lowering Causeway and the malefic air of the quarter. But he knew that
old Hunk would never consent to marriage; Lois was too useful in the bar
as a draw to custom. He knew, too, that if he took her forcibly away
Hunk would be after them and would drag her back. The only way by which
he could get her would be to remove Hunk for a spell, and the only means
by which this could be accomplished.... At this point he saw clear. Very
little stood between Hunk and the Thames Police Court. A little definite
evidence and old Jumbo Bertello could work a raid at the right moment.
So, the night after the Saturnalia, he took Lois for a bus-ride, and
he talked and talked to her. She told him what her dad would do to her
if.... But he dashed in and assured her that there was not one moment’s
danger to her little dear body; not a moment’s. One tiny scrap of
evidence in his hands and she would be safe with him for ever.
Well, that night certain pieces of coloured paper passed from the
hands of Lois to those of her Batty, and from Batty they passed to the
old copper’s nark. Jumbo hugged those pieces of coloured paper in his
breast-pocket and was glad. He would go straight to the station and
deposit them, and thus he would be helping his kid to marry the girl he
wanted and would also be helping himself to rewards of a more substantial
kind. He passed the Star of the East, and noted mechanically that it was
closing time; but he noted with a very actual interest that a crowd had
assembled at a near corner. Now Jumbo was a man of simple tastes. Above
all else he loved the divine simplicity of a fight, and a street crowd
acted on him as a red rag on a bull. At such a spectacle his eyes would
light up, his nostrils quiver, his hands clench and unclench and his feet
dance a double shuffle until, unable longer to remain neutral, he would
charge in and lend a hand to whichever party in the contest seemed to be
getting the worse. So it was to-night. Within half-a-minute he was in the
centre of the crowd. At the end of the full minute he was prostrate on
the ground, his skull cracked on the edge of the kerb.
* * * * *
The inquest was held on the following day, and the full report in the
local paper contained the following passage:—
“The deceased was known in the district as a man who has, on
frequent occasions, been of material assistance to the police
in the carrying out of their duties in the Dockside. In his
pockets were found 1s. 6½d. in coppers and several slips of
crisp, coloured paper of a curious quality unknown to any of
the paper-makers in London. It is understood that the police
are pursuing inquiries.”
Old Hunk Bottles came down to supper in the parlour of the Blue Lantern
at half-past eight that evening, and while Lois ministered to him with
parched face and a trembling hand he called for the local paper. The skin
of her whole body seemed to go white and damp, and her sunset hair took
fire. She saw him turn to the police-court reports and inquests. She saw
him read, with a preliminary chuckle of satisfaction, the report on the
death of the copper’s nark. And then, like a rabbit before a snake, she
shrank against the wall as she saw his face change, and the paper droop
from his hands. Very terrible were the eyes that glared at her. She would
have made a rush for the door, but every nerve of her was sucked dry.
Then the glare faded from his face and he became curiously natural.
“Well,” he remarked, “bits of coloured paper don’t prove much, do they?
Let ’em make all the inquiries they like about their bits of coloured
paper. They won’t git far on that. But there’s one thing that bits of
coloured paper do prove when they’re in old Jumbo’s pockets, and that is,
that you’re going through it to-night, me gel. Right through it.”
She cuddled the wall and hunched her shoulders as though against an
immediate blow.
“Ar, you can skulk, yeh little copper’s nark, but yer in for it now. What
d’I tell yeh? Eh?” He spoke in syrupy tones, terribly menacing. “What d’I
tell yeh I’d do? Answer, yeh skunk, answer! Come on!” He approached her
with a quick step, and snatched her wrists from her face. “Answer me.
What d’I say I’d do to yeh?”
“Break every bone in me body,” she whimpered.
“That’s right. But I changed me mind. It’ll make too much noise round the
Blue Lantern. I got something better for you, me darling. Y’know our top
room?”
She was silent, and he shook her like a dog. “Answer! Know our top room?”
“Yes, dad.”
“Where we keep old Kang Foo’s gorilla what he brought from the Straits?”
“Yes, dad.”
“Well, the safest place for little copper’s narks is a top room where
they can’t get out. That’s where you’re going to-night. Going to be
locked in the top room with old Kang’s gorilla. ’E’ll look after yeh all
right. That’ll learn yeh to keep yeh tongue quiet. See? That’s what I’m
going to do. Lock you in the dark room with the big monkey. And if yeh
don’t know what a gorilla can do to a gel when it gets ’er alone, yeh
soon will. So now!”
“Oh ... dad....” She blubbered, a sick dread filling all her face. “I
di’n’ do nothing. I dunno nothin’ ’bout it,” she lied. “I dunno nothing.
