keep 'is molds and stuff up there, and then, when there was a scare of
the cops, he used to pop the thing through into the next 'ouse--Mrs.
Jacob 'ad the room next door--and the coppers used to come and sniff
round, but of course there wasn't nothin' to see. Regler suck in for
them. And it was useful if you was follered. You could mizzle in through
the shop, run upstairs, pop through the door, downstairs next door and
out through the back yard. I've done it myself. 'Oo's got the second
floor front now?'
"'I have,' said I. 'I keep the whole of the house.'
"'My eye!' exclaimed my friend, whose name I learned to be Towler, 'you
are a bloomin' toff. Like me to show you that door?'
"I said that I should like it very much, and accordingly, when the
trimming operations were concluded and I had secured a wisp of Mr.
Towler's hair for subsequent examination, we ascended to the second
floor front and he demonstrated the hidden door.
"'It's in this 'ere cupboard, under that row of pegs. That peg
underneath at the side is the 'andle. You catches 'old of it, so, and
you gives a pull to the right.' He suited the action to the words, and,
with a loud groan, the middle third of the back of the cupboard slid
bodily to the right, leaving an opening about three feet square, beyond
which was a solid-looking panel with a small knob at the left-hand side.
"'That,' whispered Towler, 'is the back of a cupboard in the next 'ouse.
If you was to pull that 'andle to the right, it would slide along same
as this one. Only I expect there's somebody in the room there.'
"I rewarded Mr. Towler with half a sovereign, which he evidently thought
liberal, and he departed gleefully. Shortly afterwards I learned that he
had 'got a stretch' in connection with a 'job' at Camberwell; and he
vanished from my ken. But I did not forget the sliding doors. No special
use for them suggested itself, but their potentialities were so obvious
that I resolved to keep a sharp eye on the second floor front next
door.
"I had not long to wait. Presently the whole floor was advertised by a
card on the street door as being to let and I seized the opportunity of
a quiet Sunday to reconnoiter and put the arrangements in going order. I
slid back the panel on my own side and then, dragging at the handle,
pushed back the second panel. Both moved noisily and would require
careful treatment. I passed through the square opening into the vacant
room and looked round, but there was little to see, though a good deal
to smell, for the windows were hermetically sealed and a closed stove
fitted into the fireplace precluded any possibility of ventilation. The
aroma of the late tenants still lingered in the air.
"I returned through the opening and began my labors. First, with a hard
brush I cleaned out both sets of grooves, top and bottom. Then, into
each groove I painted a thick coating of tallow and black lead, mixed
into a paste and heated. By moving the panels backwards and forwards a
great number of times I distributed the lubricant and brought the black
lead to such a polish that the doors slid with the greatest ease and
without a sound. I was so pleased with the result that I was tempted to
engage the room next door, but as this might have aroused
suspicion--seeing that I had a whole house already--I refrained; and
shortly afterwards the floor was taken by a family of Polish Jews, who
apparently supplemented their income by letting part of it furnished.
"I now pass over an intervening period and come to the circumstances of
one of my most interesting and stirring experiences. It was about this
time that some misbegotten mechanician invented the automatic magazine
pistol, and thereby rendered possible a new and execrable type of
criminal. It was not long before the appropriate criminal arrived. The
scene of the first appearance was the suburb of Tottenham, where two
Russian Poles attempted, and failed in, an idiotic street robbery. The
attempt was made in broad daylight in the open street, and the two
wretches, having failed, ran away, shooting at every human being they
met. In the end they were both killed--one by his own hand--but not
until they had murdered a gallant constable and a poor little child and
injured in all, twenty-two persons.
"I read the newspaper account with deep interest and the conviction that
this was only a beginning. Those two frenzied degenerates belonged to a
common enough type; the type of the Slav criminal who has not sense
enough to take precautions nor courage enough to abide the fortune of
war. The automatic pistol, I felt sure, would bring him into view; and I
was not mistaken.
"One night, returning from a tour of inspection, I met a small excited
crowd accompanying a procession of three police ambulances. I joined the
throng and presently turned into a small blind thoroughfare in which had
gathered a small and nervous-looking crowd and a few flurried policemen.
Several of the windows were shattered and on the ground were three
prostrate figures. One was dead, the others were badly wounded, and all
three were members of the police force.
