THE CAPTAIN'S ROOM
Trusting himself to his companion's guidance, Bertie went where the
other chose to take him. Under ordinary circumstances he would have
thought a good many times before he would have allowed himself to be
led blindfold he knew not where; but tired, wet, cold, and so hungry,
he resigned himself to circumstances. He could not possibly find
himself in a worse position than his present one; at least, so it
seemed to him. Certainly it had not been part of his plans to be a
companion of thieves; but then nothing which had befallen him had been
part of his plans.
His companion led him to a court within a stone's throw of Drury Lane,
and was just about to turn the corner when something caught his eyes.
He walked straight on, taking Bertie with him.
"There's a peeler. I don't want him to see me go down there; it isn't
quite what I care for to let them gentry have their eyes upon my
family mansion."
What he meant Bertie failed to understand. He saw no one in sight to
cause alarm, and indeed it almost seemed that his companion had eyes
behind his head, for, as quickly appeared, the policeman was at their
back some considerable distance off. They reached the entry to another
court, and down this his companion strutted, as though he was anxious
all the world should have their eyes upon him. But no sooner was he in
than he slunk into a doorway.
"Come in here, my bonny boy, and let the gentleman go past. He's
taking a little walk for the benefit of his health, poor chap. They're
always taking walks, them peelers are. I wish they'd stop at home; I
really do."
A measured tramp, tramp, tramp approached. The thief put his hand over
Bertie's mouth as though he were fearful he would make a sound. The
policeman reached the entry, paused a moment as if to peer into its
depths, and then passed on. When he had gone the thief spoke again.
"Good-bye, dear boy; sorry to lose you, but the best of friends must
part. Come along, my rib-stone pippin; you and me'll go home to tea."
Satisfied that the coast was clear, the two ventured out of the
doorway, reached the open street again, and this time turned without
hesitation into the court which they had passed before. It was unlit
by any lamp, and was so narrow that it was not difficult to believe
that a man standing on a roof on one side of the way might, if he were
an active fellow, spring with a single bound on to the roof on the
opposite side. Fortunately it was not long, the whole consisting of
apparently not more than twelve or fifteen houses. At the extreme end
Bertie's companion stopped.
The place was a _cul-de-sac_. It ended in a dead wall. But on the
other side of the wall towered a house of what, in such a
neighbourhood, seemed unusual dimensions. The entrance proper was in
another street, and the original architect had probably had no
intention that an entry should be effected from where they were. In a
recess in the wall, so hidden as to be invisible to Bertie in that
light, and so placed as to appear to be a door opening into the last
house in the court in which they actually stood, was an ancient wooden
door, from which the paint had all disappeared owing to the action of
time and weather. The two boys stood still for a moment, Bertie dimly
wondering what was going to happen next. It seemed to him that he
really was an actor in a dream at last--the strangest dream he had
ever dreamed. Then the thief whistled a few lines of some uncouth
melody in a low but singularly piercing tone. A pause again; then he
gave four taps against the ancient wooden door, with a momentary pause
between each one. Bertie had heard of mysterious methods of effecting
entrances into mysterious houses, and had been charmed with them; but
he concluded that they were perhaps better in theory than practice. He
would not have liked to have been kept hanging about in the wet such
an unconscionable length of time every time he wanted to go home.
At last the door was opened--just as Bertie was beginning to think
that the mysterious proceedings would have to be all gone through
again.
"Who's there?" inquired a husky voice.
It seemed that after all the whistling and the tapping caution were
required.
"All right, mother; it's only me and a friend. Come on, Ikey; cut
along inside."
Bertie, thus addressed as "Ikey," was about to "cut along inside,"
when he found the way barred by the old woman who acted as janitrix.
She was a very unpleasant-looking old woman, old and grisly, and very
much in want of soap and water: quite unpleasant-looking enough to be
called a "hag"--and she smelt of gin. In her hand she carried a
guttering tallow candle in a battered old tin candlestick. Hitherto
she had held it behind her back, as if to conceal the presence of a
light from passers-by. Now she raised it above her head so that its
light might fall on Bertie's face. He thought he had never seen a more
disagreeable-looking lady.
"Who's the friend?"
"What's that to you? He's a friend of mine, and square; that's quite
enough for you. Come along, my pippin."