I ain’t been blabbin’.”
“Aw, yeh damn little liar!” He lifted a large hand over her. “I’ll give
yeh somethin’ extra for lyin’ if yeh don’t cut it. Now then, up yeh go
and sleep with little ’Rilla. No nonsense.”
What happened then was not pleasant to see. She struggled. She screamed
hoarse screams which made scarce any sound. She kicked and bit. Her
dramatic hair tumbled in a torrent. And her big father flung two arms
about her, mishandled her, and dragged her with rattling cries up the
steep stair. When they reached the top landing, to which she had never
before ascended, and the loft of a room which, she had heard, Kang Foo
rented as a stable for his gorilla, all fight was gone from her. A limp,
moaning bundle was flung into the thickly dark room. She heard the rattle
of a chain as though the beast had been unloosed, and then the door
slammed and clicked, and she was alone with the huge, hairy horror.
In a sudden access of despairing strength she rushed to the window,
barred inside and out, and hammered with soft fists and screamed: “Help!
Help! Dad’s locked me up with a monkey!”
It was about half-an-hour later that one came to Batty Bertello, who
was taking a glass to the memory of the deceased dad and also to buck
himself up a bit, and told him that he had passed the Blue Lantern and
had heard a girl’s voice screaming from a top window something about
being shut up with a monkey. And Batty, who suddenly realised that Hunk
Bottles had heard of those slips of paper, dropped his glass and, with
love-madness in his face, dashed for the door, crying:
“Come on, boys! All of yeh! Old Hunk’s murdering his Lois!”
And the boys, scenting a fight, went on. They didn’t know where the fight
was or whom they were going to fight. It was sufficient that there was
a fight. Through brusque streets and timid passages they chased Batty,
and when he broke, like a crash of thunder, into the private bar, they
followed him.
“Over, boys!” he cried, and to the intense delight of all he placed a
hand on the bar and vaulted the beer engines, bringing down only two
glasses. Fired by his example, they followed, and then Hunk Bottles was
rushed to the ropes by the crowd—that is, to the farther wall of his own
parlour. They lowered upon him; they beetled, arms ready for battle. In
the front centre was the alert Batty.
“Where’s Lois?”
“G-gone to bed!” answered Hunk, taken aback by the sudden invasion. Then,
attempting to recover: “’Ere, what the devil’s all this? ’Ere—Joe, fetch
the cops. ’Ere—I——”
“Shut up!” snapped Batty. “Liar. You shut ’er up with a monkey upstairs.”
“Liar, I ’aven’t!”
“Liar, you ’ave!”
“Yerss, you ’ave!” roared the crowd, not knowing what it was he had done.
“Down ’im, boys. Dot ’im one. Cop ’old o’ Joe—don’t let ’im out.”
The potman was dragged also into the parlour and the few loungers in the
four-ale bar took the opportunity to come round and help themselves to
further drinks. “’E’s shut Lois up with a monkey. Aw—dirty dog. Less go
up and get ’er out.”
But then the potman cried upon them: “Don’ be damn fools. Wod yer talkin’
about. ’Ow can ’e shut ’er up wiv a monkey—eh? Yer plurry pie-cans! ’Ow
_can_ ’e? We ain’t got no monkey ’ere!”
“Liar!” cried everybody, as a matter of principle.
“I ain’t a liar. Go an’ see fer yehselves. We ain’t got no monkey ’ere.
Ain’t ’ad one ’ere for nearly a year. Old Kang Foo sold his to Bostock.
Don’ make such damn fools o’ yesselves. Nothin’ ain’t been done to
the gel. Old ’Unk’s on’y punished ’er cos she’s too chippy. She’s ’is
daughter. Got a right to, ain’t ’e? If she’d bin mine I’d ’ave give ’er
a good spankin’. ’E’s on’y sent ’er up to the room to frighten ’er. It’s
empty—abs’lutely empty.”
“Then what’s the screamin’ and rowin’ that’s bin going on all the time?
Eh? Listen!”
Low noises came from above. “Cos she’s frightened—’at’s why. There’s
nothin’ there.”
“Yerss, that’s it,” said the aggrieved Hunk, still wedged against the
wall by the crowd. “Yeh makin’ yesselves dam fools. Specially this dam
little snipe, son of a copper’s nark. Go up and see fer yesselves since
yeh so pushin’. Go on—up yeh go. She’s all right—quiet enough now, cos
she’s found out there’s nothing there. I on’y sent ’er there to get a
fright. There warn’t no blasted monkey there.”
“Well, we know the kind o’ swine you are, Hunk. Don’t stand arguin’
there. Get on up!”