"I watched the ambulances depart with their melancholy burdens and then
turned for information to a bystander. He had not much to give, but the
substance of his account--confirmed later by the newspapers--was this:
The police had located a gang of suspected burglars and three officers
had come to the house to make arrests. They had knocked at the door,
which, after some delay, was opened. Some person within had immediately
shot one of the officers dead and the entire gang of four or five had
rushed out, fired point blank at the other two officers, and then raced
up the street shooting right and left like madmen. Several people had
been wounded and, grievous to relate, the whole gang of miscreants had
made their escape into the surrounding slums.
"I was profoundly interested and even excited for several reasons. In
the first place, here at last was the real Lombroso criminal, the
sub-human mattoid, devoid of intelligence, devoid of the faintest
glimmering of moral sense, fit for nothing but the lethal chamber;
compared with whom the British 'habitual' was a civilized gentleman.
Without a specimen or two of this type, my collection was incomplete.
Then there was the evident applicability of my methods to this class of
offender; methods of quiet extermination without fuss, public disorder
or risk to the precious lives of the police. But beyond these there was
another reason for my interest. The murder of my wife had been a
purposeless, unnecessary crime, committed by some wretch to whom human
life was a thing of no consideration. There was an analogy in the
circumstances that seemed to connect that murder with this type of
miscreant. It was even possible that one of these very villains might be
the one whom I had so patiently sought through the long and weary years.
"The thought fired me with a new enthusiasm. Forthwith I started to
pursue the possible course of the fugitives, threading countless
by-streets and alleys, peering into squalid courts and sending many a
doubtful-looking loiterer shuffling hastily round the nearest corner. Of
course it was fruitless. I had no clue and did not even know the men. I
was merely walking off my own excitement.
"Nevertheless, every night as soon as I had closed my shop, I set forth
on a voyage of exploration, impelled by sheer restlessness; and during
the day I listened eagerly to the talk of my customers in Yiddish--a
language of which I was supposed to be entirely ignorant. But I learned
nothing. Either the fugitives were unknown, or the natural secretiveness
of an alien people forbade any reference to them, even among themselves;
and meanwhile, as I have said, I tramped the streets nightly into the
small hours of the morning.
"Returning from one of these expeditions a little earlier than usual, I
found a small party of policemen and a sprinkling of idlers gathered
opposite the house next door. There was no need to ask what was doing.
The suppressed excitement of the officers and the service revolvers in
their belts told the story. There was going to be another slaughter; and
I was probably too late for any but a spectator's part.
"The street door was open and the house was being quietly emptied of its
human occupants. They came out one by one, shivering and complaining,
with little bundles of their possessions hastily snatched up, and
collected in a miserable group on the pavement. I opened my shop door
and invited them to come in and rest while their messengers went to look
for a harbor of refuge; but I stayed outside to see the upshot of the
proceedings.
"When the last of the tenants had come out, a sergeant emerged and
quietly closed the street door with a latch-key. The rest of the
policemen took up sheltered positions in doorways after warning the
idlers to disperse and the sergeant turned to me.
"'Now, Mr. Vosper, you'd better keep your nose indoors if you don't want
it shot off. There's going to be trouble presently.' He pushed me gently
into the shop and shut the door after me.
"I found the evicted tenants chattering excitedly and very unhappy. But
they were not rebellious. They were mostly Jews, and Jews are a patient,
submissive people. I boiled some water in my little copper and made some
coffee, which they drank gratefully--out of shaving mugs; my outfit of
crockery being otherwise rather limited. And meanwhile they talked
volubly and I listened.
"'I vunder,' said a stout, elderly Jewess, 'how der bolice know dose
shentlemens gom to lotch mit me. Zumpotty must haf toldt dem.'
"'Yus,' agreed an evicted tenant of doubtful occupation, 'some bloomin'
nark has giv 'em away. Good job too. Tain't playin' the game for to go
pottin' at the coppers like that there. Coppers 'as got their job to do
same as what we 'ave. You know that, Mrs. Kosminsky.'
"'Ja, dat is droo,' said the Jewess; 'but dey might let me bring my
dings mit me. Do-morrow is Ky-fox-tay. Now I lose my money.'
"'How is that, Mrs. Kosminsky?' I asked.