The answer reminded Bertie of Sam Slater. Even then he wondered if he
had not better, after all, trust himself to the tender mercies of the
streets; but the other did not allow much time for hesitation. He
caught Bailey by the arm, and half led, half dragged him up a flight
of steep stone steps. The old woman with the candlestick sent after
them what sounded very like a volley of imprecations, while she closed
and locked and barred the door.
The thief led the way into a fairly sized room, which was lighted by
another tallow candle. The one which the old woman brought with her
when she entered made the pair. There was no carpet on the floor,
which was extremely dirty; a rickety deal table and four or five
rickety chairs formed all the furniture. There was a bright fire
burning in an antiquated fireplace, from which the ashes had
apparently never been removed for months, and the atmosphere of the
room was distinctly close.
"What have you got to eat?" asked the thief, when the old woman
reappeared.
"You're always ready enough to eat, but you re not so ready to pay for
what you've eaten. You boys is all the same; you'd rob an old woman of
her teeth."
The crone tottered to a cupboard in a corner of the room. The allusion
to her teeth was not a happy one, for a solitary fang which protruded
from her hideous jaws seemed to be all the teeth she still possessed.
From the cupboard she produced a couple of chipped plates, a loaf of
bread, and a piece of uncooked steak, which probably weighed several
pounds. The thief's eyes glistened at sight of it.
"That's the tuck! Cut me off a chunk, and I'll frizzle it in two
threes."
The old woman cut off a piece which weighed at least a pound and a
half. A frying-pan was produced from some unexpected corner. The young
rogue, disencumbering himself of his coat and waistcoat, immediately
elected himself to the office of cook. A short dialogue took place
between the old woman and himself while the cooking was going on.
"What luck have you had?"
"What's that to you?"
"That means you ain't had none. Ah, Freddy, you ain't what you was.
I've known you when you allays came home with your pockets full of
pretty things."
"You ain't what you was, neither."
A pause. A savoury smell began to come from the frying-pan. The old
woman turned her watery, bloodshot eyes to Bertie.
"Who's your friend?"
"Them who don't ask no questions don't get told no lies."
"What's his lay?"
"His lay's hitting old women in the eye; so now you know."
The old woman shook her head, and mourned the decadence of the times.
"Oh, them boys! them boys! When I was a young gal there weren't none
of them boys in them there days! Times is changed."
"And this steak's done! Now then, Ikey, make yourself alive and hand
the plates."
Without the interposition of a dish the steak was divided in the
frying-pan, placed in two equal portions on the plates, and Bertie and
the cook fell to.
Epicures have it that a steak fried is a steak spoiled. Neither of
those who ate that one would have agreed to the truth of the statement
then. From the way in which they disposed of it, a finer, juicier, or
more tender steak was never known. The old woman produced a jug of
porter to wash it down. Freddy, as the old woman called the thief,
did far more justice to this than Bertie did. With the aid of the
dark-coloured liquid the whole pound and a half of meat rapidly
disappeared, and with it the better part of a loaf as well.
The old woman sat spectator of the feast.
"There was a time when I could eat like that. It's over now a hundred
years ago, but I mind it as though it were yesterday."
"Go on! you're not a hundred years old!"
"I'm a hundred and twenty-two next Tuesday week."
Bertie stared, holding a mouthful of steak suspended on his fork in
the air. A hundred and twenty-two! What was his tale of years compared
to that? Freddy winked at him.
"Yes, I daresay. You were a hundred and ninety-five yesterday, and
sixty-two this morning. It's my belief you're about five and twenty."
"Five and twenty! I daresay I look it, but I ain't. I'm more than
that. I always did look a wild young thing."
Freddy roared; anything looking less like five and twenty, or a "wild
young thing," could scarcely be conceived. The old woman went placidly
on.
"I remember Jacky Sheppard, and Dicky Turpin, and Tommy King; they
were all highwaymen in my young days."
"I suppose you were a highwayman's wife?"
"So I was; and they hung him the week after we were married. I went
and saw him hung, and I've never seen a better hanging since. No, that
I haven't. Times is changed since then."
"But you ain't changed. I wonder you don't marry again, a wild young
thing like you."
"I ain't a marrying sort--not now I ain't. I've had ten of them, and
that's quite enough for me."