“I ain’t a-arguin’ wiv yer. I’m a-telling of yeh. We ain’t got no monkey.
Not fer a year. So now. Go on up and see fer yesselves, yeh dirty lot of
poke-noses. She ain’t ’urt; on’y scared. Half-a-hour in a dark room’ll
learn ’er to be’ave, and it wouldn’t do some of you no ’arm. Go on! Get
up my clean stairs and knock everything to pieces, yeh pack of flat-faced
pleading chameleons!” He stopped and spluttered and shook himself with
impotent anger. Any one of the crowd he could have put on the floor with
one hand, but he recognised that a gang was a gang, and he accepted
the situation. He flung a hand to the stair. “Go on—up yeh go—the ’ole
pleadin’ lot of yeh!”
So up they went.
At the top of the house all was very still. The sounds of the river came
in little low laps. The noises of the street were scarcely heard at all.
They paused in a body at the door. The potman was with them with the key.
He unlocked the door, shoved it with a casual hand, and piped:
“Come on, kid—come on out. Some of yeh lovely narky friends think we
bin murderin’ yeh.” The boys clustered in an awkward bunch at the door,
peering into the darkness. But nobody came out; nobody answered; no
sound at all was to be heard. “Strike a light!” shouted a voice. Far
below, the silence was bespattered with muddy laughter from the four-ale
bar.
The light was brought, and they crowded in. On the bare floor of the
room lay Lois. Portions of her clothing were strewn here and there. Her
released hair rippled mischievously over her bosom disclosed to the
waist. Her stiff hands were curled into her disordered dress. She was
dead. The room was otherwise empty.
_Ding-Dong-Dell_
Tom the Tinker came off the lighter in mid-stream near Limehouse Hole,
and was taken to the landing-stage in an absurdly small rowing-boat. His
face was cold and grey, his clothes damp and disordered. He had been
on a job. Under the uncommunicative Limehouse night the river ran like
a stream of molten lead. Stately cargoes pranced here and there. Fussy
little tugs champed up-stream. Sirens wailed their unhappy song. Slothful
barges rolled and drifted, seeming without home or haven. Cranes creaked
and blocks rattled, and far-away Eastern voices were usually expressive
in chanties. But Tom the Tinker saw and heard nothing of this. He had not
that queer faculty, indispensable to the really successful cracksman, of
paying rapt attention to six things at once. He could only concentrate
on one thing at a time, and, while that faculty may serve in commerce
and office business, it will not serve in the finer, larger spheres of
activity. Here are wanted the swift veins, the clear touch, imagination
in directed play; every tissue straining at the leash, ready to be off in
whatsoever direction the quarry may turn.
Tom the Tinker, I say, saw only one thing at a time, and on this occasion
he was concerned with the nice arrangement of the Bethnal Green jewellery
rampage. He did not, therefore, on arriving home, observe the distracted
manner of his wife.
When he entered the kitchen of his house in Pekin Street, Poplar, he
noted that she was there; and that was all. The merest babe, though
preoccupied with burglary preparations, would have noted more. He kissed
her, perfunctorily. She wound both arms about him, also perfunctorily.
“Ding-Dong been here?” he asked.
She said: “Yes, Ding-Dong’s been.”
“Anything to say?”
“Nope,” she replied, and continued to puff her cigarette.
He sat down, lifted a smoke from her store, and lit it. His eyes fell to
the floor; his hands sought his pockets. His wife looked swiftly at him.
He might have been asleep.
She was a woman who had passed the flush of girlhood, but was not yet
old; twenty-nine, maybe; old enough in those parts, though. Still, there
were some who had looked upon her and found her not altogether to be
despised. There was, for example, Ding-Dong. Somehow, her mouth always
tightened when she thought of Ding-Dong; tightened, not in vexation or as
a mouth tightens when about to speak hard words, but as a mouth tightens
when about to receive and return a kiss. As she sat staring upon her
lawful mate, Tom the Tinker, she recalled a certain amiable night when
Tom had been giving his undivided attention to a small job—he only worked
the small jobs—in Commercial Road, which had long needed his services.
Do you remember that little four-ale bar, the Blue Lantern, in Limehouse,
and the times we used to have there with that dear drunken devil, Jumbo
Brentano? Well, it was there, amid the spiced atmosphere of the Orient
and under that pallid speck of blue flame, that Jumbo Brentano introduced
Ding-Dong to Tom the Tinker as a likely apprentice. His recommendation
had taken the form that young Ding-Dong was one of the blasted best; that
he’d give his last penny away to a pal; that he’d got the pluck of the
devil, where danger was concerned; the guts of a man, where enterprise
was concerned; and the heart of a woman, where fidelity and tenderness
were concerned. (This last comparison by a well-meaning seeker after
truth who knew nothing about Woman.) Moreover, he’d been “in” five
times for small jobs, and had thoroughly fleshed his teeth in the more
pedestrian paths of his profession.
