"What on _earth_ are those fellows doing?" he continued.
"Re-laying the road, perhaps."
"One doesn't re-lay a road by making a deep hole in it."
"Well--gas!"
"Gas and electric light mains in this street are all led along a special
conduit reached by manholes every eighty yards," said Champion. "There's
no need to dig."
"Well--drains!" said I vaguely. But I was a mere child in the hands of
this expert.
"The drains, as you call them," he said testily, "consist of a great
sewer away in the depths, accessible from various appointed places.
Besides, nobody in his senses tries to lift earth out of a hole with a
pick-axe."
"Perhaps the solution of the mystery lies inside the wigwam," I said.
"No. That is just what complicates matters. When a shaft leading down to
the electric light mains is opened, one of those canvas shelters is put
over the top. Now there is nothing under that shelter--nothing but the
bit of road it covers. The thing seems to be simply a stage accessory,
planted there to give the encampment an aspect of reality. Ah, look at
that!"
"That" was a small piece of paving-wood, dexterously hurled by the
dirty-faced boy, who seemed to be finding time hang rather heavily on
his hands. It took a passing citizen in the small of the back, but when
he swung round to detect the source of the missile the boy was on his
knees again industriously blowing up the brazier.
With an indignant snort the citizen passed on his way, doubtless adding
the outrage, in his mind, to the long list of unsolved London crimes.
But retribution awaited the youthful miscreant. The phlegmatic policeman
who was regulating the traffic on the single-line system happened to
notice the deed. He walked majestically across from the far side of the
street towards our excavating friends.
"Come on!" said Champion to me. "There's going to be some fun."
We stepped out through one of the windows, which possessed a broad
balcony, and took our stand behind some laurels in tubs which lined the
balustrade. The street was comparatively quiet at the time, and we were
able to hear most of the dialogue that ensued.
"'Ere, mate," began the traffic-expert to the smaller of the two
navvies, "just ketch that boy of yours a clip on the side of the 'ead,
will you?"
The smaller man desisted from his labours in the hole.
"Wotsye, ole sport?" he inquired cheerily.
The policeman was a little ruffled by this familiarity.
"I'll trouble _you_," he repeated with some hauteur, "to ketch that boy
of yours a clip on the side of the 'ead. If not, I shall 'ave to do my
duty, according----"
Here the roar of a passing dray drowned his utterance.
The smaller man clambered nimbly out of the hole and proceeded to grab
his young friend by the scruff of the neck.
"Billy," he remarked dispassionately, "this gentleman says as 'ow I'm to
give you a clip on the side of the 'ead."
"Woffor," inquired Billy, simulating extreme terror.
The man passed the question on to the policeman, who explained the
nature of the offence. His statement was voluntarily corroborated by
several members of an audience which seemed to have materialised from
nowhere, and now formed a ring round the encampment.
"Righto!" said the man with cheery acquiescence. "Billy, my lad, you've
got to 'ave it."
"Tha's right, ole son! You give 'im socks," remarked a hoarse and rather
indistinct voice of the gin-and-fog variety, from among the spectators.
Simultaneously its owner lurched his way to the front rank, the others
making room for him with that respectful sympathy, not unmixed with
envy, which is always accorded to a true-born Briton in his condition.
He was obviously a member of some profession connected with coal-dust,
and it was plain that he had been celebrating the conclusion of his
day's labours.
The smaller navvy, thus exhorted, administered the desired clip. It was
not a particularly severe one, but it drew from its recipient the
somewhat unexpected expostulation--
"You silly ass! Not so hard!"
Where had I heard that stentorian but childish voice before? Who was
this road-breaker's acolyte, with his brazier, his dirty face, and--a
public-school accent?
I leaned over the balustrade and surveyed him and his two companions.
Then I drew my breath sharply.
Merciful heavens!
The dirty-faced boy was my brother-in-law, Master Gerald Rubislaw, the
clip-administerer was Dicky Lever, and the gigantic and taciturn navvy
was--my Secretary!
