and the conversation ended. And, a few minutes after, he quitted the
room with so ungenial an air that Mr. Sinnett had not the courage to
accompany him. And he found Mr. Tridge was gone from the billiard-room,
so that there was nothing left for Mr. Sinnett to do but to retire home
to spend a night of fitful slumber.
Early next morning did he enter the Magnolia Toilet Saloon, drawn thither
by an irresistible desire to keep abreast of every development in this
affair which so tantalizingly suggested personal profit without
indicating the means thereto.
“Morning, sir!” said Mr. Tridge.
“Morning!” returned Mr. Sinnett. “I just looked in to see how those
wounds of yours are getting on.”
“Oh, they’re all right,” said Mr. Tridge; and added, in the casual tones
of heroism, “Matter of fact, it was a bit of a scrap. And, what’s more,
I ’ad another one after I left you last evening. Only, of course, I
don’t want you to talk about ’em. It won’t do this ’ere saloon no good.”
“And—and the second scrap?”
“Ah, that was in my lodgings! When I got ’ome,” narrated Mr. Tridge, “I
see my window open. Indoors I goes, very quiet. Blest if they wasn’t
trying to burgle me!”
“Burgle you? Who was?”
“Why, that—oh, just a couple of chaps. I ’it out at ’em, and they closed
with me. In the end,” concluded Mr. Tridge, modestly, “they was both
glad enough to jump out of the window.”
“Well, well!” breathed Mr. Sinnett.
Mr. Tridge smiled, and then broke into chuckles.
“It’s rather a joke,” he said. “I don’t mind telling you something, if
you promise you won’t repeat it.”
“Oh, I promise!” cried Mr. Sinnett, readily.
“Well, they was after something that wasn’t there at all! Mind you, they
_thought_ it was! It was something I’d ’ad for a long time, and they was
very anxious to get it. Many and many a try they’d ’ad for it. But I
wouldn’t let ’em ’ave it. The first scrap last night—that was one of
their hattempts. Any one might think it worth ’undreds of pounds, the
way they keeps on trying. But it ain’t.”
“Isn’t it?” asked Mr. Sinnett, in strained tones.
“Only as a curiosity. It’s vallyble, far as that goes. Anyway, I ’ad no
difficulty in getting twelve quid for it last night.”
“You—you’ve sold it?” cried Mr. Sinnett.
“I ’ave. After that first scrap last night, I got so sick about ’aving
to bother about its being safe always that I just took and sold it. Not
to _them_, of course, I wouldn’t give in to _them_. I sold it to Dobb,
in Fore Street. ’E see at once that it was a genuine curiosity, and ’e
didn’t ’aggle a bit.”
For several long seconds Mr. Sinnett stared at Mr. Tridge. Then, with a
start, he purchased a superfluous stick of shaving-soap, and wandered
from the premises. Scarce had he gone twenty yards when he found himself
accosted by Mr. Peter Lock.
“Just the very gent I was ’oping to see!” said Mr. Peter Lock, exhibiting
suppressed excitement. “There’s something a bit queer afoot, sir, what
I’d like to talk over with you. You know about that row Mr. Tridge ’ad
with the ferryman last night. At least, I think it’s something to do
with that.”
“We can talk in here,” said Mr. Sinnett; and drew Mr. Lock into the
“Bunch o’ Grapes.”
“Mind you, sir, I don’t take no responsibility,” said Mr. Lock. “But
it’s queer. That Indian gent come into the billiard-room not half an
hour ago. He said he’d arranged to meet Clark, the ferryman, there at
noon, but he found he must get back to London by the eleven-eleven train
this morning. And so he gave me a note to hand to him.”
“Well?”
“Well, sir, he said something about advising Clark to lay low after last
night. He said he’d forgot to put that in the note, and asked me to
mention it to Clark. Remembered it just as he was going, he did, and
come back to tell me. Well, now, sir, I don’t want to get mixed up in no
fishy cases. If you remember what them two was saying to each other last
night—”
“Open the note,” directed Mr. Sinnett.
“Just what I was thinking, sir. That’s why I wanted to see you, because
you was there and know as much about it as I do. If there’s any risk, I
don’t mean to be in it at all.”
