THE MILLIONAIRES' CLUB.
"It's this way," Parker began a trifle importantly--and something there
was in his way of saying even these three words which made me suspect
him to be a man fond of the sound of his own voice. Though entirely
uneducated, he had, as I afterwards heard, a keen memory, and a ready
knack of picking up scraps of information, both of which stood him in
good stead in the speeches upon social subjects which he was apt to
deliver in the parks on Sunday afternoons, and at other places where
debaters foregather.
"It was this way, Mr. Grant. What with the strikes, and the work going
out of the country, to Germany and America, and never coming back, in
consequence of the strikes, things have been cruel hard in East London
this winter, and when a big firm of ship-builders closed their yards,
and went North, that meant starvation to thousands of us. Then the
Dumpling turned up, and used to address meetings of the unemployed.
'Law!' he says to them as was agitating to have the law altered, 'while
you are asking for law, your wives and children are starving. The law
won't do nothing for you unless you force it; and the rate you're going
on, you won't force it--not an inch in ten years; and where will you
be then? Starved, and in your graves, you and your wives and children.
You can send a score or two of your Labour leaders to Parliament, and
much good that will do you. They can't make laws; there aren't enough
of them in Parliament to do it. They get voted down, and then where are
you? Look here, boys,' he says; 'it's Parliament as makes the laws,
and Parliament, even this Parliament, a big part of it, is made up of
landowners, and landlords, and company promoters, and capitalists, and
big employers, and sweaters. They aren't going to make laws against
themselves--'tain't likely. For one poor man in Parliament there's
fifty rich, and you haven't got no chance there. But, boys,' he says,
a-wagging his finger at us, 'for every rich man in Parliament there's
hundreds and thousands out o' Parliament as is poor and starving.
You're in a minority in Parliament, and minorities always get crushed.
We have got it on the authority of a Cabinet Minister--and _he_ ought
to know. But it's _them_ as is in a minority outside. If you have men's
blood in your veins, you'll up and crush them. You're a thousand to
one, you poor, what sweat and slave and starve to make money for the
rich folk to spend. What I say to you is: Don't plead for your rights
no more. You take 'em, as you can if you like, and let the rich people
have a turn at the pleading. It's you who hold the whip--not them. If
the down-trodden people of the country was only to rise up and assert
their rights, the landlords and landowners and grabbers and sweaters
couldn't hold out for one hour. Come out of it, boys! Come out of it,
all of you who are men and not monkeys. Monkeys!' he says. 'Yes, you
are monkeys. You are like monkeys chained to a piano-organ, and the
piano-organ that's what they call Parliament. The poor man he has to
do the dancing and get the whip, same as the monkey does, and the rich
man gets the money and chooses the tune. But, boys,' he says, 'do you
think if there was a million o' monkeys for every man as kept a monkey
and an organ--do you think the monkeys would go on letting themselves
be kept like slaves upon a chain? Not they! They'd be up and fight for
their lives and liberty with nails and teeth.'"
All this time we had been drifting slowly down the river on the slack
of the tide. The night was now very dark and inclined to be foggy, so I
turned the boat's head round, and began to pull towards town.
"What was the scheme that was to be carried out to-night?" I questioned.
"What are we going back for, and where are you taking me?" asked Parker
suspiciously, counter-questioning.
"I'm going back," I replied, "because it's getting very dark and
promises to be foggy. Get on with your story, but do your best to cut
it short."
"I don't want to make it any longer than I can help," was the reply;
"but if I don't tell it my own way I can't tell it at all. Well, that's
the way the Dumpling talked to us, and there was no denying that what
he said was true. And he did more than talk at meetings. He got hold
of Smudgy and me and some more of us, and said if we'd throw in our
lot with him he'd see we were paid something each week out of a fund
that had been started in America and Germany and other places, for the
benefit of agitators and workers in the cause of liberty all over the
world. And he kept his word, too. We got it regular each week, and by
and by he put us on to little jobs--I needn't stop to tell you about
them now--that put more money in our way. We kicked at some of them at
first, but he's a nasty man to argue with, and pointed out that we were
helping the cause by taking money from the rich to use it for them as
was working in the cause of the poor, and after that we said----"
"You're rather long-winded, my friend," I interrupted; "and again I
must point out to you that it's getting cold and foggier and late.
Can't you cut the thing shorter yet, and come to the opium den and
to-night's work?"
"That's just what I was going to," replied Parker in an injured tone.