Having witnessed the carrying-out of the sentence, the policeman
returned to his duties; none too soon; for a furniture van and a
butcher's cart, locked in an inextricable embrace, the subject of a
sulphurous duet between their respective proprietors, called loudly for
his attention.
Meanwhile Coaldust, who had been inspecting the result of our friends'
united labours with some interest, suddenly echoed the question which
had first exercised Champion's logical mind by inquiring what the blank
dash the two adjectival criminals and the qualified nipper thought they
were doing to the asterisked road.
He received no encouragement. Robin was now engaged with a hammer and
chisel in cutting a sort of touch-line all round the encampment, while
Dicky did not cease manfully to delve with the pick-axe in the pit which
he had digged for himself. For a long time they turned a deaf ear to the
anxious inquiries of their interlocutor.
But there are limits to long-suffering. Coaldust's witticisms increased
with his audience, and at last Dicky turned to Robin and cried, with a
really admirable maintenance of character and accent--
"'Ere, Scotty, come and give this bloke one in the neck. 'E's askin' for
it!"
Robin deliberately suspended operations, rose heavily to his feet, and
cleared his throat. Then he turned upon the alcoholic Coaldust. I
strained my ears. Surely _he_ was not going to talk Cockney!
Far from it. He stuck to his last.
"See here, ma man," he roared, in a voice that made the crowd jump, "are
ye for a ding on the side o' the heid?"
Coaldust capitulated with alacrity.
"No offence, 'Orace!" he remarked genially. "You an' me was always pals.
Put it there!" He extended an ebony hand, which Robin solemnly shook and
returned to his work.
Whatever my three friends were up to, it is possible that they might now
have been left in peace for some time; for the crowd, seeing no chance
of further sport from Coaldust, began to melt away. But a fresh
character entered the scene to keep alive the nagging interest of the
drama.
My first intimation that something new was afoot came from an errand-boy
on the edge of the crowd, who, addressing a lady or ladies unseen,
suddenly expressed a desire to be chased.
All heads were now turned down the street, and there, approaching with
rather faltering steps, carrying a red cotton bundle and a tea-can, I
beheld--one of my sisters-in-law!
Postulating Dicky, I presumed it was Dilly, and I began to piece
together in my mind the plot of this elaborate comedy. Evidently Dicky,
Robin, and Gerald had decided--for a bet, or because they were dared, or
possibly with a view to giving Champion's Bill a leg-up by a practical
demonstration of the crying need for it--to dress themselves up as
workmen and come and "do a turn," as they say in the music halls, to the
discomfort of his Majesty's lieges and the congestion of traffic, upon
some sufficiently busy thoroughfare for a stated period of time.
Certainly they were doing it rather well. They were admirably made
up,--Dicky was a past-master at that sort of thing,--and their
operations so far had been sufficiently like the genuine article to
impose upon the public in general,--if we except Champion and
Coaldust,--even to the point of securing the assistance of the
traffic-directing policeman.
But alas! with that one step further, which is so often fatal to great
enterprises, they had sought to add a finishing touch of realism to
their impersonation by the inclusion of a little feminine interest; and
to that end Dilly had been added to the cast--or more likely had added
herself--in the _rôle_ of a young person of humble station bringing her
affianced his tea.
And, not for the first time in the history of man, it was the woman who
opened the door to disaster.
Dilly wore a natty print dress--probably my housemaid's--with a tartan
shawl over her head. She had on her thickest shoes, but they were
woefully smart and thin for a girl of her class. Moreover, her hair was
beautifully arranged under the shawl, and her hands--though she had had
the sense to discard her ruby and sapphire engagement-ring--were too
white and her face was too clean to lend conviction to her
impersonation. In short, in her desire to present a pleasing _tout
ensemble_--an object in which I must say she had succeeded to
perfection--Dilly had utterly neglected detail and histrionic accuracy.