“Quite so,” said Mr. Sinnett. “Open the note and make sure.”
With a certain trembling eagerness, Mr. Sinnett watched Mr. Lock draw an
envelope from his pocket.
“You can easily put it in a new envelope,” said Mr. Sinnett, as Mr. Lock
began to stare perplexedly at the flap.
“I never thought of that,” said Mr. Lock, and at once tore open the
missive. It was very short.
“_I am at 17_, _Somerset Terrace_, _Poplar_, _till to-morrow_. _Ten my
boat sails_, _but letters there will be forwarded me_. _Keep to our
bargain_. _Do not forget that I am prepared to pay a higher price than
anyone else for it_.”
“Strange,” murmured Mr. Lock.
“Seventeen, Somerset Terrace, Poplar,” muttered Mr. Sinnett. “Seventeen,
Somer—”
“Do you thing there’s anything in the address, sir?” asked Mr. Lock,
curiously.
“If you take my advice,” said Mr. Sinnett, impressively, “you’ll burn
that note and say no more about it.”
“I think that would be safest,” agreed Mr. Lock, and, striking a match,
ignited the missive in the fire-place.
“Well, I must be going,” said Mr. Sinnett, coming to a sudden briskness;
and, settling the score, he hastened away.
Five minutes later he was in the presence of Mr. Horace Dobb. Permission
to glance round the stock had been met with suave and smiling
acquiescence, and almost immediately Mr. Sinnett, with false calm, was
inquiring the price of a small idol.
“That?” said Mr. Dobb. “Oh, I’d let you have that for twenty pounds.
Genuine curiosity, that is, sir. I dare say it’s worth a lot more, but I
want to make you a customer. Ah, that won’t be on my shelves long, for
all I only bought it last night. Always getting inquiries for genuine
foreign idols, I am. That’s the only one I’ve got in my shop at present.
There’s a lot of connoshers of them things about.”
“Twenty pounds?” said Mr. Sinnett. “Why, man, I happen to know you only
gave twelve for it!”
“Ah, I’d ’ave given more if ’e’d pressed me, but ’e seemed anxious to get
rid of it. And, anyway, sir, I’d ’ave got twenty pounds easy enough for
it yesterday afternoon, if I’d ’ad it. There was a Indian gentleman in
’ere hinquiring if by any chance I ’ad any hidols. Particular keen ’e
seemed to get one just like that. ’E might ’ave been—”
“Fifteen pounds,” offered Mr. Sinnett.
And so it was; but even then, Mr. Dobb only yielded with professed
reluctance to losing the chance of Mr. Sinnett as a regular patron
thenceforward.
That same evening Mr. Clark, Mr. Tridge, and Mr. Lock foregathered in Mr.
Dobb’s parlour.
“Yes, I see ’im go,” said Mr. Tridge. “’E’d got it in a portmanteau.
Caught the two-twenty-one, ’e did. ’E’ll be in London by now. Can’t you
fancy ’im getting more and more hexcited at that ’ouse, trying to
hexplain to ’em that ’e wants to see a nigger they don’t know nothing
about? And ’e’ll think they’re trying to deceive ’im, and ’e’ll tell ’em
all the ’ole story, just to show ’e’s telling the truth, and—”
“Oh, ’e’ll be very hagitated,” said Mr. Clark. “’E’s that sort, I bet,
when things goes sideways. Serve ’im right! Anyway, thanks for my
share, ’Orace. I shall be able to do a bit of slate-cleaning with it.
By the way, what haddress did you send ’im looking for, Peter?”
“Seventeen, Somerset Terrace, Poplar. ’Orace told me to write down any
old address I happened to think of, didn’t you, ’Orace? And Seventeen,
Somerset Terrace, come easiest to my mind. I don’t know where I got it
from.”
“Seventeen, Somerset—” gasped Mr. Tridge and Mr. Clark, simultaneously.
“That’s it.”
“Then I can tell you where you got it!” shouted Mr. Tridge. “You come
and see me and Sam Clark there many a time while we was lodging there,
when the old ‘Jane Gladys’ was being repaired that time.”
“Ah, of course, I remember now!” said Mr. Lock. “A nice, comfortable,
homely place it was, too!”