"Lor', no! What is ten?"
"Ten's quite enough for one young woman, and when you've been two
hundred and ninety times in prison a woman don't feel much like
marrying again. It takes it out of her, it do."
Bertie had ended his meal. The warmth and the food had given the
finishing touch to his previous fatigue; his head was already nodding
on his breast. He heard the old woman talking as in a dream. Ten
husbands! two hundred and ninety times in jail! Were they part of his
nightmare, the things which he heard her say?
"Hollo, Ikey, you're blinking! Now then, mother, where are you going
to put my pal? Can't you find a place where he can be alone?"
Had Bertie been sufficiently wide awake he would have seen the speaker
wink at the old woman.
"There's only the captain's room."
The woman's suggestion seemed to startle Freddy, and to set him
thinking.
"The captain's room? Where is the captain?"
"How am I to know where he is or where he ain't? He don't tell me none
of his goings on, none of you don't. He says to me he'd be four or
five days away. That's all I know about it. Times is changed!"
"Got the key?"
"Of course I've got the key."
"Then hand it over."
The old woman produced a key from a voluminous pocket in her dress.
"Now, Freddy, none of your tricks? He's on the square?"
She pointed the key at Bertie, to show the allusion was to him. The
young thief took the key away from her.
"He's as square as you! Come along, Ikey! Mother, you stop there till
I come back. I want to have a little talk to you."
Taking up one of the candlesticks, the lad led the way out of the
room. Bertie staggered, rather than walked, after him.
The house seemed to be very old-fashioned and very large. There were a
curious number of staircases, and passages, and turns and twists, and
ins and outs, and ups and downs. As Bertie followed his companion's
lead it all seemed to him as though it were part of his dream; as
though the house was built in the fashion of a maze, and he were
bidden to find his way about it blindfold.
At last he found himself in a room, the door of which he was vaguely
conscious his companion had unlocked. Although very far from being
luxurious, it was better furnished than the one they had left. There
was a piece of carpet on the floor; there were two or three
substantial-looking chairs, a horsehair couch, an arm-chair, a table,
a chest of drawers with a looking-glass on top, and in the corner an
old-fashioned four-poster bed with the curtains drawn all round. The
closely-drawn dirty dimity curtains made one wonder if it was occupied
already, but Freddy showed that it was not by going to it and drawing
the curtains aside.
"There's a bed for you, my bonny boy! The Queen ain't got a better bed
than that in Buckingham Palace; and if you have got a marquis for a
pa, you ain't seen a better one, I know you ain't. That's the
captain's bed, that is, and if he was to know I'd made you free of it
he'd have a word to say. But as he's gone to see his grandma, and
perhaps won't be back for ever so long, we needn't take no count of
what he says."
Tired as he was, Bertie was not by any means so prepossessed by the
appearance of the bed as his companion seemed to be. It seemed to him
just a trifle dirty, and more than a trifle the worse for wear. The
beds at Mecklemburg House were even better, while the beds at home
were things of beauty and joys for ever compared to this. But still it
was a bed, and a bed is a bed; and especially was a bed a bed to him
just then.
Freddy waited while he undressed. He even watched him get between the
sheets, and drew the curtains when he was there. Then he went and left
Bertie to sleep in peace in the captain's room.
And he slept in peace. Just such a dreamless slumber as he had enjoyed
in the Kingston "doss-house," and it lasted at least as long. This
young gentleman had over-calculated his strength, and had not supposed
he would have been so quickly wearied on his journey to the Land of
Golden Dreams.
When he awoke it was some minutes before he collected his thoughts
sufficiently to understand his whereabouts. The rapidly-occurring
incidents of the last day or two had bewildered a brain which was
never very bright at best. Putting out his hand, he parted the
curtains which hung about him like so many shrouds, and looked out.
The room was filled with daylight; that is to say, as much filled as
it probably ever was. The only window was a small one, and at such a
height from the ground that Bertie would have needed to stand upon a
chair to reach it even.
Had he desired to imitate his escape from his Kingston hosts he would
have found very much more difficulty in climbing from the window of
the captain's room. But what interested him more than the peculiar
position of the window was something which he saw on the chair beside
his bed.