"'Pecause I shall sell dem not, de dings vot I buy for Ky-fox-tay; de
fireworks, de gragers, de masgs and oder dings vor de chiltrens.
Dvendy-vaive shillings vort I buy. Dey are in my room on ze zecond
floor. I ask de bolice to let me vetch dem, hot dey say no; I shall
disturb de chentlemens in de front room. Zo I lose my money pecause I
sell dem not.' Here the unfortunate woman burst into tears and I was so
much affected by her distress that I instantly offered to buy the whole
consignment for two pounds, whereat she wept more copiously than ever,
but collected the purchase-money with great promptitude and stowed it
away in a very internal pocket, displaying in the process as many layers
of clothing as an old-fashioned pen-wiper.
"'Ach! Mizder Fosper, you are zo coot to all de boor beebles, dough you
are only a boor man yourzelf. Bot it is de boor vot is de vriendts of de
boor;' and in her gratitude she would have kissed my hands if I had not
prudently stuck them in my trousers pockets.
"A messenger now arrived to say that a refuge had been secured for the
night, and my guests departed with many thanks and benedictions. The
street, as I looked out, was now quite deserted save for one or two
prowling policemen, who, apparently bored with their hiding-places, had
come forth to patrol in the open. I did not stay to watch them, for
Mrs. Kosminsky's remarks had started a train of thought which required
to be carried out quickly. Accordingly I went in and fell to pacing the
empty shop.
"The police, I assumed, were waiting for daylight to rush the house. It
was a mad plan and yet I was convinced that they had no other. And when
they should enter, in the face of a stream of bullets from those
terrible automatic pistols, what a carnage there would be! It was
frightful to think of. Why does the law permit those cowards' tools to
be made and sold? A pistol is the one weapon that has no legitimate use.
An axe, a knife--even a rifle, has some lawful function. But a pistol is
an appliance for killing human beings. It has no other purpose whatever.
A man who is found with house-breaking tools in his possession is
assumed to be a house-breaker. Surely a man who carries a pistol
convicts himself of the intention to kill somebody.
"But perhaps the police had some reasonable plan. It was possible, but
it was very unlikely. The British policeman is a grand fellow, brave as
a lion and ready to march cheerfully into the mouth of hell if duty
calls. But he knows no tactics. His very courage is almost a
disadvantage, leading him to disdain reasonable caution. I felt that our
guardians were again going to sacrifice themselves to these vermin. It
was terrible. It was a wicked waste of precious lives. Could nothing be
done to prevent it?
"According to Mrs. Kosminsky, the 'chentlemens' were in the second floor
front--the room with the sliding panel. Then I could, at least, keep a
watch on them. I walked slowly upstairs gnashing my teeth with
irritation. The sacrifice was so unnecessary. I could think, offhand, of
half a dozen ways of annihilating these wretches without risking a
single hair of any decent person's head. And here were the police, with
all the resources of science at their disposal and practically unlimited
time in which to work, actually contemplating a fight with all the odds
against them!
"I stole into the second floor front and, by the light of a match, found
the cupboard. The inside panel--as I will call the one on my side--slid
back without a sound. There was now only the second panel between me
and the next room, and I could plainly hear the murmur of voices and
sounds of movement. But I could not distinguish what was being said; and
as this was of some importance, I determined to try the other panel.
Grasping the handle, I gave a firm but gradual pull, and felt the panel
slide back quite silently for a couple of inches. Instantly the voices
became perfectly distinct and a whiff of foul, stuffy air came through,
with a faint glimmer of light; by which I knew that the cupboard on
their side was at least partly open.
"'I tell you, Piragoff,' a voice said in Russian, 'you are nervous about
nothing. The police are looking for us, but they know none of us by
sight. We can go about quite safely.'
"'I am not so sure,' replied another voice--presumably Piragoff's. 'The
babbling fool who let us the house may talk more; and who knows but some
of our own people may betray us. That woman Kosminsky looked very
queerly at us, I thought.'
"'Bah!' exclaimed the other. 'Come and lie down, Piragoff. Tomorrow we
will leave this place and separate. We shall go away for a time and they
will forget us. Put some more coke in the stove and let us go to sleep.'