“And you’ve sent Sinnett _there_ to start questioning and arguing and
hexplaining?” roared Mr. Tridge. “Why, Sam and me ran up a bill for the
’ole six weeks we stopped there, and then we skipped off without paying.
And _now_—”
_EPISODE X_
THE GIRL HE LEFT BEHIND HIM
That rising man of affairs, Mr. Horace Dobb, was setting out on his
afternoon stroll—which is relatively equivalent to saying that Beau Nash
had just appeared in the Pump Room at Bath, or that the Prince Regent had
issued forth to sun himself on the Steine at Brighthelmstone.
For, whatever drab limitations the keeping of a second-hand shop might
impose upon Mr. Dobb’s wardrobe during the exigencies of the morning, the
afternoon would almost invariably have the gratification of witnessing
that gentleman’s apotheosis. Then Mr. Dobb who spent his mornings in
dragging bulky things about in the remote dustiness of his outhouse, or
in cajoling and brow-beating clients across the counter, was as different
from the Mr. Dobb of the afternoon as is the lowly grub from the
full-winged butterfly.
Mr. Dobb, because he deemed that he owed a fitting publicity to his
occupation and to his own personality, had taken the hours which
intervene between dinner and tea, and had incorporated them into a
general scheme for his glorification. Other business men might permit
the searching post-meridian sunshine to illuminate frayed cuffs and shiny
elbows, to exhibit symptoms of haste and heedlessness upon waistcoat
fronts, to reveal circumstantial evidence with regard to linen collars.
Such negligence of apparel had ceased to be any part of Mr. Dobb’s
policy.
Wherever the calls of his profession might lead him abroad after dinner,
either to auction sales or to visits for private appraisement, to
interviews for preliminary negotiation or merely to casual scoutings for
opportunities of profit, Mr. Dobb’s aim was to appear fresh and
impeccably groomed and, as far as possible, aristocratic. Careful study
of toilet and deportment, he was convinced, must inevitably bring him the
pleasing reputation of being a leader of fashion, and, furthermore, could
not but impress people with the desirability of dealing with so
distinguished a person when they had rickety sofas and deficient clocks
and old ironmongery to sell.
And so Mr. Dobb was sauntering forth in all his accustomed splendour.
Upon his sleekly anointed hair there rested a soft felt hat of exceeding
plushiness, with a tuft of strange feathers thrust into its band to hint
at sporting prowess. A very high and very stiff collar encircled Mr.
Dobb’s throat, and upon a necktie of cheerful patterning there was
pillowed a scarfpin conspicuously, like the headlight upon a locomotive.
A shaggy tweed suit, of a hue which far o’erleapt snuff and only narrowly
missed mustard, graced Mr. Dobb’s frame, and his feet were encased in
orange-coloured boots of a squeakiness surely without parallel.
And when the eye had become inured to these glories, returning powers of
vision brought apprehension of a silver-mounted cane, of a buttonhole of
geranium blooms, of a cigar, and a festooning watch-chain, and of the
phenomena of tan gloves, not worn on the hands, but carried carelessly,
as though their presence were due to a merest afterthought on the part of
lazy luxury.
And thus, as it were, glossed and burnished and intensified, Mr. Dobb
progressed down Fore Street. One hand jauntily twirled the cane, the
other hand not only had the distinction of flourishing the gloves in airy
greeting of such neighbours as Mr. Dobb insisted should see him, but also
was called on, from time to time, to assist in making great play with the
cigar, a duty which it performed with many graceful twirls of the wrist.
And thus did Mr. Dobb arrive at the corner where Fore Street joins Bridge
Street, and here he paused to gaze up and down the road. A fine sense of
dominance permeated Mr. Dobb as he stood there, and the expression with
which he viewed the amenities of the place was one nicely calculated to
hover midway between languid interest and patrician disdain.
And then, as an ancient ewer may be rare and valuable ware in one moment
and, in the next, be but so much broken crockery, so in a twinkling was
Mr. Dobb transformed from a proud autocrat to a quaking fugitive.
Gone was all trace of hauteur from his face, vanished completely was all
swaggering complacency of manner. There was a hunted look in his eyes,
and he had become limp and drooping and manifestly unstable at the knees.
