A BODY FROM THE RIVER
Captain Peter Quist, for some two or three days after his parting with
Philip Chater, roamed about uneasily, in his search for a desirable
circus which might happen to be for disposal, and which might possess
the additional advantage of having attached to it a fat lady or two,
who might not object to show herself, for a consideration, to a curious
public. On more than one occasion, he entered into negotiations with
gentlemen—usually hoarse as to voice, and inflamed as to
countenance—who appeared, at first, to possess the very thing he
wanted; whereupon, “toothfuls” were exchanged, and much conversation
ensued.
But the guileless captain always discovered, when it came to actual
business, that the “circus” consisted of a caravan or two, in a state
of advanced dilapidation, up a yard; that the horses (if there had ever
been any) were long since dead, or engaged in agricultural pursuits;
that the clowns had long since left off being funny, and taken, for the
most part, to itinerant preaching; that the fat ladies had retired from
business—married the man who took the money at the doors—and started
public-houses.
Some three or four days of such hopeless interviewing having reduced
the Captain to a state of despondency, he cast about in his mind for
something which should restore him to his usual condition of placid
cheerfulness; and, having imbibed somewhat freely of his favourite
beverage, and being then on the outskirts of those narrow and
straggling little streets beyond the actual town of Woolwich,
discovered that the river drew him, like a magnet—probably from the
fact of his legs being somewhat unsteady, and causing him, for that
reason, to imagine that they were sea-going, like his mind.
Wandering down some slippery stone steps, leading to a causeway of
cobble-stones, and doing so at the imminent risk of his life, owing to
his condition, the Captain precipitated himself on to the shoulders of
a little man, who was seated on the top of a wooden post, with his chin
propped in his hands, and who was gazing in a melancholy fashion at the
water. The Captain, having saved both himself and the little man, by
clasping him affectionately round the neck, broke into profuse
apologies. And, indeed, they were necessary; for the little man—who
was very shabby, and had no linen that was visible, but whose whiskers
had a bedraggled air of having once been fashionable—was almost
speechless with rage and fright; and danced about on the causeway,
shaking his fist, and threatening—in a thin piping voice, and with
many oaths—his vengeance upon the Captain.
“’Ere—’old ’ard, guv’nor—’old ’ard,” exclaimed the Captain. “This
comes of gettin’ into bad company; I’m surprised at a man of your
hage, usin’ all them naughty words; w’erever did yer learn ’em,
mess-mate? It wasn’t my fault, Mister; the steps was a slide—an’
these ’ere stones is all bumps; an’ w’en a man comes from a slide to
bumps—sudden-like—I puts it to you that ’e ain’t responsible for
’isself. An’ I ’umbly asks yer pardon.”
The little man, appearing somewhat appeased, sat down on his post
again, and meditatively pulled at his whiskers—glancing round now and
then at the Captain, as though apprehensive of his indulging in some
other gymnastic performance. The Captain, for his part, being of a
peaceful nature, began to make, overtures of friendliness—the more so
that he had a dim notion in his brain that he had seen the little man
on a previous occasion.
However, as the little man remained obstinately silent, despite all the
Captain’s conversational overtures, that gentleman turned his attention
to the boats, several of which were moored near at hand, with a man
sitting near by, smoking, and keeping an eye upon them. This man, as a
familiar spirit, the Captain accosted.
“Nice boats you’ve got ’ere,” said the Captain, casually.
“Ah”—responded the man, looking the Captain up and down—“the boats is
all right.” By which he seemed to imply that somebody else was not.
“I suppose a man might ’ire a boat—eh?” was the Captain’s next enquiry.
“Do you fink they’re on this ’ere river for the kids to look at—or to
pervide me with amoosement in bailin’ of ’em out?” asked the man,
indignantly.
The Captain, meekly repudiating the idea that any such thought was in
his mind, carried his enquiry a little further, by asking if he might
“’ire one for a hour or so.”
“Can yer row?” asked the man, after a pause.
“Can I what?” shouted the Captain.
The man coolly repeated his question, and went on placidly smoking. The
Captain, when he had recovered his breath, spoke with an unnatural
calmness.
“P’raps, my man, you takes me for a omnibus conductor,” he said. “Bring
round one of them boats, an’ steady ’er w’ile I gits in—will yer?”
