICER

IN FOUR CHAPTERS. – CHAPTER II

By ten o'clock on the following morning I had sketched out my plan, and more than that, I was down at the water-side and looking after a lodging, for I never let the grass grow under my feet. I must say, however, that I very much disliked the east end of London, and especially the river-side part of it; everything was so dirty and miserable and crowded, that to a man of really decent tastes like myself, it was almost purgatory to pass a day in it. And on this particular occasion the weather changed the very day I went there; it was getting on towards late autumn (October in point of fact), and we had been having most beautiful weather; but this very morning it came on to rain, a close thick rain, and we didn't have three hours of continuous fine weather while I stopped in the east.

I was not likely to be very particular about my lodgings in one sense, though in another I was more particular than any lodger that ever came into the neighbourhood; and after a little trouble I pitched upon a public-house again, chiefly because my going in and out would attract less attention there than at a private house; so I secured a small second-floor back room at the Anchor and Five Mermaids, or the Anchor as it was generally called, for shortness.

The great recommendation of the Anchor and Five Mermaids was that it was nearly opposite to Byrle & Co.'s engineering shops, a ferry existing between the two places; this ferry was reached by a narrow dirty lane, which ran by the side of the Anchor, and I could see that numbers of the workmen came across at dinner-time. The Anchor stood at the corner, one front looking on the lane, the other upon the river; and once upon a time there had been, not exactly a tea-garden, but arbours or 'boxes' in front of the house, where the customers used to sit and watch the shipping; but this was all past now, and only the miserable remains of the arbours were there; and it was as dull and cheerless a place as the tavern to which Quilp took Sampson and Sally Brass in the Old Curiosity Shop, of which indeed it reminded me every time I looked at it.

I always had a readiness for scraping acquaintances; in fact it is not much use of your being a detective if you can't do this. If you can't be jonnick with the biggest stranger or lowest rough, you are no use on that lay. I really must avoid slang terms; but 'jonnick' means hearty and jovial; on a 'lay' means being up to some game or business. Before the first dinner-time had passed, I had got quite friendly with two or three of Byrle's hands who came into the Anchor to have their beer; and I learned some particulars about the firm and then about the gatekeeper, that helped me in my ideas.

Directly after they had all gone back, I went over too, and the dinner-traffic having ceased, I was the only passenger. The ferryman did not like taking me alone, but he was bound to do it; and he looked as sulky as if he was going to be flogged at a cart's tail. He was a tall, bony-headed fellow, between fifty and sixty I should say; and I noticed him particularly because of an uncommonly ugly squint in his left eye. In accordance with my plan, I began talking cheerfully to him while he was pushing off from the shore; but he didn't answer me beyond a growl. Then I offered him some splendid chewing tobacco, which a 'friend just over from America had given me.' Really and truly I had bought it within a quarter of a mile of the Anchor and Five Mermaids, but he wasn't to know that. I can't chew; I hate the idea; but I put a piece of the tobacco in my mouth, knowing how fond these waterside men are of the practice, and how friendly they get with one of the same tastes. To my surprise, he would not have it, and I was glad to pitch my plug into the river when he turned his head away. But confound these cock-eyed men! there is never any knowing where to have them. He had not turned far enough, I suppose, or I didn't make proper allowances for his squint; for as I threw my plug away with a shudder – it had already turned me almost sick – I caught his plaguy cross-eye staring full at me. I knew it was, by the expression on his face; that was my only guide, for an astronomer could not have told by his eye in which direction he was looking.

The ferryman pulled well, however; and just as we got athwart the bows of a short thick-looking craft – it is of no use my trying to say what kind of a craft she was; I can't tell one from another – a voice hailed us. 'Ay, ay,' says the boatman, lifting his sculls; 'do you want to go ashore, captain?' 'Yes,' returned a voice; and I looked up and saw a man leaning over the side of the vessel; and the boatman sending his wherry close under the ship, the stranger slid down by a rope very cleverly, and got in. Though the boatman had called him 'captain,' and though he was very clever with the rope, he didn't look altogether like a regular sailor; he was a dark full-faced man, with black eyes, a dark moustache, and curly greasy-looking hair.

