OLD GEORGE
A stranger making a call in that portion of North Kensington which lies
in the vicinity of Ladbroke Grove by some mischance lost his way. He
wandered through many prosperous crescents and quiet squares redolent
of the opulence of the upper middle classes, through broad avenues
where neat broughams stood waiting in small carriage-drives, and once
he blundered into a tidy mews, where horsy men with great hissings
made ready the chariots of the Notting Hill plutocracy. It may be
that he was in no particular hurry to arrive at his destination, this
stranger--who has nothing to do with the story--but certainly he did
not avail himself of opportunity in the shape of a passing policeman,
and continued his aimless wanderings. He found Kensington Park Road, a
broad thoroughfare of huge gardens and walled forecourts, then turned
into a side street. He walked about twenty paces, and found himself in
the heart of slum-land.
It is no ordinary slum this little patch of property that lies between
Westbourne Grove and Kensington Park Road. There are no tumbled-down
hovels or noisome passages; there are streets of houses dignified with
flights of steps that rise to pretentious street doors and areas where
long dead menials served the need of the lower middle classes of other
days. The streets are given over to an army of squalling children in
varying styles of dirtiness, and the halls of these houses are bare
of carpet or covering, and in some the responsibility of leasehold is
shared by eight or nine families, all pigging together.
They are streets of slatternly women, who live at their front doors,
arms rolled under discolored aprons, and on Saturday nights one street
at least deserves the pithy but profane appellation which the police
have given it--“Little Hell.”
In this particular thoroughfare it is held that of all sins the
greatest is that which is associated with “spying.” A “spy” is a
fairly comprehensive phrase in Cawdor Street. It may mean policeman,
detective, school-board official, rent collector, or the gentleman
appointed by the gas company to extract pennies from the slot-meters.
To Cawdor Street came a man who rented one of the larger houses. To the
surprise of the agent, he offered his rent monthly in advance; to the
surprise of the street, he took no lodgers. It was the only detached
house in that salubrious road, and was No. 49. The furniture came by
night, which is customary amongst people who concentrate their last
fluttering rag of pride upon the respectability of their household
goods. Cawdor Street, on the _qui vive_ for the lady of the house,
learns with genuine astonishment that there was none, and that the
newcomer was a bachelor.
Years ago No. 49 had been the abode of a jobbing builder, hence the
little yard gate that flanked one side; and it was with satisfaction
that the Cawdor Streeters discovered that the new occupant intended
reviving the ancient splendor of the establishment. At any rate, a
board was prominently displayed, bearing the inscription:
J. JONES, BUILDER AND CONTRACTOR.
and the inquisitive Mr. Lane (of 76), who caught a momentary vision of
the yard through the gate, observed “Office” printed in fairly large
letters over the side door.
At stated hours, mostly in the evening, roughly-dressed men called at
the “Office,” stayed awhile, and went away. Two dilapidated ladders
made their appearance in the yard, conspicuously lifting their perished
rungs above the gate level.
“I tried to buy an old builder’s cart and a wheelbarrow to-day,” said
“Mr. Jones” to a workman. “I’ll probably get it to-morrow at my own
price, and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get a few sacks of lime and a
couple of cartloads of sand and bricks in, also a few road pitchers to
give it a finishing touch.”
The workman grinned.
“You’ve got this place ready in time, Connor,” he said.
Mr. Connor--for such “J. Jones, Builder and Contractor” was--nodded and
picked his teeth meditatively with a match stick.
“I’ve seen for a long time the other place was useless,” he said with a
curse.
“It was bad luck that Angel found us there last week. I’ve been fixing
up this house for a couple of months. It’s a nice neighborhood, where
people don’t go nosing around, and the boys can meet here without
anybody being the wiser.”
“And old George?”
“We’ll settle him to-night,” said the other with a frown. “Bat is
bringing him over, and I want to know how he came to let Angel get at
us.”
Old George had always been a problem to the “Borough Lot.” He held
the position of trust that many contended no demented old man should
hold. Was it safe or sane to trust him with the plate that had been
so laboriously acquired from Roebury House, and the jewels of Lady
Ivy Task-Hender, for the purloining of which one “Hog” Stander was at
that very moment doing seven stretch? Was it wise to install him as
custodian of the empty house at Blackwall, through which Angel Esquire
gained admittance to the meeting-place of the “Borough Lot”?