Evidently she was not expecting a gallery. Two highly-interested
concentric circles--one of people and one of dogs--round her _fiancé's_
encampment was rather more than she had bargained for. She had emerged
quite suddenly from a side street (which I knew led to a shortcut from
home) and now paused irresolutely a few yards away, crimson to the roots
of her hair, what time the errand-boy, with looks of undisguised
admiration, continued to reiterate his desire to be pursued.
The crowd all turned and stared at poor Dilly. Obviously they did not
know what to make of her. Possibly she was some one from the chorus of a
musical comedy going to be photographed, possibly she was merely "a bit
balmy," or possibly she was an advertisement for something, and would
begin to distribute hand-bills presently. So far, she merely looked as
if she wanted to cry.
It was Robin who saw her first. He immediately stepped over his
newly-completed touch-line, and taking the spotted bundle and the
tea-can from her hands, conducted her ceremoniously within the magic
circle, saying, in a voice much more like his own than before--
"Come away, lassie!"
Dicky looked up from his labours at this, and beheld his _fiancée_ for
the first time. All he said was--
"By gad, you've done it after all! Bravo!"
But Dilly did not appear to be at all gratified She merely sat on
Gerald's little mountain of paving-blocks, looking as if she could not
decide whether to throw her apron over her face and scream, or take a
header into the wigwam. My heart bled for her in spite of her folly. The
crowd, deeply interested and breathing hard, stood round waiting for the
performance to begin.
It was Coaldust who took the lead.
"Tip us a song and dance, Clara," he said encouragingly.
Robin, who had been making a show of unfastening the bundle, suddenly
rose to his feet. Coaldust saw him.
"All right, Carnegie," he remarked hurriedly. "No offence, ole pal!"
But Robin turned to Dicky, and the two held a hasty conversation, whose
nature I could guess. Dilly could not be exposed to this sort of thing
any longer. They began to put on their coats.
"They are going to give it up," I said, not without relief. "About time,
isn't it? Do you recognise them, Champion?"
But Champion, I found, was gone--probably to establish an _alibi_.
Perhaps he was right. Questions might be asked in the House about this.
When I turned again to the scene below I found that the crowd had
thickened considerably, and that the policeman had once more left the
traffic to congest itself, and joined in the game.
"You must tell that young woman to move on," he said to Dicky, not
unkindly. "She's causin' a crowd to collect, and that's a thing she can
be give in charge for."
"All right," said Dicky hurriedly, "we're all going."
The policeman, struck by this sudden anxiety to oblige, became
suspicious.
"All of you?" he said. "'Ow about this mess in the road?"
Robin came to the rescue.
"We'll be back presently and sort it," he said reassuringly.
"Of course," said Dicky, pulling himself together. "Back in 'arf a tick,
governor!"
"Don't you go callin' me names," said the policeman, as the spectators
indulged in happy laughter.
"Sorry!--I mean, certainly!" said Dicky, getting flustered. (I could see
Robin glowering at him.) "We are just going down the street a minute.
This--er--girl has brought us a bit of bad news. There's been an
accident happened--er----"
"To her puir old mither," put in Robin, whom I began to suspect of
rather enjoying this entertainment for its own sake.
This heartrending piece of intelligence touched the crowd, and Coaldust
was instantly forward in proposing an informal vote of condolence, which
was seconded by a bare-armed lady in a deerstalker cap. But the
policeman, evidently roused by our friends' ill-judged and precipitate
attempt to strike camp, suddenly produced a pocket-book from his tunic,
and said--
"It is my duty to take your names and addresses, together with the name
of the firm employing you."
This announcement obviously disconcerted Dicky and Robin; for it is one
thing to take part in a masquerade, and another to get out of the
consequences thereof by cold-drawn lying.
However, the policeman was sucking his pencil and waiting, so Dicky
said--
"You can get all the information you want from the Borough Surveyor."