It is curious to note that although Jumbo was hopelessly drunk when he
effected this introduction in such happy prose-poetry, he spoke little
more than the truth. Can you wonder, then, that when a full-blooded girl
like Myra, wife of Tom the Tinker, met a boy so alive, so full of these
warm virtues, her heart should turn aside from her man, who possessed
only the cold, negative virtues, and go out, naked and unashamed, to
Ding-Dong?
You can’t wonder. That is precisely what Myra did. She loved Ding-Dong.
She loved him for his superb animal body, and also for his clear honesty,
strength and absurdly beautiful ideas of playing the game. She hoped she
had cured him of those ideas on the night upon which she now let her
memory stretch itself. On that night Ding-Dong had come to the little
lurking cottage near the raucous water-side, and found her alone; and,
he being full of beer and the intent glee of the moment, had tried to
kiss Myra. She had repulsed him with a push in the mouth that had made
him angry, and he returned to the assault. His large, neat hand had
caught the collar of her blouse and ripped it fully open. His free arm
had slipped her waist and twisted her off her feet. Then he flew at her
as a hawk at its prey. A beast leapt within him and devoured all reason.
He crushed her against him, and, as their bodies met in contact, she
gasped, resisted his embraces with a brief and futile violence, and, the
next moment, he found himself holding a limp and surrendered body.
“Let me go, Ding-Dong,” she had cried.
“No; I’ll be damned if I do!”
“I’d just hate for you to be damned, Ding-Dong,” she had said, nestling
to him with an expression at once shy and wild. Then wonder awoke within
their hearts, wonder of themselves and of one another and of the world,
till, very suddenly, the beer went out of him and he flung her aside, and
bowed his head, and turned to the door.
“Where are you going, Ding-Dong?”
“’Eh? Oh, home. I’m sorry. I fergot. I was a bit on, I think. I been a
beast.”
“No, you ’aven’t.”
“But I should ’ave been, if I ’adn’t remembered. P’r’aps you’ll fergive
me later on. Bye-bye.”
“But you ain’t really going?”
“Yerss.”
“But—here—going?”
“Yerss.”
“Well....” She looked at him, then lifted a delicate finger and pulled
his ear. “Well ... you damn fool!”
And somehow he felt that he was.
He felt it so keenly that it seemed to be up to him to repudiate the
soft impeachment. So, whenever Tom the Tinker was professionally busy,
Ding-Dong, blond and beautiful and strong as some jungle animal, would
come to the cottage, and many delirious hours would be passed in the
company of the lonely, lovable Myra.
He began to be happy. He began to feel that he really was a man. He
was asserting himself. He had stolen another man’s wife—sure cachet of
masculinity. At the same time he had done nothing dirty, since the man in
question didn’t want her; had, indeed, often said so in casual asides,
uttered in the intervals of driving steel drills through the walls of
iron safes.
Yes, Ding-Dong had shown that he was a real man all right; one who could
throw himself about with the best. Morally, he swaggered. He thought of
the maidens he had loved: poor stuff. He thought of his pals who either
were married or did not love at all: poor stuff entirely. It was himself
and those like him who were the men. Masculinity, virility only arrived
with intrigue.
Myra learned to love him furiously, idiotically. She would have died for
him. She knew by the very beat of her pulses when he stood a little away
from her that this was her man; this and no other. Come what might of
dismay and disaster, this was the man ordained for her. And he ... did
he love her? I wonder. In his own naïve, cleanly simple way he centred
his existence on her, but it was rather because she was to him Adventure;
fire and salt and all swiftly flavoured things.
Tom the Tinker told her none of his secrets or business affairs. He had
the cheapest opinion of women, except for hygienic purposes, and did not
believe in letting them know anything about business affairs when they
stood in the relationship of The Wife. But from Ding-Dong, in whom Tom
did confide, Myra learnt all she wanted to know. It was from him that
she had learnt of the Bethnal Green jewellery rampage, which was to come
off that night; and if, as has been said, Tom had been able to give his
mind to more than one thing at a time, he would have noted the evident
disturbance which now held her, and have speculated upon its cause. Its
cause happened to be an inspiration which had come to her the moment
Ding-Dong, resting in her plaintive arms under the cool order of her
autumn-tinted hair, had let drop the plans for that night.