Some there were who said “Yes,” and these included the powerful faction
that numbered “Bat” Sands, “Curt” Goyle, and Connor amongst them. They
contended that suspicion would never rest on this half-witted old
gentleman, with his stuffed birds, his goldfish, caged rabbits and
mice, a view that was supported by the fact that Lady Ivy’s priceless
diamonds lay concealed for months in the false bottom of a hutch
devoted to guinea pigs in old George’s strange menagerie, what time the
police were turning London inside out in their quest for the property.
But now old George was under a cloud. Notwithstanding the fact that he
had been found amongst his live stock securely bound to a chair, with a
handkerchief over his mouth, suspicion attached to him. How had Angel
worked away in the upper room without old George’s knowledge?
Angel might have easily explained. Indeed, Angel might have relieved
their minds to a very large extent in regard to old George, for in
marking down the haunt of the “Borough Lot” he had been entirely
deceived as to the part played by the old man who acted as “caretaker”
to the “empty” house.
In a fourwheeled cab old George, smiling foolishly and passing his hand
from time to time over his tremulous mouth, listened to the admonitions
of Mr. Bat Sands.
“Connor wants to know all about it,” said Bat menacingly; “and if you
have been playing tricks, old man, the Lord help you.”
“The Lord help me,” smiled old George complacently.
He ran his dirty fingers through his few scanty white locks, and the
smile died out of his face, and his loose mouth dropped pathetically.
“Mr. Sands,” he said, then stopped; then he repeated the name to
himself a dozen times; then he rubbed his head again.
Bat, leaning forward to catch what might be a confession, sank back
again in his seat and swore softly.
In the house of “J. Jones, Builder and Contractor,” were gathered in
strength the men who composed the “Borough Lot.”
“Suppose he gave us away,” asked Goyle, “what shall we do with him?”
There was little doubt as to the feeling of the meeting. A low animal
growl, startling in its ferocity, ran through the gathering.
“If he’s given us away”--it was Vinnis with his dull fishlike eyes
turned upon Connor who was talking--“why, we must ‘out’ him.”
“You’re talking like a fool,” said Connor contemptuously. “If he has
given us away, you may rest assured that he is no sooner in this house
than the whole place will be surrounded by police. If Angel knows old
George is one of us, he’ll be watched day and night, and the cab that
brings him will be followed by another bringing Angel. No, I’ll stake
my life on the old man. But I want to know how Mr. Cursed Angel got
into the house next door.”
They had not long to wait, for Bat’s knock came almost as Connor
finished speaking.
Half led, half dragged into the room, old George stood, fumbling his
hat in his hand, smiling helplessly at the dark faces that met his. He
muttered something under his breath.
“What’s that?” asked Connor sharply.
“I said, a gentleman----” began old George, then lapsed into silence.
“What gentleman?” asked Connor roughly.
“I am speaking of myself,” said the old man, and there came into
his face a curious expression of dignity. “I say, and I maintain,
that a gentleman is a gentleman whatever company he affects. At
my old college I once reproved an undergraduate.” He was speaking
with stately, almost pompous distinctness. “I said, ‘There is an
axiom to which I would refer you, _De gustibus non est disputandum_,
and--and----’”
His shaking fingers went up again to the tell-tale mouth, and the
vacant smile came back.
“Look here,” said Connor, shaking his arm, “we don’t want to know
anything about your damned college; we want to know how Angel got into
our crib.”
The old man looked puzzled.
“Yes, yes,” he muttered; “of course, Mr. Connor, you have been most
kind--the crib--ah!--the young man who wanted to rent or hire the room
upstairs.”
“Yes, yes,” said Connor eagerly.
“A most admirable young man,” old George rambled on, “but very
inquisitive. I remember once, when I was addressing a large
congregation of young men at Cheltenham--or it may have been young
ladies--I----”
“Curse the man!” cried Goyle in a fury. “Make him answer, or stop his
mouth.”
Connor warned him back.
“Let him talk in his own way,” he said.
“This admirable person,” the old man went on, happily striking on the
subject again, “desired information that I was not disposed to give,
Mr. Connor, remembering your many kindnesses, particularly in respect
to one Mr. Vinnis.”
“Yes, go on,” urged Connor, and the face of Vinnis was tense.
“I fear there are times when my usually active mind takes on
a sluggishness which is foreign to my character--my normal
character”--old George was again the pedant--“when the unobservant
stranger might be deceived into regarding me as a negligible quantity.
The admirable young man so far treated me as such as to remark to his
companion that there was a rope--yes, distinctly a rope--for the said
Mr. Vinnis.”
The face of Vinnis was livid.
