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ALADDIN OF LONDON
Or
Lodestar
by
MAX PEMBERTON
Author of "The Hundred Days," "A Gentleman's Gentleman," "Doctor
Xavier," "The Lady Evelyn," etc., etc.
Illustrated by Frank Parker
New York Empire Book Company Publishers
[Illustration: A very orgy of blood and slaughter; a carnival of
whips.--Page 198]
Copyright, 1907, by Max Pemberton.
Entered at Stationers' Hall.
All rights reserved.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE HALL BY UNION STREET 5
II. ALBAN KENNEDY MAKES A PROMISE 14
III. WITHOUT THE GATE 23
IV. THE CAVES 33
V. DISMISSAL 45
VI. THE STRANGER 56
VII. THE HOUSE OF THE FIVE GABLES 62
VIII. ALBAN KENNEDY DINES 71
IX. ANNA GESSNER 79
X. RICHARD GESSNER DEBATES AN ISSUE 90
XI. WHIRLWIND 109
XII. ALBAN SEES LIFE 121
XIII. ALBAN REVISITS UNION STREET 132
XIV. THERE ARE STRANGERS IN THE CAVES 145
XV. A STUDY IN INDIFFERENCE 152
XVI. THE INTRUDER 160
XVII. FATHER AND DAUGHTER 167
XVIII. FATE IRONICAL 182
XIX. THE PLOT HAS FAILED 192
XX. ALBAN GOES TO WARSAW 198
XXI. THE BOY IN THE BLUE BLOUSE 209
XXII. A FIGURE IN THE STRAW 224
XXIII. AN INSTRUCTION TO THE POLICE 231
XXIV. THE DAWN OF THE DAY 240
XXV. COUNT ZAMOYSKI SLEEPS 247
XXVI. AN INTERLUDE IN PICCADILLY 259
XXVII. THE PRISON YARD 268
XXVIII. THE MEETING 276
XXIX. ALBAN RETURNS TO LONDON 285
XXX. WE MEET OLD FRIENDS 294
XXXI. THE MAN UPON THE PAVEMENT 303
XXXII. IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY 307
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"You love another woman, Alban Kennedy, and
you have wished to forget my daughter." 132
A very orgy of blood and slaughter; a
carnival of whips. 198
"Why do you come here?" she asked him wildly. 267
ALADDIN OF LONDON
OR
LODESTAR
CHAPTER I
THE HALL BY UNION STREET
The orator was not eloquent; but he had told a human story and all
listened with respect. When he paused and looked upward it seemed to
many that a light of justice shone upon his haggard face while the tears
rolled unwiped down his ragged jerkin. His lank, unkempt hair, caught by
the draught from the open doors at the far end of the hall, streamed
behind him in grotesque profusion. His hands were clenched and his lips
compressed. That which he had told to the sea of questioning faces below
him was the story of his life. The name which he had uttered with an
oath upon his lips was the name of the man who had deprived him of
riches and of liberty. When he essayed to add a woman's name and to
speak of the wrongs which had been done her, the power of utterance left
him in an instant and he stood there gasping, his eyes toward the light
which none but he could see; a prayer of gratitude upon his lips because
he had found the man and would repay.
Look down upon this audience and you shall see a heterogeneous assembly
such as London alone of the cities can show you. The hall is a crazy
building enough, not a hundred yards from the Commercial Road at
Whitechapel. The time is the spring of the year 1903--the hour is eight
o'clock at night. Ostensibly a meeting to discuss the news which had
come that day from the chiefs of the Revolutionaries in Warsaw, the
discussion had been diverted, as such discussions invariably are, to a
recital of personal wrongs and of individual resolutions--even to mad
talk of the conquest of the world and the crowning of King Anarchy. And
to this the wild Asiatics and the sad-faced Poles listened alike with
rare murmurs and odd contortions of limbs and body. Let Paul Boriskoff
of Minsk be the orator and they knew that the red flag would fly. But
never before has Boriskoff been seen in tears and the spectacle
enchained their attention as no mere rhetoric could have done.