And the whole change had happened in that trice which is occupied by the
clash of two pairs of eyes meeting each other in a glance of recognition
across a narrow thoroughfare.
“’Strewth!” breathed Mr. Dobb, aghast, and made a convulsive, clutching
movement towards his hat, but checked his arm halfway. “’Strewth!” he
said again, but even more emphatically; and then spun round on his heel
and began to retrace his way along Fore Street at a pace in marked
contrast to his previous gait.
Regardless of the ill-concealed amazement of acquaintances, Mr. Dobb
cantered wildly adown the pavement until he reached his abode, and here
he breathlessly flung himself through the doorway, locking the portal
behind him in a manner which clearly indicated panic. Mrs. Dobb,
appearing in surprise from the back parlour, addressed a very natural
question to her husband.
“Why—” he began, and then stopped and stared at his wife as though the
situation had suddenly unfolded itself to exhibit a further cause for
consternation.
And next he frenziedly unlocked the door and plucked the portal open, and
plunged out again into the street. Glimpse of a figure in the distance
served efficiently as spur, and Mr. Dobb raced wildly away in the
opposite direction. Not until he had swerved round three successive
corners did he feel emboldened to moderate his pace, and even then he
travelled at something approximating a canter.
But at last he came to the region of the harbour, and reaching the “Flag
and Pennant” shipway, he vigorously semaphored for the attendance of the
ferryman stationed there. On his hasty arrival, that functionary found
himself directed to take Mr. Dobb across the river with the utmost
possible speed.
Mr. Samuel Clark, the ferryman, well used to the vagaries of his present
patron and former shipmate of the “Jane Gladys,” made no immediate
comment, but assisted his passenger into the boat and began to transport
him with commendable energy. Mr. Dobb, removing his high collar and
thrusting it into his pocket, made the noises of one narrowly saved from
suffocation, and gazed fearfully over his shoulder at the receding river
bank.
“I—I—I ain’t got the breath to hexplain now, Sam,” he puffed, presently.
“Put me down over there by the ‘Red Lion,’ and then go back and make up a
yarn. And get some one to take your place. And then go and fetch Peter
Lock and Joe Tridge, and bring ’em over yonder to me at once.”
“Doings?” asked Mr. Clark, with the liveliest expectancy.
“Not ’alf!” was Mr. Dobb’s reply. “Not ’alf!” he said again; and
shivered perceptibly.
In face of this discouraging reply, Mr. Clark had not the hardihood to
press for more explicit information. Ever one to concede that there was
a wrong time and a right time to appeal to Mr. Dobb’s confidence, the
look on that gentleman’s face warned him that this was indubitably one of
the wrong times.
In pondering silence, therefore, did the plump and ancient ferryman bend
his best efforts to conveying Mr. Dobb to the further side of the
harbour, and when this had been achieved, he immediately put about to
accord loyal and unquestioning fulfilment to the remainder of Mr. Dobb’s
instructions.
Well within the hour, Mr. Clark returned in convoy of Mr. Tridge and Mr.
Lock, and the three entered the presence of Mr. Dobb in the otherwise
vacant tap-room of the “Red Lion.”
Mr. Dobb had recovered some meed of his composure in the interval, but
the rosiness of complexion induced by violent exercise had now faded to
an ascetic pallor, and his eyes looked up dully from deep and dark
circles. Evidence of his mental state was afforded by the fact that he
was sitting on his ornate hat.
“Lummy, ’Orace, you _do_ look upset!” observed Mr. Tridge, in concern.
“He looks real downright bad,” asserted Mr. Lock.
“’E looks ’orrible,” was Mr. Clark’s contribution.
Mr. Dobb, gazing with lack-lustre eyes from one to the other of his old
shipmates, shook his head forlornly and gave vent to a sigh of
extraordinary duration.
“Why, ’e looks as if ’e’d seen a ghost,” declared Mr. Tridge.
“I ’ave,” said Mr. Dobb; “that’s just what I ’ave seen. A ghost—a real
live ghost!”
Mr. Tridge threw a startled glance at the empty tumbler standing before
Mr. Dobb.