“And,” asked Connor, “what happened next? There were two of them, were
there?”
The old man nodded gravely; he nodded a number of times, as though the
exercise pleased him.
“The other young man--not the amiable one, but another--upon finding
that I could not rent or hire the rooms--as indeed I could not, Mr.
Connor, without your permission--engaged me in conversation--very
loudly he spoke, too--on the relative values of cabbage and carrot as
food for herbaceous mammals. Where the amiable gentleman was at that
moment I cannot say----”
“I can guess,” thought Connor.
“I can remember the occasion well,” old George continued, “because that
night I was alarmed and startled by strange noises from the empty rooms
upstairs, which I very naturally and properly concluded were caused----”
He stopped, and glancing fearfully about the room, went on in a lower
tone.
“By certain spirits,” he whispered mysteriously, and pointed and
leered first at one and then another of the occupants of the room.
There was something very eerie in the performance of the strange old
man with the queerly-working face, and more than one hardened criminal
present shivered a little.
Connor broke the silence that fell on the room.
“So that’s how it was done, eh? One held you in conversation while the
other got upstairs and hid himself? Well, boys, you’ve heard the old
man. What d’ye say?”
Vinnis shifted in his seat and turned his great unemotional face to
where the old man stood, still fumbling with his hat and muttering to
himself beneath his breath; in some strange region whither his poor
wandering mind had taken him he was holding a conversation with an
imaginary person. Connor could see his eyebrows working, and caught
scraps of sentences, now in some strange dead tongue, now in the
stilted English of the schoolmaster.
It was Vinnis who spoke for the assembled company.
“The old man knows a darned sight too much,” he said in his level tone.
“I’m for----”
He did not finish his sentence. Connor took a swift survey of the men.
“If there is any man here,” he said slowly, “who wants to wake up at
seven o’clock in the morning and meet a gentleman who will strap his
hands behind him and a person who will pray over him--if there’s any
man here that wants a short walk after breakfast between two lines of
warders to a little shed where a brand new rope is hanging from the
roof, he’s at liberty to do what he likes with old George, but not in
this house.”
He fixed his eyes on Vinnis.
“And if there’s any man here,” he went on, “who’s already in the shadow
of the rope, so that one or two murders more won’t make much difference
one way or the other, he can do as he likes--outside this house.”
Vinnis shrank back.
“There’s nothing against me,” he growled.
“The rope,” muttered the old man, “Vinnis for the rope,” he chuckled to
himself. “I fear they counted too implicitly upon the fact that I am
not always quite myself--Vinnis----”
The man he spoke of sprang to his feet with a snarl like a trapped
beast.
“Sit down--you.”
Bat Sands, with his red head close-cropped, thrust his chair in the
direction of the infuriated Vinnis.
“What Connor says is true--we’re not going to croak the old man, and
we’re not going to croak ourselves. If we hang, it will be something
worth hanging for. As to the old man, he’s soft, an’ that’s all you can
say. He’s got to be kept close----”
A rap at the door cut him short.
“Who’s that?” he whispered.
Connor tiptoed to the locked door.
“Who’s there?” he demanded.
A familiar voice reassured him, and he opened the door and held a
conversation in a low voice with somebody outside.
“There’s a man who wants to see me,” he said in explanation. “Lock the
door after I leave, Bat,” and he went out quickly.
Not a word was spoken, but each after his own fashion of reasoning drew
some conclusion from Connor’s hasty departure.
“A full meetin’,” croaked a voice from the back of the room. “We’re all
asked here by Connor. Is it a plant?”
That was Bat’s thought too.
“No,” he said; “there’s nothin’ against us. Why, Angel let us off only
last week because there wasn’t evidence, an’ Connor’s straight.”
“I don’t trust him, by God!” said Vinnis.
“I trust nobody,” said Bat doggedly, “but Connor’s straight----”
There was a rap on the door.
“Who’s there?”
“All right!” said the muffled voice.
Bat unlocked the door, and Connor came in. What he had seen or what he
had heard had brought about a marvelous change in his appearance--his
cheeks were a dull red, and his eyes blazed with triumph.
“Boys,” he said, and they caught the infectious thrill in his voice,
“I’ve got the biggest thing for you--a million pounds, share and share
alike.”
He felt rather than heard the excitement his words caused. He stood
with his back to the half-opened door.
“I’m going to introduce a new pal,” he rattled on breathlessly. “I’ll
vouch for him.”
“Who is he?” asked Bat. “Do we know him?”