The stranger said a few words in a very low tone to the boatman, evidently to prevent my overhearing, and then nothing passed until we landed. The sulky ferryman took his fee without a word; and I went straight to the wicket-gate of Byrle's factory, where of course I found the gatekeeper. I stated that I was in want of employment, and had heard they were taking on labourers, and so had applied for a job.

'No; I don't know as we want any more hands,' said the man, who was sitting down in a little sentry-box; 'and we have had plenty of people here; besides, you're lame, ain't you?'

'A little,' I said, limping as I moved; 'not very bad: a kick from a horse some years ago.'

'Ah! you won't do for us then,' he said; 'but I'm sorry for you. I'm lame too, from a kick of a horse; I can't stand without my stick;' here he rose up to let me see him; 'but you see I was hurt in the service, and the firm have provided for me. I'm very sorry for you, for it's hard to be slighted because you are a cripple. Here is sixpence, old fellow, to get half a pint with, and I wish I could make it more.'

I took the sixpence, and thanked him for his kindness; he deserved my thanks, because he wasn't getting more than a pound a week, and had four or five little children. I found this out afterwards.

I was satisfied at having made a friend who might prove useful; but I had one or two more questions to ask him, and was thinking how I could best bring them in, when he said hurriedly: 'If you could get hold of Mr Byrle by himself, he might do something for you, for he is a very good sort; and you seem strong enough in every other way, and would make a good watchman, I should think.'

Yes; he did not know how good a one!

'Mr Byrle senior or junior?' I asked, on the strength of my information from the hands at the Anchor.

'Junior! O lor! that wouldn't do at all!' exclaimed he with quite a gasp, as if the idea took his breath away. 'It's a case of "O no, we never mention it" with him. He's seldom at home, and when he is, he and the old gentleman lead the very – Here you have it! Here's Mr Forey, the only foreman in the place who would listen to you. Now, speak up!'

Mr Forey, a dark-whiskered, stoutly built man, came up, glancing keenly at me as a stranger; so touching my cap, I again preferred my request to be taken on as a labourer.

'I don't like lame men,' he said; 'but there does not seem to be a great deal the matter with you. You say you can have a first-rate character. We shall be making changes next week, and there's no harm in your looking round on Monday morning at nine sharp. – Stop! I can give you a job now. Do you know how to get to T – ?'

'Yes, sir,' I said.

'Then take this letter to Mr Byrle, and bring back an answer,' said Mr Forey. 'If he is not at home, ask for Miss Doyle, who may open it. I want an answer this afternoon; so cut off! Stay! here's a shilling for your fare; it's only tenpence, you know; and I'll leave eighteenpence with Bob here at the gate for your trouble.'

I took the shilling, Bob winking triumphantly at me, as if to say it was as good as done, and I left the yard.

I was amused at having the commission, for I wondered what Mr Byrle would say when he saw me, and whether my disguise was so complete that he would not recognise me at all. That would be something like a triumph, and I almost made up my mind that it would be so. Had Mr Forey seen me hurrying to the station, he might again have said that there did not seem much the matter with me; but I walked slowly enough through the street in which the Yarmouth Smack was situated, and had a pretty good trial of my disguise and my nerves as I passed it. Peter Tilley, dressed in a blue slop and cord trousers, so as to look like a dock labourer or something of that kind, was leaning against the door-post, lazily watching the passers-by. I made up my mind to try him; so stopping at a lamp-post just opposite to him, I took out my pipe, struck a match on the iron, coolly lit the tobacco, and after one or two puffs, threw the match into the road and walked on. He never knew me. It was all right.