A man's confession, if it be honest, must ever be a profoundly
interesting document. Boriskoff, the Pole, did not hold these people
spellbound by the vigor of his denunciation or the rhythmic chant of his
anger. He had begun in a quiet voice, welcoming the news from Warsaw and
the account of the assassination of the Deputy Governor Lebinsky. From
that he passed to the old question, why does authority remain in any
city at all? This London that sleeps so securely, does it ever awake to
remember the unnumbered hosts which pitch their tents in the courts and
alleys of Whitechapel? "Put rifles into the hands of a hundred thousand
men who can be found to-night," he had said, "and where is your British
Government to-morrow? The police--they would be but as dead leaves under
the feet of a mighty multitude. The soldiers! Friends," he put it to
them, "do you ever ask yourselves how many soldiers there are in the
barracks of London to-night and what would happen to them if the people
were armed? I say to you that the house would fall as a house of cards;
the rich would flee; the poor would reign. And you who know this for a
truth, what do you answer to me? That London harbors you, that London
feeds you--aye, with the food of swine in the kennels of the dogs."
Men nodded their heads to this and some of the women tittered behind
their ragged shawls. They had heard it all so often--the grand assault
by numbers; the rifle shots ringing out in the sleeping streets by
Piccadilly; the sack of Park Lane; the flight of the Government; the
downfall of what is and the establishment of what might be. If they
believed it possible, they had sense enough to remember that a sacked
city of amnesty would be the poorest tribute to their own sagacity. At
least London did not flog them. Their wives and sisters were not here
dragged to the police stations to be brutally lashed at the command of
any underling they had offended. Applause for Boriskoff and his sound
and fury might be interpreted as a concession to their vanity. "We could
do all this," they seemed to say; "if we forbear, let London be
grateful." As for Boriskoff, he had talked so many times in such a
strain that a sudden change in voice and matter surprised them beyond
words. What had happened to him, then? Was the fellow mad when he began
to speak of the copper mines and the days of slavery he had spent
therein?
A hush fell upon the hall when the demagogue struck this unaccustomed
note; rude gas flares shed an ugly yellow glow upon faces which
everywhere asked an unspoken question. What had copper mines to do with
the news from Warsaw, and what had they to do with this assembly?
Presently, however, it came to the people that they were listening to
the story of a wrong, that the pages of a human drama were being
unfolded before them. In glowing words the speaker painted the miner's
life and that of the stokers who kept the furnaces. What a living hell
that labor had been. There were six operations in refining the copper,
he said, and he had served years of apprenticeship to each of them.
Hungry and faint and weary he had kept watch half the night at the
furnace's door and returned to his home at dawn to see white faces half
buried in the ragged beds of his house or to hear the child he loved
crying for the food he could not bring. And in those night watches the
great idea had come to him.
"Friends," he said, "the first conception of the Meltka furnace was
mine. The white heat of the night gave it to me; a child's cry, 'thou
art my father and thou wilt save me,' was my inspiration. Some of you
will have heard that there are smelting works to-day where the
sulphurous acid, which copper pyrites supplies when it is roasted, is
used for the manufacture of sulphuric acid. That was my discovery. Many
have claimed it since, but the Meltka furnace was mine--as God is in
heaven it was mine. Why, then, do I stand among you wanting bread, I who
should own the riches of kings? My friends, I will tell you. A devil
stole my secret from me and has traded it in the markets of the world.
I trusted him. I was poor and he was rich. 'Sell for me and share my
gains,' I said. His honor would be my protection, I thought, his
knowledge my security. Ah, God, what reward had I? He named me to the
police and their lashes cut the flesh from my body. I lay three years in
the prison at Irkutsk and five at Saghalin. The white faces were turned
to the earth they sprang from, my son was heard at the foot of God's
throne when they bade me go and set my foot in Poland no more. This I
knew even in that island of blood and death. Letters had come to me from
my dear wife; the Committee had kept me informed even there at the end
of the earth. I knew that my home had perished; that of all my family,
my daughter Lois alone remained to me; I knew that the days of the
tyranny were numbered and that I, even I, might yet have my work to do.
Did they keep me from Poland? I tell you that I lived there three years
in spite of them, searching for the man who should answer me. Maxim
Gogol, where had he hidden himself? The tale at the mines was that he
had gone to America, sold his interest and embarked in new ventures. I
wrote to our friends in New York and they knew nothing of such a man. I
had search made for him in Berlin, in Vienna and Paris. The years were
not too swift for my patience, but the harvest went ungathered. I came
to London and bent my neck to this yoke of starvation and eternal night.
I have worked sixteen hours a day in the foul holds of ships that I
might husband my desire and repay. Friends, ten days ago in London I
passed the man I am seeking and knew him for my own. Maxim Gogol may
hide from me no more. With these eyes have I seen him--ah, God give me
strength to speak of it--with these eyes have I seen him, with these
hands have I touched him, with this voice have I accused him. He lives
and he is mine--to suffer as I have suffered, to repay as I have
paid--until the eternal justice of God shall decide between us both."