"Perhaps I am a bit long-winded. The Dumpling used to say I was, and
he's one of them clever ones what ought to know. He said once----"
"Oh, never mind what he said!" I interrupted impatiently. "Get on
quickly to the opium den and to-night's work. It's of that I wish to
hear."
"One night," continued Parker, "the Dumpling asked Smudgy and me if
we'd like to stand in with him in a little scheme he'd got to make a
pot of money. And this very night we was to meet in that opium den--us
as was in it--to arrange things. I didn't half like the job, that's
the fact, especially when I found that detectives were on the track.
But the Dumpling isn't the sort of man you find it easy to say 'No'
to, when he turns that north eye of his on you. Makes me feel quite
helpless, he does, and cold all down my back."
I nodded.
"Yes, I can believe he's not a pleasant customer to come the wrong side
of; but that's no excuse for you and Smudgy trying to murder me."
"We didn't mean murdering you or anyone else," protested Parker. "The
Dumpling he says to us, 'Boys,' he says, 'I've got everything arranged,
and we'll carry this thing through to-night. But I don't play no losing
games. Grant, the detective, is on our track, and if he comes between
us and our business--him and his blue coats--he'll have to take the
consequences. So you'd better be armed,' he says, and he gives Smudgy
and me and the other chaps a revolver each, and a knife. 'Don't shoot
unless you have to, or unless I tell you to,' he says. 'Them as plays
the game we're going to play had best keep a silent tongue in their
head, and there's no tongue so silent and so sure as a sharp knife. It
does the work and don't holloa about it. But pistols is noisy servants.
So don't use the shooting irons unless you're compelled to.'
"Smudgy and me we took the knives--I've got mine on me now--and the
pistols, but we agreed we wouldn't use 'em. Nabbing a bit o' money's
one thing, but getting nabbed for murder's quite another."
"What was the business you were to carry out to-night?" I interrupted
once more. "Are you trying to talk out the time, under the idea that
you'll be rescued, or something of that sort?"
"I'm coming to it now," replied Parker sulkily. "It's you as keeps
putting me off with interruptions. There's a club what they call
'The Millionaires' Club.' There aren't many in it--seven, I think the
Dumpling said; but they're all millionaires, and all of 'em was quite
poor men once, poor as me and Smudgy. Now they've got millions, and
live in mansions in Park Lane, and has ten-course dinners off gold and
silver plates. But I say, Mr. Grant, can't I be untied now? I'm numb
with cold and with lying here so long. I've very nearly finished my
story, and, if you'll loose me, I'll promise to finish it faithful to
the end."
"There's no reason why you shouldn't have your ankles free and sit up,"
I said, hauling in the sculls and laying them alongside as I stooped
to unfasten the rope that was lashed about Parker's feet. "We'll talk
about taking the handcuffs off when you've done. Go on--I'm listening.
This knot here's rather tight, but I can hear what you say while I'm
undoing it."
"Once a month," continued Parker, whilst I was tugging at the
knot, "these millionaires meet secretly in the back parlour in a
public-house out Shadwell way, and have a feed o' tripe and onions,
or pigs' trotters or chitlings or faggots, or stewed eels or fried
fish, or something of that sort, and drink four half out of pint
pots, and smoke shag tobacco in clay pipes, and play shove-ha'penny
and pitch-and-toss for coppers. It's coming off to-night, this Crœsus
bean-feast and blow-out, as the Dumpling calls it; and he's planned
to kidnap one of 'em on their way home, and make him pay a thumping
big sum for ransom money. The place was to be---- Hi! Look out, there!
There's a big ship coming out of the fog just behind you. My God! She's
on us. And me tied up like this! Let me loose, for Christ's sake! It's
murder. It's----"
Simultaneously with a sudden crash--under the impact of which the boat
seemed to shiver like a live thing--the blurred fog-blinded lights on
the river banks broke into zigzagging globes of yellow light that shot
backwards and forwards, upward and downward and sideways before my
eyes, as gnats dart and dance and dodge among themselves on a summer
eve. Then these lights all ran together into a streak of yellow fire.
The boat seemed to leap forward and to rise under us, as a horse which
has staggered to its knees, when hit by a bullet, strives to struggle
forward and to its feet under its rider; and the next instant the
frail craft went to pieces and fell away from under us.
In that instant I saw the ghastly face of Parker staring up
horror-stricken at what looked like the high and perpendicular side
of a house which was about to fall upon us, and that, in the act of
overtoppling, seemed momentarily to hang and hover and brood gloatingly
above our head. Then there came the deadly and numbing chill of
ice-cold and rushing water that sucked us down and under, as if to the
falling house's very foundations.