The man, seeing that the Captain really meant business, knocked the
ashes out of his pipe, got into one of the boats, and slowly pushed it
from where it was moored until it bumped against the causeway. The
Captain, in his delight at the prospect of being once more afloat,
suddenly remembered the little man with the faded whiskers, who had sat
all this time, absolutely unmoved, on his post.
“’Ere—mess-mate—let bygorns be bygorns—an’ come an’ ’ave a blow.” He
clutched the little man by the arm, in a jocular fashion, and made as
if to pull him towards the boat.
It unfortunately happened, however, that the little man was nearly
asleep; being pulled from his seat with such violence, and so
unexpectedly, he had only a dim idea of what was happening, and of
where he was. Realising, however, that he was in the grip of a stronger
man, he suddenly flung himself fiercely upon the Captain, driving that
gentleman backwards towards the boat. The Captain, for his part, in an
endeavour to protect himself, made a rough-and-tumble of it, and
twisted the little man clean off his legs. Moreover, he twisted him too
far; and, being very unsteady on his legs himself, fairly rolled with
him off the causeway into the boat.
The man in charge of the boat—being, probably, very glad to get rid of
them; and feeling, perhaps, that they had better be left to settle
whatever differences they might have in their own fashion, immediately
shoved the boat off; so that, by the time the Captain got his head out
of the bottom of the boat, and sat up to look at his passenger, they
were well out into the stream.
“This comes of keepin’ bad company,” murmured the Captain, ruefully
rubbing the back of his head. “However, I asked you to come fer a
blow—and you’ve come accordin’; but you needn’t ’ave bin in sich a
’urry, an’ come with sich a rush.”
With these words, the Captain took the oars, and dexterously pulled
into the stream, out of the way of a lumbering barge—exchanging a
little light and airy badinage with the man in charge of that craft as
it passed him. The little man, who had been so unceremoniously taken
for an airing, appeared to take the matter in good part; picked up his
dilapidated silk hat from the bottom of the boat—put it on—and sat,
grimly silent, watching the Captain.
“It’s a nice arternoon fer a row,” said the Captain pleasantly, as he
pulled sturdily. “Ain’t yer glad you come alonger me, mess-mate?”
The little man murmured something uncomplimentary, and then was silent.
The Captain, who began to feel the sobering effects of the breeze and
the exercise, smiled upon him benignly, and pulled harder. After a long
pause, the little man, who had been staring at him intently, nodded his
head three or four times, and spoke again.
“I thought I’d seen you before,” he said, in his thin piping voice.
“Now I’m sure of it. It was on Tuesday—and you were with that infernal
Chater.”
The Captain almost dropped his oars in his astonishment. “Why—so it
was!” he exclaimed. “You was a sittin’ at the table; I’d seed yer just
afore the light went out.”
The little man, for some unknown reason, began to tremble; looked all
about him, indeed, as though contemplating making a sudden exit from
the boat. “What do you want with me?” he asked, in a whining voice.
“I don’t want nothink with yer,” replied the Captain, staring at him.
“Thought you might like a turn on the river, in a friendly way—that’s
all.”
“Don’t tell lies!” ejaculated the other. “I can tell you this: you
won’t get any good out of me. I’m only a poor old man, who’s been
unfortunate, and has fallen on evil days. If you think you’ll make
anything out of me, you’re much mistaken. What do you want with me?”
The Captain looked at him in amazement; the little man’s terror
appeared so strong. “W’y—wot do you take me for?” he asked.
“Oh—I know what you are,” cried the little man, wagging his head.
“You’re a split—a detective—a policeman. I know what you are.”
The Captain stood up in the boat, and put himself in a fighting
attitude. “Say that again—and I’ll knock you out of the boat!” he
shouted. “I’d ’ave yer know that I’m a decent sailor-man—an’ a captain
at that. ’Oo are you a callin’ a policeman?”
“The Shady ’un said so,” replied the little man, tremulously.
“That Shady gent said a good many things as ’e’ll ’ave to answer for,”
said the Captain, sitting down again. “W’y, if I’d wanted to run yer
in, I reckon I could ’ave picked yer up under my arm, an’ done it easy,
without ’irin’ a boat for it——’Ullo—wot’s that?”