The drizzling rain came down again as I got out at T – ; but luckily Mr Byrle's house was not more than a quarter of a mile from the station; and so resuming my limp, I got there without delay. The man-servant who answered the door took my letter, but told me that the old gentleman was not at home; then on finding Miss Doyle was to open the letter and send an answer, told me to wait in a little room which looked as if it was used as an office, having floor-cloth instead of carpet, wooden chairs, and so forth. He was a careful servant, and would not ask a stranger to wait in the hall, where coats and umbrellas might be had by a sharp party.

I had not waited long, when the door opened, and a young lady, whom I of course judged to be Miss Doyle, came into the room. She was a dark, keen-looking young party, and spoke rather sharply. 'You are to take an answer back, I believe?' she said.

'Yes, miss,' I answered, touching my forehead, for as you may suppose, I held my cap in my hand.

'Mr Forey only wishes me to send word; I am not to write,' she went on; 'he wants to know if Mr Byrle will be at the works to-morrow. He will not. Tell Mr Forey he will leave town to-night, and not return until the day after to-morrow. You understand?' She spoke very sharply; so I said: 'Yes, miss,' sharply too, and touched my forehead again.

'You need not wait,' she said; and opening the door, I saw the servant waiting to let me out. I knuckled my forehead again, and putting on rather a clumsier limp than before, got out of the house into the rain and mud. Rain and mud! What did I care for rain and mud now?

'Sergeant Nickham,' says I, when I got fairly out of range of her windows, for I wouldn't trust her with so much as a wink of mine – 'Sergeant Nickham,' I said, 'you are the boy! If you can't command your face, there isn't a man in the force as can. If you haven't got a memory for faces, find me the man who has, that's all about it!'

Why, of all the extraordinary capers that I ever tumbled to in my life, I never came near such a caper as this. Miss Doyle! That was Miss Doyle, was it? Right enough, no doubt; but if she wasn't also the sham clerk who came and found that I was put on the watch by Mr Byrle, I didn't know a horse from a hedgehog – that's all. The quick look of her eye, her sharp quick voice, the shape of her face, the very way she stood – lor! it was all as clear as daylight. But then I thought, and I kept on thinking till I had got back to the works, what could she have to do with stealing engine-fittings? 'Twasn't likely as she had anything to do with that. It was past all question in my mind as to her being the same party. I knew it for certain; and then came the point – What did she dress herself up for and come a-spying on me and her uncle? – for she was Mr Byrle's niece.

I hadn't got to the bottom of this by any means, by the time I got back to the works; however, I gave my message very respectfully to Mr Forey; and offered Bob the gatekeeper his sixpence back, with many thanks.

'No, old chap,' he says; 'keep it at present. If you get on regular, I'll take it off you and a pint into the bargain the day you draw your first week's cash; but a fellow out of work knows the vally of a sixpence.'

The same ferryman took me back; and his temper hadn't improved, I found. I fancied too that he was particular watchful of me, and so I was particular watchful of him; and from long practice I could do it better and more secretly than he could, although he had got a cross-eye. Lor! I could tell when we were nearing that same ship that the man climbed out of; I could tell it by the cunning way in which the boatman looked at me, to see if I would take any special notice of it. I didn't know what his little game might be, but I determined to spoil it; so I stooped down, and was tying up my shoe, making quite a long job of it, till after we had fairly passed the craft, and then I looked up with an innocent face that quite settled him.

Just as we pushed up to the hard (that's the landing-place), he says to me: 'Do you often cross here?'

'Not often,' I said; 'at anyrate, not yet. I generally cross a little higher up.' (That was very true; about Westminster Bridge was my place; if he liked to think I meant somewhere about Tooley Street or Billingsgate, of course I couldn't help it.) 'But I have left my old quarters, and so I shall often go this way.'

'Ah,' he says, 'you live at the Yarmouth Smack, don't you?'

'The what?' I said. 'Where's that?'