"How incalculable are the groupings of factors that evolve the causation
of events! Those last words of the invisible ruffian seemed quite
trivial and inconsequent; and yet they framed his death warrant. I did
not myself realize it fully at the moment. As I closed the slide and
stepped back, I was conscious only that a useful train of thought had
been started. 'Put some more coke in the stove and let us go to sleep.'
Yes; there was a clear connection between the idea of 'stove' and that
of 'sleep,' a sleep of infinite duration. Therein lay the solution of
the problem.
"I walked slowly down the stairs tracing the connection between the
ideas of 'stove' and 'sleep.' The nauseous air that had filtered through
from that room spoke eloquently of sealed windows and stopped crevices.
It was a frosty night and the murderers were chilly. A back-draught in
the stovepipe would fill the room with poisonous gases and probably
suffocate these wretches slowly and quietly. But how was it to be
brought about? For a moment I thought of climbing to the roof and
stopping the chimney from above. But the plan was a bad one. The police
might see me and make some regrettable mistake with a revolver. Besides
it would probably fail. The stoppage of the draught would extinguish the
fire and the pungent coke-fumes would warn the villains of their danger.
Still closely pursuing the train of thought, I stepped into my bedroom
and lit the gas; I turned to glance round the room; and, behold! the
problem was solved.
"In the fireplace stood a little brass stove of Russian make; a tiny
affair, too small to burn anything but charcoal; but, as charcoal was
easily obtainable in East London, I had bought it and fixed it myself.
It was perfectly safe in a well-ventilated room, though otherwise very
dangerous; for the fumes of charcoal, consisting of nearly pure carbon
dioxide, being practically inodorous, give no warning.
"My course was now quite clear. The stove was fitted with
asbestos-covered handles; a box of charcoal stood by the hearth, and in
the corner was an extra length of stovepipe for which I had had no use.
But I had a use for it now.
"I lit the charcoal in the stove, and, while it was burning up, carried
the stovepipe and the box of fuel upstairs. Then I returned for the
stove, inside which the charcoal was now beginning to glow brightly. I
fixed on the extra length of pipe and, with my hand, felt the stream of
hot air--or rather hot carbon dioxide gas--pouring out of its mouth. I
tried the pipe against the opening and found that it would rest
comfortably on the lower edge; and then, very slowly and cautiously, I
drew back the sliding panel about six inches. The ruffians were still
wrangling on the same subject, for I heard one exclaim:
"'Don't be a fool, Piragoff. You'll only attract attention if you go
nosing about downstairs.'
"'I don't care,' was the answer; 'I feel uneasy. I must go down and see
that all is quiet before I go to sleep.' Here the sound of the opening
and shutting of the door put an end to the discussion, save for a
torrent of curses and maledictions from the two remaining men. But in a
few moments the door opened noisily and Piragoff shouted:
"'Come out! Come out! The house is empty! We are betrayed.'
"A howl of dismay was the answer. The two wretches burst into a
grotesque mixture of weeping and cursing, and I heard them literally
dancing about the room in the ecstasy of their terror.
"'Come out!' repeated Piragoff. 'We will kill them all! We will shoot
those pigs, every one of them! Some of us shall get away. Come!'
"'It is of no use, Piragoff,' whimpered one of his comrades. 'They are
in the house. It is an ambush.'
"'Yes,' cried the third man, 'it is as Boris says. The house is dark and
they are hiding in it. Bolt the door and let them come up to us; and we
will kill them--kill!--kill!--_kill_!' he ended with an unearthly shriek
and a burst of hysterical sobs.
"'I shall go,' said Piragoff. 'There is a chance.'
"'There is none,' shrieked the other. 'Come back, madman!'
"The door slammed, the key turned in the lock and a heavy bolt was shot.
I quietly closed the slide and ran down to the open window of the first
floor front room.
"The street appeared to be empty save for two constables who stood at a
corner conversing in low tones. A profound silence reigned--an unusual
silence, as it seemed!--through which the subdued murmur of the
constables' voices was faintly audible. I looked out anxiously, debating
whether I ought not to warn the unconscious sentinels even at the risk
of defeating my plans. Suddenly two sharp reports in quick succession
rang out from below; both constables fell, and a figure darted out of
the doorway and raced madly up the street.
