STEPHEN'S TALE
A policeman brought my grandfather a bill, which was stuck against the
bar window with gelatines; and just such another bill was posted on the
wall at the head of Hole-in-the-Wall Stairs, above the smaller bills
that advertised the found bodies. This new bill was six times the size
of those below; it was headed "Murder" in grim black capitals, and it
set forth an offer of fifty pounds reward for information which should
lead to the apprehension of the murderer of Robert Kipps.
The offer gave Grandfather Nat occasion for much solemn banter of Mr.
Cripps; banter which seemed to cause Mr. Cripps a curious uneasiness,
and time and again stopped his eloquence in full flood. He had been at
the pains to cut from newspapers such reports of the inquest as were
printed; and though they sadly disappointed him by their brevity, and
all but two personally affronted him by disregarding his evidence and
himself altogether, still he made great play with the exceptional two,
in the bar. But he was quick to drop the subject when Captain Nat urged
him in pursuit of the reward.
"Come," my grandfather would say, "you're neglecting your fortune, you
know. There's fifty pound waitin' for you to pick up, if you'd only go
an' collar that murderer. An' you'd know him anywhere." Whereupon Mr.
Cripps would look a little frightened, and subside.
I did not learn till later how the little painter's vanity had pushed
him over bounds at the inquest, so far that he committed himself to an
absolute recognition of the murderer. The fact alarmed him not a little,
on his return to calmness, and my grandfather, who understood his
indiscretion as well as himself, and enjoyed its consequences, in his
own grim way, amused himself at one vacant moment and another by setting
Mr. Cripps's alarm astir again.
"You're throwing away your luck," he would say, perhaps, "seein' you
know him so well by sight. If you're too well-off to bother about fifty
pound, give some of us poor 'uns a run for it, an' put us on to him. I
wish I'd been able to see him so clear." For in truth Grandfather Nat
well knew that nobody had had so near a chance of seeing the murderer's
face as himself; and that Mr. Cripps, at the top of the passage--perhaps
even round the corner--had no chance at all.
It was because of Mr. Cripps's indiscretion, in fact--this I learned
later still--that the police were put off the track of the real
criminal. For after due reflection on the direful complications
whereinto his lapse promised to fling him, that distinguished witness,
as I have already hinted, fell into a sad funk. So, though he needs must
hold to the tale that he knew the man by sight, and could recognise him
again, he resolved that come what might, he would identify nobody, and
so keep clear of further entanglements. Now the police suspicions fell
shrewdly on Dan Ogle, a notorious ruffian of the neighbourhood. He had
been much in company of the murdered man of late, and now was suddenly
gone from his accustomed haunts. Moreover, there was the plain agitation
of the woman he consorted with, Musky Mag, at the inquest: she had
fainted, indeed, when Mr. Cripps had been so positive about identifying
the murderer. These things were nothing of evidence, it was true; for
that they must depend on the witness who saw the fellow's face, knew him
by sight, and could identify him. But when they came to this witness
with their inquiries and suggestions the thing went overboard at a
breath. Was the assassin a tall man? Not at all--rather short, in fact.
Was he a heavy-framed, bony fellow? On the contrary, he was fat rather
than bony. Did Mr. Cripps ever happen to have seen a man called Dan
Ogle, and was this man at all like him? Mr. Cripps had been familiar
with Dan Ogle's appearance from his youth up (this was true, for the
painter's acquaintance was wide and diverse) but the man who killed Bob
Kipps was as unlike him as it was possible for any creature on two legs
to be. Then, would Mr. Cripps, if the thing came to trial, swear that
the man he saw was not Dan Ogle? Mr. Cripps was most fervently and
desperately ready and anxious to swear that it was not, and could not by
any possibility be Dan Ogle, or anybody like him.