This something was some bread and cheese, a couple of saveloys, and
some stout in a jug. On the bread was a little scrap of paper. He took
it up, and found that on it was written,--
"Sleep it out, old pal!"
This was short, and to the point. It was written on bad paper in worse
writing; but what it meant was, probably, that Freddy, entering with
refreshments, had found Bertie wrapt in slumber, and being unwilling
to disturb him had left him there to sleep it out. Bertie ate and
drank, and lying back again upon the captain's bed prepared to act
upon the hint. And he did. He woke once or twice in the course of the
day, but each time it was only for a minute or two, and each time he
turned round and went to sleep again.
But at last he woke for good--or ill, as it turned out, for he woke to
be the victim of a series of adventures which were to nearly cost him
his life, and which were to show him, better than anything else
possibly could have done, that he had been like the silly little child
who plays with fire and burns itself with the element it does not
understand. He was a young gentleman who required a considerable
amount of teaching before he would consent to write himself down an
ass; but he was to get much more than the requisite amount of teaching
now.
Exactly the same thing happened as at Kingston. He awoke to hear the
sound of voices in the room; and now, as then, the speakers were
carrying on a conversation without having the slightest idea that they
were being overheard.
At first he could not distinguish the words which were being spoken.
He only knew that there was some one speaking. At first he took it for
granted that the speakers were the lad who had brought him to the
house and the old woman he had nicknamed "Mother." But the delusion
only lasted for a moment; he quickly perceived that the voices were
voices he had never heard before, and that the speakers were two men.
He perceived, too, that the day had apparently gone--he had slept it
all away--and that the room was lighted by a lamp.
So unconscious were the speakers of there being a listener that they
made no attempt to lower their voices; and one in particular spoke
with a strain of intense passion in his tones. His were the words
which were the first which Bertie heard.
"Fifty thousand pounds! Fifty thousand pounds! Ha, ha, ha!"
The speaker repeated the words over and over again, bursting into a
peal of laughter at the end. Another voice replied--a colder and more
measured one. The new speaker spoke with a strong nasal accent. Bertie
was not wise enough to know that by his speech he betrayed himself to
be that new thing in nationalities, a German American.
"Steady, my friend; fifty thousand pounds in jewels are not fifty
thousand pounds in cash, especially when the jewels are such as
these."
The other went on unheeding.
"Talk about punting on the Stock Exchange! There are precious few
punters on the Stock Exchange who pick up fifty thousand pounds and
walk off with it at a single coup."
"And, also, there are very few punters on the Stock Exchange who would
run the risk of getting penal servitude for life for doing it."
"Yes, there's that to be considered."
"As you say, there's that to be considered."
"Do you think they'd make it penal servitude for life?"
"I think it extremely probable, with your past history and mine."
"Suppose it came to penal servitude for life, what then?"
"Exactly! That is the question to be asked--'What then?'"
"The Countess of Ferndale's jewels! lying on the table in front of me!
and in my time I've run the risk of being sent to prison for a
pocket-handkerchief."
"But in that case you did not run the risk, my friend, of penal
servitude for life, eh?'
"Rosenheim, what are you driving at? Why do you keep harping upon that
string? Do you think they'll nab us?"
"They will have a very good try."
"They have tried before and failed."
"They have also tried before and--not failed."
"Fifty thousand pounds! The finest set of jewels in England! insured
for fifty thousand pounds--and that's a lot less than they cost--and
we've got the insurance policy and the jewels too! Ha! ha! ha! Should
we present the policy?"
"We will be generous and return them that. Or, better still, we will
keep the policy in case that anything should happen. Holding it, we
might make terms with some one. There have such things been done, eh?"
"Fifty thousand pounds! and they cost perhaps a hundred thousand in
their time! Did you ever see such a necklace? Those diamonds remind me
of fairy tales which I have read--if I were to put the lamp out they'd
light the room."
"Yes; but we will not put the lamp out, for fear some of the jewels
should be lost--which would be a pity, eh?"
"Did you ever see anything like those diamonds? See how they are
flashing in the lamp-light--now look at them!"
Bertie thought that he might as well look too. He peeped through the
curtains of the bed to see what was going on. He felt a not unnatural
curiosity, for what he had heard had made him open both his eyes and
ears. Fifty thousand pounds! The repetition of this sum had a
startling effect.