The boat, travelling slowly, had struck something—struck it softly,
but sufficiently to send a slight quiver through its timbers. The
Captain, backing water at once, peered over the side; dipped an oar
deep, and swung the boat’s head round with a sturdy pull; leaned over,
and caught at something bobbing near the surface of the water. His
carelessness had gone in a moment; he was the quick, masterful man,
used to a boat, and used to matters of life and death.
“Sit tight there,” he commanded. “’Ere—ketch this oar; that’s it—keep
her steady. There’s a body ’ere!”
The mention of that seemed to stir something in the little man; he
became all attention, in a moment, and watched the other’s movements
with alert eyes.
“Can’t get ’im into the boat,” said the Captain, in a low voice. “’E’s
dead—bin dead days, I should think. Throw me that line there.”
The little man obeying promptly, the Captain, leaning over the edge of
the boat, made the line fast to that grim thing bobbing alongside; and
then turned the boat’s head for the shore, and pulled hard. The little
man in the stern was so interested in that grisly passenger, that he
must needs go to the very end of the boat, at the imminent risk of
losing his silk hat—and peer at the thing as it came along behind,
making a wake in the water as it swept through it.
They happened, by this time, to be quite clear of the town, and to have
come to a spot where the bank was low and flat, and where it was easy
to run the boat ashore. This the Captain did, and together they leapt
out—hauled the boat up—and afterwards hauled in the body.
As it came in on the line, hand over hand—seeming, in their
imagination, to assist the operation horribly, by crawling up over the
dank mud, the Captain and the little man bent forward together, to look
at it; and started back, as one man, at the sight of the swollen,
distorted features. For it was the body of Dandy Chater.
Dandy Chater—born to such good and prosperous things—having his
beginnings in such fair and unclouded circumstances—to have come to
this at last! Well for him, surely, that the mother, at whose knee he
had lisped his childish supplications to Heaven, was dead, before this
thing fronted the world, and grinned back at it so horribly! To be
found like this—muddy—soiled—broken—awful—dead—by two strangers,
far away from the fair and pleasant places through which he had
wandered in his innocent boyhood!
The Captain—raising his head from the contemplation of what he
believed to be the features of his dead friend Philip Crowdy—was
confronted by the startled eyes of the little man with the faded
whiskers. For a long minute, they stared at each other in silence; the
thoughts of each were busy—for each had something to hide.
For his part, Captain Peter Quist—whatever his personal grief may have
been—bore in remembrance certain words impressed strongly upon him by
the supposed Philip Crowdy; an injunction laid upon him not to reveal
who he was, or that he was living under another name. The Captain—good
honest fellow that he was—had a very sincere regard for his friend;
and, believing that he had, in a moment of indiscretion, got mixed up
with some queer people, was glad to feel that he could bury the
knowledge of it in his own breast, as surely as the dead man would be
buried in his grave. Sorrowing for him as he did, and bitterly vengeful
as he felt, in his heart, at the mere suspicion that there had been
foul play, he yet had the philosophic feeling that it did not matter
now, as the man was dead; and the gentle thought that it would be a
vile thing to defame one no longer able to defend himself.
The little man—who was, of course, no other than the Dr. Cripps of
“The Three Watermen”—had equally strong reasons for preserving
silence. With that scene in the upper room of the little public-house
still clearly before his mental vision, he saw, in this tragedy, the
vengeance of some member or members of the gang—a vengeance prompted
by fear that Dandy Chater had betrayed them. Being himself remarkably
closely connected with that gang, he saw his own head in peril, if any
stir were raised about this business. Therefore, it will be seen that
the two men had equally strong reasons for saying nothing about the
identity of the man who lay dead between them.
The Captain, however, being, in his sober moments, a cautious man,
looked attentively at the other, and said slowly—“Bad business—this
’ere. Do you ’appen to know the gent?”
“No—never saw him in my life. How the devil should I?” stammered
Cripps, with his teeth chattering.
“Nor me,” said the Captain. After a long pause, he asked—“Wot are we
agoin’ to do with ’im?”