This brought the police inquiries to a fault; even had their suspicions
been stronger and better supported, it would have been useless to arrest
Dan Ogle, supposing they could find him; for this, the sole possible
witness to identity, would swear him innocent. So they turned their
inquiries to fresh quarters, looking among the waterside population
across the river--since it was plain that the murderer had rowed
over--for recent immigrants from Wapping. For a little while Mr. Cripps
was vexed and disquieted with invitations to go with a plain-clothes
policeman and "take a quiet look" at some doubtful characters; but of
course with no result, beyond the welcome one of an occasional free
drink ordered as an excuse for waiting at bars and tavern-corners; and
in time these attentions ceased, for the police were reduced to waiting
for evidence to turn up; and Mr. Cripps breathed freely once more. While
Dan Ogle remained undisturbed, and justice was balked for a while; for
it turned out in the end that when the police suspected Dan Ogle they
were right, and when they went to other conjectures they were wrong.
All this was ahead of my knowledge at the moment, however, as, indeed,
it is somewhat ahead of my story; and for the while I did no more than
wonder to see Mr. Cripps abashed at an encouragement to earn fifty
pounds; for he seemed not a penny richer than before, and still
impetrated odd coppers on account of the signboard of promise.
Once or twice we saw Mr. Viney, and on each occasion he borrowed money
off Grandfather Nat. The police were about the house a good deal at this
time, because of the murder, or I think he might have come oftener. The
first time he came I heard him telling my grandfather that he had got
hold of Blind George, that Blind George had told him a good deal about
the missing money, and that with his help he hoped for a chance of
saving some of it. He added, mysteriously, that it had been "nearer
hereabouts than you might think, at one time"; a piece of news that my
grandfather received with a proper appearance of surprise. But was it
safe to confide in Blind George? Viney swore for answer, and said that
the rascal had stipulated for such a handsome share that it would pay
him to play square.
On the last of these visits I again overheard some scraps of their talk,
and this time it was angrier. I judged that Viney wanted more money than
my grandfather was disposed to give him. They were together in the back
room where the boxes and bottles were--the room into which I had seen
Bill Stagg's head and shoulders thrust by way of the trap-door. My
grandfather's voice was low, and from time to time he seemed to be
begging Viney to lower his; so that I wondered to find Grandfather Nat
so mild, since in the bar he never twice told a man to lower his voice,
but if once were not enough, flung him into the street. And withal Viney
paid no heed, but talked as he would, so that I could catch his phrases
again and again.
"Let them hush as is afraid--I ain't," he said. And again: "O, am I? Not
me.... It's little enough for me, if it does; not the rope, anyway." And
later, "Yes, the rope, Cap'en Kemp, as you know well enough; the rope at
Newgate Gaol.... Dan Webb, aboard o' the _Florence_.... The _Florence_
that was piled up on the Little Dingoes in broad day.... As you was
ordered o' course, but that don't matter.... That's what I want now, an'
no less. Think it lucky I offer to pay back when I get--... Well, be
sensible--... I'm friendly enough.... Very well."
Presently my grandfather, blacker than common about brow and eyes, but a
shade paler in the cheek, came into the bar-parlour and opened the trade
cash-box--not the one that Mrs. Grimes had hidden among the cinders, but
a smaller one used for gold and silver. He counted out a number of
sovereigns--twenty, I believe--put the box away, and returned to the
back room. And in a few minutes, with little more talk, Mr. Viney was
gone.
Grandfather Nat came into the bar-parlour again, and his face cleared
when he saw me, as it always would, no matter how he had been ruffled.
He stood looking in my face for a little, but with the expression of one
whose mind is engaged elsewhere. Then he rubbed his hand on my head, and
said abstractedly, and rather to himself, I fancied, than to me: "Never
mind, Stevy; we got it back beforehand, forty times over." A remark that
I thought over afterward, in bed, with the reflection that forty times
twenty was eight hundred.
But Mr. Viney's talk in the back room brought most oddly into my mind,
in a way hard to account for, the first question I put to my grandfather
after my arrival at the Hole in the Wall: "Did you ever kill a man,
Grandfather Nat?"