“No, it ain’t that,” said Mr. Dobb, comprehending. “That is only the
third I’ve ’ad all day. It’s a real ghost I’ve seen. A ghost from out
of the past,” he ended, with a fugitive gleam of pride in the quality of
this phrase.
Mr. Lock, his head a little on one side, speculatively scrutinized this
beholder of visions. Mr. Tridge and Mr. Lock stared at each other in a
baffled way, and privately intimated a mutual disbelief in the sanity of
their friend.
“Boys,” said Mr. Dobb, “she’s ’ere.”
“Which she?” cried Mr. Tridge, not without perturbation.
“’Oo do you _think_?” dallied Mr. Dobb.
“Not—not that widder woman from Teignmouth, that Mrs. Larstick?” queried
Mr. Clark, shakily. “Not _’er_? That I do ’ope. Don’t say it’s ’er?”
he begged.
“N-n-n-nor y-y-y-yet th-th-th-that—” stammered Mr. Tridge, clearly
lacking full control of his jaw.
“Why the dooce don’t you say straight out, ’Orace?” asked Mr. Lock.
Mr. Dobb swallowed convulsively and steadied himself by taking a firm
grip on the arms of his chair.
“It’s—it’s Looie Radling,” he announced.
“Oh, _’er_!” said Mr. Tridge, swiftly reassured. “Nice little bit of
goods, too.”
“Werry nice,” agreed Mr. Clark, in equal relief. “It’ll be a pleasure to
meet ’er again.”
Mr. Lock, smiling, readjusted the set of his necktie.
“But—but ’ave you forgot?” asked Mr. Dobb, incredulously. “Talking like
that! ’Ave you forgot or what?”
“Forgot what?” returned Mr. Tridge.
“Why,” Mr. Dobb replied, wretchedly, “I’m hengaged to that gal?”
“But ’ow can you be, ’Orace?” very reasonably contended Mr. Clark.
“You’re married to your missis, and she’s a very ’ealthy-looking lady.”
“I married my missis a bit sudden, about eight months ago, as you may
remember,” said Mr. Dobb.
“Oh, well, it wasn’t in reason you could afford to miss the chance of
owning a nice little shop like ’ers,” pointed out Mr. Tridge,
extenuatingly.
“Quite so,” acquiesced Mr. Dobb. “Only—only I ’appened by chance to be
hengaged to Looie Radling at the time. I’d been hengaged to ’er two
months and more when I first met my missis.”
“And stayed be’ind and got married to ’er by special licence and took up
life ashore, while us other chaps went on in the ‘Jane Gladys’ the last
month afore she was sold,” recalled Mr. Tridge. “I remember now.”
“Ah, I seem to remember something about you being engaged to a Miss
Radling,” admitted Mr. Lock. “Greenwich gal, ain’t she?”
“Yes; and I remember ’er coming down to the boat to meet you the first
time we went back there, and you wasn’t with us no longer. Very
surprised but quite the lady she was,” said Mr. Clark. “We told ’er
you’d deserted or something.”
“Anyway, she’s tracked me down now,” said Mr. Dobb; and made fretful
gestures and noises for a while.
“Oh, well, you’re married now, and there’s an end of it,” remarked Mr.
Tridge, soothingly.
“That’s just where you’re wrong,” complained Mr. Dobb. “Now Looie
Radling’s found me out there won’t be a end to it. It’ll be the start,
not the end.”
“Breach o’ promise!” cried Mr. Tridge. “Of course, I ’adn’t thought of
that.”
“’As she got any of your letters, though?” asked Mr. Clark, acutely.
“’Undreds!” groaned Mr. Dobb.
“She won’t half get some damages out of you,” prophesied Mr. Lock,
cheerfully. “Having a business of your own now, and doing so well,
they’ll award her a real big sum. Three or four ’undred, I dare say,” he
hazarded, yawning carelessly.
“What?” screamed Mr. Dobb, in consternation. “Why, I can’t lay ’ands on a
quarter of that!”
“No, I don’t suppose you can,” agreed Mr. Lock. “But then I ain’t the
judge and jury. They won’t believe you in court, you being so well known
in Shore’aven. You’ll have to sell up your business and go back to sea,
and pay her the damages in instalments. Long, long years ahead from now
you’ll still be scraping together to pay her—”
“Oh, shut up!” bellowed Mr. Dobb, rendered almost hysterical by
contemplation of so doleful a prospect.