There would have been loud applause in any other assembly upon the
conclusion of such an impassioned if verbally conventional an harangue;
but these Asiatics who heard Paul Boriskoff, who watched the tears
stream down his hollowed cheeks and beheld the face uplifted as in
ecstasy, had no applause to give him. Had not they also suffered as he
had suffered? What wrong of his had not been, in some phase or other, a
wrong of theirs? How many of them had lost children well beloved, had
known starvation and the sweater's block? Such sympathy as they had to
give was rather the cold systematical pity of their order which ever
made the individual's cause its own. This unknown Maxim Gogol, if he
were indeed in London so much the worse for him. The chosen hand would
strike him down when his hour had come--even if it were not the hand of
the man he had wronged. In so far as Boriskoff betrayed intense emotion
before them, it may be that they despised him. What nation had been made
free by tears? How would weeping put bread into the children's mouths?
This was the sentiment immediately expressed by a lank-haired Pole who
followed the speaker. Let Paul Boriskoff write out his case and the
Committee would consider it, he said. If Maxim Gogol were adjudged
guilty, let him be punished. For himself he would spare neither man,
woman, or child sheltered in the house of the oppressor. A story had
been told to them of an unusual order. He did not wholly regret that
Paul Boriskoff had not made a fortune, for, had he done so, he would not
be a brother among them to-night. Let him be assured of their sympathy.
The Committee would hear him when and where he wished.
There were other speakers in a similar mood, but the immediate interest
in the dramatic recital quickly evaporated. A little desultory talk was
followed by the serving of vodki and of cups of steaming coffee to the
women. The younger people at the far end of the hall, who had been
admitted to hear the music which should justify the gathering, grew
weary of waiting and pushed their way into the street. There they formed
little companies to speak, not of the strange entertainment which had
been provided for them, but of commonplace affairs--the elder women of
infantile sufferings, the girls of the songs they had heard on Saturday
at the Aldgate Empire or of the shocking taste in feathers of more
favored rivals. But here and there a black-eyed daughter of Poland or a
fair-haired Circassian edged away discreetly from the company and was as
warily followed by the necessary male. The dirty street caught snatches
of music-hall melodies. Windows were opened above and wit exchanged. A
voice, that of a young girl evidently, asked what had become of the
Hunter, and to this another voice replied immediately, as though
greatly satisfied, that Alban Kennedy had gone down toward the High
Street with Lois Boriskoff.
"As if you didn't know, Chris. Gawsh, you should 'ave seen her feathers
waggin' at the Union jess now. Fawther's took wiv the jumps, I hear, and
Alb's gone to the Pav to give her hair. Oh, the fine gentleming--I seed
his poor toes through his bloomin' boots this night, s'welp me Gawd I
did."
The admission was received with a shout of laughter from the window
above, where a red-haired girl leaned pensively upon the rail of a
broken balcony. The speaker, in her turn, moved away with a youth who
asked her, with much unnecessary emphasis, "what the 'ell she had to do
with Albey's feet and why she couldn't leave Chris Denham alone."
"If I ain't 'xactly gawn on Russian taller myself, wot's agen Albey
a-doin' of it," he asked authoritatively. "Leave the lidy alone and
don't arst no questions. They say as the old man is took with spasms
round at the Union. S'welp me if Albey ain't in luck--at his time of
life too."
He winked at the girl, who had put her arm boldly round his waist, and
marched on with the proud consciousness that his cleverness had not
failed to make a just impression. The red-haired girl of the pensive
face still gazed dreamily down the court and her head inclined a little
toward the earth as though she were listening for the sound of a
footstep. Not only the dreamer of dreams in that den of squalor, this
Alban Kennedy was her idol to-night as he had been the idol of fifty of
her class since he came to live among them. What cared she for his
ragged shoes or the frayed collar about his neck? Did not the whole
community admit him to be a very aristocrat of aristocrats, a diamond of
class in a quarry of ashes, a figure at once mysterious and heroical?
And this knight of the East, what irony led him away with that
white-faced Pole, Lois Boriskoff? What did he see in her? What was she
to him?
The pensive head was withdrawn sadly from the window at last. Silence
fell in the dismal court. The Russians who had been breathing fire and
vengeance were now eating smoked sturgeon and drinking vodki. A man
played the fiddle to them and some danced. After all, life has something
else than the story of wrong to tell us sometimes.