“No,” said Connor, “and you’re not expected to know him. But he’s
putting up the money, and that’s good enough for you, Bat--a hundred
pounds a man, and it will be paid to-night.”
Bat Sands spat on his hand.
“Bring him in. He’s good enough,” and there was a murmur of approval.
Connor disappeared for a moment, and returned followed by a
well-dressed stranger, who met the questioning glances of his audience
with a quiet smile. His eyes swept over every face. They rested for a
moment on Vinnis, they looked doubtfully at old George, who, seated on
a chair with crossed legs and his head bent, was talking with great
rapidity in an undertone to himself.
“Gentlemen,” said the stranger, “I have come with the object of gaining
your help. Mr. Connor has told me that he has already informed you
about Reale’s millions. Briefly, I have decided to forestall other
people, and secure the money for myself. I offer you a half share of
the money, to be equally divided amongst you, and as an earnest of my
intention, I am paying each man who is willing to help me a hundred
pounds down.”
He drew from one of his pockets a thick package of notes, and from two
other pockets similar bundles. He handed them to Connor, and the hungry
eyes of the “Borough Lot” focused upon the crinkling paper.
“What I shall ask you to do,” the stranger proceeded, “I shall tell you
later----”
“Wait a bit,” interrupted Bat. “Who else is in this?”
“We alone,” replied the man.
“Is Jimmy in it?”
“No.”
“Is Angel in it?”
“No” (impatiently).
“Go on,” said Bat, satisfied.
“The money is in a safe that can only be opened by a word. That word
nobody knows--so far. The clue to the word was stolen a few nights ago
from the lawyer in charge of the case by--Jimmy.”
He paused to note the effect of his words.
“Jimmy has passed the clue on to Scotland Yard, and we cannot hope to
get it.”
“Well?” demanded Bat.
“What we can do,” the other went on, “is to open the safe with
something more powerful than a word.”
“But the guard!” said Bat. “There’s an armed guard kept there by the
lawyer.”
“We can arrange about the guard,” said the other.
“Why not get at the lawyer?” It was Curt Goyle who made the suggestion.
The stranger frowned.
“The lawyer cannot be got at,” he said shortly. “Now, are you with me?”
There was no need to ask. Connor was sorting the notes into little
bundles on the table, and the men came up one by one, took their money,
and after a few words with Connor took their leave, with an awkward
salutation to the stranger.
Bat was the last to go.
“To-morrow night--here,” muttered Connor.
He was left alone with the newcomer, save for the old man, who hadn’t
changed his attitude, and was still in the midst of some imaginary
conversation.
“Who is this?” the stranger demanded.
Connor smiled.
“An old chap as mad as a March hare. A gentleman, too, and a scholar;
talks all sorts of mad languages--Latin and Greek and the Lord knows
what. He’s been a schoolmaster, I should say, and what brought him down
to this--drink or drugs or just ordinary madness--I don’t know.”
The stranger looked with interest at the unconscious man, and old
George, as if suddenly realizing that he was under scrutiny, woke up
with a start and sat blinking at the other. Then he shuffled slowly
to his feet and peered closely into the stranger’s face, all the time
sustaining his mumbled conversation.
“Ah,” he said in a voice rising from its inaudibility, “a gentleman!
Pleased to meet you, sir, pleased to meet you. _Omnia mutantur, nos et
mutamur in illis_, but you have not changed.”
He relapsed again into mutterings.
“I have never met him before,” the stranger said, turning to Connor.
“Oh, old George always thinks he has met people,” said Connor with a
grin.
“A gentleman,” old George muttered, “every inch a gentleman, and a
munificent patron. He bought a copy of my book--you have read it? It
is called--dear me, I have forgotten what it is called--and sent to
consult me in his--ah!--anagram----”
“What?” The stranger’s face was ashen, and he gripped Connor by the
arm. “Listen, listen!” he whispered fiercely.
Old George threw up his head again and stared blandly at the stranger.
“A perfect gentleman,” he said with pathetic insolence, “invariably
addressing me as the ‘professor’--a most delicate and gentlemanly thing
to do.”
He pointed a triumphant finger to the stranger.
“I know you!” he cried shrilly, and his cracked laugh rang through
the room. “Spedding, that’s your name! Lawyer, too. I saw you in the
carriage of my patron.”
“The book, the book!” gasped Spedding. “What was the name of your book?”
Old George’s voice had dropped to its normal level when he replied with
extravagant courtesy--
“That is the one thing, sir, I can never remember.”