"One of the fallen constables lay motionless; the other grasped his hip
with one hand and with the other fired his revolver repeatedly at the
retreating murderer, but apparently missed him every time. In a few
seconds a sergeant and another constable came flying round the corner;
police whistles began to sound their warning in all directions; and the
previous silence gave place to a very Babel of noise. But Piragoff had
shot up a side turning before the sergeant arrived, and the persistent
clamor of the whistles told me that he had, for the moment, at least,
escaped. I turned away. Piragoff was out of my hands, and what I had
seen only made it more imperative that I should prevent further
bloodshed.
"As, once more, I softly opened the slide, the voices of the miserable
wretches within came to me in a strange and unpleasant mixture of
curses, blasphemies and hysterical sobs. They cursed Piragoff, they
cursed the police, they invoked death and destruction on every man,
woman and child in this nation of pigs; and between the curses they wept
and lamented. I had shut the damper of the stove before going down, but
the charcoal was still alight, though dull. I now arranged the stove in
position, resting the long pipe on the bottom edge of the opening so
that its end projected a few inches into the room; moving quite
silently and assisted by the hubbub from without and the noise produced
by the two craven villains. When it was fixed, I opened the damper, and
presently, holding my hand opposite the mouth of the pipe, felt a strong
current of hot gas pouring out. That gas would cool rapidly on meeting
the cold air, and then would fall by its own weight and collect about
the floor.
"My apparatus was now in full going order and there was nothing for it
but to wait. The noise in the street had subsided, but the two ruffians
showed no signs of settling down. They were now engaged in barricading
the door so that it could be forced open only a few inches, thus
exposing the attackers to a deadly fire. I was much obliged to them.
Their movements would help to diffuse the gas and prevent it from
settling too densely on the floor. Also, their exertions would make them
breathe more deeply and so come more rapidly under the influence of the
poison.
"The time crept on; the police made no sign; the murderers rested from
their labors, sometimes talking excitedly, sometimes silent for minutes
at a time, and at intervals yawning like overstrung women. And all the
time the invisible stream of heavy, deadly gas was pouring out of the
stovepipe and trickling unseen along the floor. Even now it must be
eddying about the murderers' feet and slowly diffusing upwards. If only
the police would remain quiescent for an hour or two more, the danger
would be over.
"The long hours of the winter's night dragged out their weary length.
Yet not weary to me. For, as I kept my vigil by the pipe and fed the
stove silently at intervals, I was on the very tip-toe of expectation.
Every moment I dreaded to hear the disastrous crash on the door that
should herald a fresh slaughter; and, as the minutes passed and all
remained still, hope rose higher and higher. Sometimes I caught a
glimpse of my quarry through the chink of their cupboard door; for I had
opened the slide fully a foot, finding that the clothes that hung from
the pegs would screen me, even if the darkness on my side had not done
so already. So I saw one of them sit down on a low chair and crouch,
shuddering, over the coke stove, while the other restlessly paced the
room.
"And still the stream of deadly gas trickled unceasingly from the pipe.
"Presently the former rose and yawned heavily. 'Bah!' he growled, 'I am
tired. I shall lie down. If I fall asleep, Boris, do you watch, and wake
me if you hear them coming.'
"By craning my neck through the opening I could just continue to get a
glimpse of him as he threw himself on a mattress that was spread on the
floor. The other man continued for a while to pace the room; then he sat
down on the chair and spread his hands out over the stove, muttering to
himself. I watched him as well as I could through the chink of the
cupboard doors by the dim light of the stinking paraffin lamp; a greasy,
unwholesome-looking wretch, sallow, pallid and unshorn; and thought how
striking he would look in the form of a reduced, dry preparation.
"But that was impossible. I was now working only for the police.
Regrettable as it was, I should have to surrender these two specimens
to the coroner and the gravedigger. A deplorable waste of material, but
unavoidable--even if one of them should prove to be my long-sought
enemy.
"At this thought I started; and at that moment the man on the mattress
gave a strange, snorting cry. The ruffian, Boris, looked round, rose,
went over to the mattress and stirred the other with his foot. 'Louis!
Louis!' he cried angrily, 'what the devil are you making that noise
for?'
"The other man scrambled up with a cry of terror, pistol in hand. 'Ah!
it is you, Boris! I was dreaming. I thought they had come.' He sat down
again on the mattress and yawned. 'Bah! I am sleepy. I must lie down
again. Watch a little longer, Boris.'