Travellers in Mayfair will have noticed that every here and there
old-fashioned, snug looking hostelries exist in out-of-the-way places--
at the corner of a mews, in a private street, where they do not seem to
belong; and they are generally kept by ex-butlers, who have taken wives,
joined their savings, and gone into business with the brewers' help.
In the parlour of the "Four-in-Hand," Lower Maybush street, a party of
gentlemen's servants were playing bagatelle upon a bad board in a very
smoky atmosphere, while a knot of three men sat at one of the old,
narrow, battered mahogany tables in a corner, drinking cold gin and
water, and smoking bad cigars.
One was a little sharp-eyed, round-headed man, smartly dressed, and
evidently rather proud of a large gilt pin in his figured silk tie.
Another was tall and not ill-looking; he might have been a valet, for
there was a certain imitation gentility about his cut--a valet whose
master had been rather addicted to the turf, and this had been reflected
on his man to the extent of trousers rather too tight, short hair, and a
horseshoe pin with pearl nails. The third was rather a shabby-looking
man of forty, undoubtedly a gentleman's servant out of place, carrying
the sign in the front of the reason why, in the shape of a nose unduly
ripened by being bathed in glasses of alcoholic drink.
"Knew him how long, did you say?" said the tall man, tapping his chin
with an ivory-handled rattan-cane.
"Ten years, poor chap," said the ex-servant. "It was very horrid."
"Here, never mind that," said the brisk little man. "We don't want
horrors. Touch the bell, Dick. Come, old fellow, sip up your lotion,
and we'll have them filled again. That cigar don't draw. Try one of
these. Here! three fours of gin cold," he cried to the landlord, and as
soon as the glasses were refilled, and cigars lighted, the conversation
went on, to the accompaniment of rattling balls and laughter from the
bagatelle players.
"Well," said the tall man, in a low voice, "you can do as you like, my
lad, but I should have thought that, hard up as you are, and I should
say without much chance of getting another crib--say at present--you'd
have been glad to earn a honest quid or two."
The shabby-looking man shook his head.
"Here, you're always putting on the pace too much, Dick," said the
little man. "A fellow wants a little time. He's on, you see if he
isn't. My respects to you, Mr Barnes. Hah! nice flavoured drop of gin
that."
"You see, you know the house well," continued the tall man. "Often
been, of course?"
"Oh, yes; had many a glass of wine there, when poor Charles was alive."
"Rather a bit of mystery, that," said the little man. "I put that and
that together, and I set it down that he was trying the job on his own
account, and muffed it."
The shabby man shuddered, and took a hearty draught of his gin and
water.
"There would be only us three in the game," said the tall man softly,
"and it would be share and share alike. Why, if we worked it right, it
would set you up. Might take a pub on it."
"Eh?" said the shabby man.
"I say you might take a pub--and drink yourself to death," was added
aside.
The little man winked at his tall companion, unobserved by the other,
who looked dreamy.
"Bars at all the lower windows, eh?"
"Yes, yes. You couldn't get in there," was the quick reply.
"More ways of killing a cat than by hanging it. Look here, my lads,
there's a stable to let in the mews at the back."
The shabby man looked up quickly.
"I had a look at it to-day. Any one could easily get to that window
looking on the leads."
"But that's the window where--"
"Well, dead men tell no tales, and they don't get in the way. That's
the place."
"Oh, no," said the shabby man.
"Bah! you're not afraid. I tell you it would be as easy as easy. You
can give me a plan of the place, and all about it, and--why, it's
child's play, my lad, and won't hurt anybody. Take everything out of
that stable, and have a cart in the coach-house. I say--touch that bell
again, old man--you are not going to let a fortune slip through your
fingers, I know."
The three occupants of the corner soon after rose to go, halting
half-way down the street, where the tall man said:--
"There's half a sovereign to keep the cold out till then. Twelve
o'clock, mind, punctual."
The shabby man slouched away, while the little fellow rubbed his hands.
"There's half a ton of it there," he whispered.
"Think he'll stand to it?"
"No fear, now we've got him over his fright. By jingo, I'm only afraid
of one thing."
"What's that?"
"That some one else will be on the job."