'The Yarmouth Smack,' he says again, pointing to the side we had come from. I knew where the Yarmouth Smack was well enough; but I shook my head, and said: 'No; I live on this side of the water; but I shall live anywhere when I can get work.'

He didn't say any more; I did not suppose he would; but there was something uncommonly suspicious in his talking about the Yarmouth Smack, something more than I could believe came from chance.

In the lane, just as I was about to turn into the side door of the Anchor, I met the foreign-looking captain, who must have crossed the river before me, as I had last seen him on the other side. He knew me, I could tell well enough, and I knew him; but I was not going to let him see where I was going, so I passed the door of the Anchor, limping on till he was clear; then I hurried in, went upstairs at once, and was out in the old ruined arbours I have spoken of in a minute. These overhung the river at high-water (it was nearly high-tide now), and the landing-place of the ferry was close to them. The ferryman and the captain were talking, as I expected they would be, while the boat was waiting for passengers; and by standing in the corner box, I could have heard every word they said, if they had spoken out, as honest people should speak. But they were that artful and suspicious, although they could not have known there was anybody listening, that they talked almost in whispers, and I only caught the last bit from the ferryman. 'No,' he says; 'he's not the party; but I'll go up to the Smack to-night and make sure of the man.'

Ah! as I thought; they were both in it somehow. But what a most extraordinary fuss and Gunpowder Plot sort of business there was about stealing a few bits of metal. I actually should have felt ashamed of the East-enders, who are really some of the sharpest folks I ever came across, if I had not felt there was a something behind, and that, by a lucky accident, I seemed upon the point of finding it out.

The night – my first night in the east too – was not to pass without an adventure, and I had not seen the last of my new acquaintance the captain. I got very tired of the company in the Anchor– not that I mind who I mix with, and if there had been any of the factory hands about the place, I would have sat with them until the house closed; but they only came there at meal-times it seemed, or on their road home. So I walked about the neighbourhood a bit; not because it was pleasant, for it was a wet night; and what with the rain and the mud and the drunken sailors and the fried-fish shops and the quarrelling there was going on, it was anything but agreeable. The fact is I like to know every court and alley in my district, and there were some pretty courts and alleys here. However, nobody thought me worth robbing, and besides, I am always civil, so I never get interfered with. It's a capital rule; the best I know; and costs nothing.

When I was coming back, and had got pretty nearly to the Anchor and Five Mermaids again (it is very absurd to give such long signs to public-houses), I saw a very pretty girl whom I had noticed before, standing at a corner out of the rain; but it was not raining very much now. She wasn't – well, I won't say what she was not, or what she was. She was very pretty, I say, and was doing no harm there; but two or three fellows coming by at the moment, one of them took hold of her roughly, and finished by almost pushing her down. She got away from him, and drew a door or two off; but his companions laughing at him for being bested by a woman, he followed her, and on her pushing him from her, gave her a back-handed smack in the face. There were several men loitering about, smoking and so forth, and I heard one or two say it was a shame; but none of them interfered; and I, being a little way off, and not wanting to get into a row, might have passed this over; but she called him a brute and a coward, and he went at her to strike her again. She ran across the road to where I stood, to avoid him, and he followed her. Then I saw it was my acquaintance the captain.

He swore more horribly than ever I heard any one swear, and springing forward, would certainly have hit her down; but I jumped between them and knocked up his arm. 'Brayvo!' said some women, who had been attracted by the girl's scream; and 'Brayvo!' said the men who hadn't interfered. At once the captain turned on me, and let fly desperately at my head; but I was not to be had in that way, and I stopped him and returned a hit that I know must have loosened a couple of teeth; and then he swore again, and began to pull off his coat. So did I.

'Don't fight wid him, my darlin',' said an old Irishwoman, who was selling herrings, laying her hand on my arm. 'You 're an honest English boy, and these fellows will have a knife in ye if they can't bate ye fair.'