“Did she see you in _them_ clothes, ’Orace?” asked Mr. Tridge. “Well,
then, that’s done it! She’ll be after you like a porous-plaster for them
damages. Gals don’t get the chance of marrying himitation dooks every
day,” he went on, a little maliciously. “And when they ’ave the chance
and loses it—”
“Yes, if only she’d seen you in your shirt-sleeves and your old trowsis,”
put in Mr. Clark, “very likely she’d only ’ave thought ‘good riddance to
bad rubbish,’ and thought no more about you.”
“Ah, and that ain’t all, neither,” said Mr. Dobb, miserably. “What’s
going to ’appen when my missis ’ears about it? I shan’t ever ’ear the
last of it! If them two females was to meet—”
“There’s men in your position ’ave drownded themselves, ’Orace,” remarked
Mr. Tridge, tonelessly.
“That’s about the only way out of it that I can see,” observed Mr. Lock,
with brutal frankness.
“I never did trust women!” vehemently cried aloud Mr. Dobb. “Never!”
“The great thing, I should say,” mentioned Mr. Lock, “is to keep from
kicking and struggling. Just keep quiet, and when you go down for the
third time it’ll be all over. I’ve heard say that it’s really rather a
pleasant feeling, once you get over your mouth being full of water.”
Mr. Dobb, setting his palms on his knees, turned and stared coldly at Mr.
Lock.
“Ah, I shall always remember how you’re looking at me, ’Orace,” said Mr.
Lock, gently. “Sort of sad and mournful.”
“I suppose,” vouchsafed Mr. Clark, thoughtfully—“I suppose as you can’t
prove a hallybee, ’Orace? I done that once, and it come off all right,
and we had the goose that very same night for supper.”
“Something could be done,” said Mr. Tridge. “I’m sure it could. Only,
of course, it’s ’ard thinking when you’re thirsty.”
“You think away! I’ll see you ain’t thirsty!” eagerly promised Mr. Dobb;
and forthwith gave orders which appreciably increased sympathy for him in
his tribulation.
“To begin with, you’re sure she recognized you, ’Orace?” pressed Mr.
Tridge.
“I see ’er regular jump at sight of me,” asserted Mr. Dobb.
“P’r’aps,” suggested Mr. Clark, “it was your clothes she saw.”
“Next thing,” continued Mr. Tridge, “what makes you think she’s tracked
you down special? It may be the biggest haccident ’er being ’ere and
coming across you.”
“Why, she may ’ave forgotten you,” put forward Mr. Clark. “After all,
it’s eight months and more since you saw her last.”
“Perhaps she’s got married, too,” said Mr. Lock, hopefully.
“Well, there, I never thought of that!” exclaimed Mr. Dobb, brightening.
“Bit fickle it would be, though, wouldn’t it?” he went on in accents
slightly flavoured with disapproval.
“Seems to me,” said Mr. Lock, “the best thing would be to find out just
how the land lies. You’re a pretty good hand at that sort of thing, Sam.
Suppose you was to go over and look about, and see if you could see her
and have a little chat with her?”
“That’s it, Sam! You’ve got a nacheral gift of tact!” fawned Mr. Dobb.
“You cut on back over to the town, and see if you can find ’er and learn
what’s in the wind.”
“Right you are!” acquiesced Mr. Clark, very readily. “I shall want a
couple of bob to stand ’er a cup of tea and so forth, though. You can
only get women really chatty when they’re drinking tea. Better make it
’alf a crown, ’Orace, in case she fancies a bun or whatnot.”
A vivid light is thrown on the state of Mr. Dobb’s mind when it is
mentioned that, with no more demur than a sigh and a shake of the head,
he dropped two shillings into Mr. Clark’s extended palm, and silently
added two threepenny pieces when that gentleman did not move at once.
“I’ll be as quick as ever I can,” promised Mr. Clark, in going. “’Ere,”
he sternly warned Mr. Dobb, “don’t you go a-doing anything rash while I’m
away, and give me all me trouble for nothing! Wait till I come back, at
any rate!”