Since the appearance of Ding-Dong in her musty life she had come to hate
Tom. She hated him because he had drawn her into the bonds of matrimony,
and then had shown her that he regarded her as only a physical necessity.
She hated him for his mistrust of her, for his reticence and for the
sorry figure he cut against the vibrant Ding-Dong. She was ripe to do him
an injury, but, by his silence about his affairs, he gave her no chance.
And now Ding-Dong had, all innocently, placed in her hands the weapon
by which she could strike him and force him to suffer something of what
she had suffered as a matrimonial prisoner. He should have a taste of the
same stuff. She knew that once he was nabbed a good stretch was awaiting
him—five years at least—since he had long been wanted by the local
police. She might, of course, have surrendered him at any time, but that
would have meant an appearance in the witness box, and she did not wish
to play the rôle of the treacherous wife; much better to let the blow
descend from out of the void.
Half-past twelve was the time fixed for the meeting between Ding-Dong and
Tom, and it was now ten o’clock. Tom still sprawled by the fire, staring
cataleptically at the carpet, and presently Myra languidly stretched
herself and got up.
“Got no beer in the house,” she said, addressing the kitchen at large.
“I’ll just pop round to Lizzie’s and borrow a couple of bottles.”
She swung out of the kitchen, sped swiftly upstairs, found a hat and
cloak, and slipped from the house. But she did not go towards Lizzie’s.
She went into East India Dock Road and across to a narrow courtyard.
Leaning against a post at its entrance was a youth of about eighteen, a
frayed Woodbine drooping from his lips.
“That you, Monico?” she asked, peering through the gloom.
“You’ve clicked.”
“D’you know where Wiggy is? Go’n find ’im for me.”
The youth departed, and presently a greasy figure shuffled out of the
courtyard; a figure known and hated and feared in that district; Wiggy,
the copper’s nark. He looked up at the woman, who had drawn a purple veil
across her face. “Wodyeh want?”
She told him. For three minutes she held him in talk. Then she
disappeared as swiftly as she had come, disappeared in the direction
of Pennyfields. At the corner of Pennyfields is a fried-fish bar. She
entered.
“D’you know a boy called Ding-Dong—comes in here every night? Big,
fair-haired.”
“Yerss, I know ’im.”
“Has he been in yet?”
“Nit. I’m expectin’ ’im, though. ’As supper ’ere every night ’bout this
time.”
“That’s right. Well, when he comes, will you tell him—and say it’s most
particular—that they’ve changed the time. It was to be half-past twelve,
but they’ve changed it to one o’clock. Just tell ’im that, will you?
He’ll understand. One o’clock ’stead of half-past twelve. See?”
“Right-o. I’ll see ’e gets it.”
“Thanks.” And homeward she went, calling on the way for the two bottles
of beer which had been the ostensible purpose of her errand.
Tom still sat where she had left him, and refused any supper. He was
going out, he said, and would have supper with some friends. She needn’t
sit up for him. So she took the two bottles up to her bedroom and sat in
a hammock chair, drinking stout, which she found very comforting, and
waiting anxiously for the hour when Tom would depart.
At five minutes to twelve she heard the door slam, and she knew that
revenge was very near. Punishment would now swiftly fall upon the hated
Tom the Tinker, and freedom would be hers and the joy of Ding-Dong’s
continual presence. She opened the second bottle and drank to her new
life. Oh, she was a smart girl, she knew; she was the wily one; she had
’em all beaten. Life was just beginning for her, and, under the influence
of the stout, she dreamed a hazy dream of rejuvenation; how she would
blossom into new strength and beauty under the admiring eyes and the
careful ministrations of her Ding-Dong. Farewell the dingy little back
kitchen. Farewell the life of slavery and contempt. Farewell the wretched
folk among whom she had been forced to live while Tom pursued his dirty
work. Hail to the new world and the new life!
Her head nodded, and for a few minutes she dozed. She was awakened by the
sound of a creaking window. Then footsteps—stealthy, stuttering steps.
They came up the stairway.
Ding-Dong! She knew his step. Her plan had come off. Tom had been nabbed
by the cops; Ding-Dong had arrived half-an-hour after the appointed time;
had waited for Tom; found that he had not arrived, and so had come to his
place to make inquiries. Oh, joy! Now that Tom was taken, nothing that
anyone could do could save him; so that it would be left to them only to
enjoy the blessed gift that the gods had given to them; and by the time
Tom came out again she would have won Ding-Dong entirely for herself, and
he would have taken her to Australia or America.
The step stopped at her door, the handle was turned and in walked the
intruder. She stared at him for a moment, then a low, nondescript cry
burst from her throat: the cry of a cornered animal.