The question was answered for them, in an abrupt and startling manner;
for another face—that of a very dirty, keen-eyed, ragged-headed
urchin, whose bare feet had brought him silently over the muddy
bank—was obtruded between them, and stared down into the face of the
dead man. Before either of them had time to say a word, the urchin
leapt to his feet again, with a cry, and scudded away in the direction
of the nearest houses.
“That’s done it,” murmured the Captain, in a resigned voice; “we’ll
’ave a policeman ’ere, in no time.” Then, a sudden thought striking
him, he looked at the little man, and asked slowly—“Wot’s your opinion
of ’ookin’ it, mess-mate?”
Dr. Cripps appearing to be too dazed fully to comprehend the situation,
the Captain took him by the shoulders—gave him a shake or two—and
stated the case.
“We can’t do no good by stoppin’ ’ere,” he said. “We shall only be
’awled up at the hinquest, an’ asked awkward questions. Nobody ain’t
seen us—’cept that young limb—an’ I doubt if ’e knows us again.
Therefore—wot I ses is—into the boat with yer—an’ let’s cut our
lucky!”
Cripps appearing to grasp this point, after some difficulty, they left
the dead man on the shore, and pushed off the boat, and made for
Woolwich. Going, without further mishap, up the stream, they landed at
the causeway from which they had so unceremoniously started—apparently
greatly to the surprise and satisfaction of the man to whom the boat
belonged.
“Got back, yer see,” said the Captain, carelessly, as he stepped on to
the causeway, and gave a hand to the little man.
“So I see,” replied the man, pocketing the money which the Captain
handed to him. “’Ad a nice row?”
“Oh—so-so,” responded the Captain. “I should like to give you an ’int,
young man,” he added. “W’en you’re a shovin’ orf a boat nex’ time, it
wouldn’t be a bad idea to give a man a chance of settin’ down fust. It
ain’t wot you’d call a ’ealthy style of rowin’, w’en you starts on the
back of yer neck; it don’t some’ow give yer as good a chance, as if yer
started sittin’ down, with a proper ’old on the oars. _Good_-arternoon!”
But, although the Captain was jocular, his heart was heavy; remembering
the hiding and dodging process through which he had passed, in the
company of the supposed Philip Crowdy, he began to see some dreadful
tragedy—some foul play, which had caused the death of his friend. Yet,
being but a simple seafaring man, and having a great dread of the power
of the law, he saw himself in unheard-of difficulties, if he so much as
attempted to stir in the matter. For had he not found the body—and
then fled from it?
“From the look of that there body,” muttered the Captain to himself, as
he strolled along, in the gathering twilight of the streets—“it’s bin
in the water a day or two—in fact, it might ’ave bin longer, if I
didn’t know as ’ow I’d seen poor old Phil on’y three days back. An’ to
think as ’e was that strong an’ ’earty—an’ now!”
The Captain did not finish his sentence; he shuddered, at the
remembrance of that awful staring thing he had left on the muddy bank
of the Thames; and—feeling somewhat faint—looked about for a house of
refreshment.
When he emerged, after imbibing several glasses of his favourite tonic,
the world wore a brighter aspect; and the honest Captain, swaggering
along the pavement, with an occasional lurch, as though a heavy gale of
wind had struck him—had clean forgotten all about unpleasant bodies,
or the chances and changes of this mortal life; had clean forgotten, in
fact, anything but that the world was a good place, and decent rum a
thing to be thankful for.
Now it happened, by some unlucky chance, that Philip Chater—drawn, by
strong influence, to the scene of the tragedy which had been so vividly
stamped upon his mind—came, that night, to Woolwich; merely wandering
aimlessly, with no settled plan as to the future, or, indeed, as to the
next hour. And it happened, too, that, walking slowly along a dark
street, and coming to the corner of it, he cannoned against a man, who
was rolling along swiftly, chanting a song in a very loud and very deep
voice.
It was the Captain; and that gentleman no sooner caught sight of
Philip, than his song stopped, in the very middle of a note; indeed,
the note turned to a shriek, and Peter Quist, beating off the supposed
apparition with both hands, backed away from it unsteadily; and then,
recovering power of definite motion, fairly turned tail, and ran as if
for his life—leaving Philip alone, at the corner of the street,
staring after him in blank amazement.