The Hole in the Wall Page 10

  CHAPTER X

  STEPHEN'S TALE

  I went to bed early that night--as soon as Mrs. Grimes was gone, infact. My grandfather had resolved that such a late upsitting as lastnight's must be no more than an indulgence once in a way. He came upwith me, bringing the cash-box to put away in the little wall-cupboardagainst his bed-head where it always lay, at night, with a pistol by itsside. Grandfather Nat peeped to see the pocket-book safe once more, andchuckled as he locked it away. This done, he sat by my side, and talkedtill I began to fall asleep.

  The talk was of the pocket-book, and what should be done with the money.Eight hundred pounds was the sum, and two five-pound notes over, and Iwondered why a man with so much money should come, the evening before,to sell his watch.

  "Looks as though the money wasn't his, don't it?" commented GrandfatherNat. "Though anyhow it's no good to him now. You found it, an' it'syours, Stevy."

  I remembered certain lessons of my mother's as to one's proper behaviourtoward lost property, and I mentioned them. But Grandfather Nat clearlyresolved me that this was no case in point. "It can't be his, becausehe's dead," Captain Nat argued; "an' if it's the other chap's--well, lethim come an' ask for it. That's fair enough, you know, Stevy. An' if hedon't come--it ain't likely he will, is it?--then it's yours; and I'llkeep it to help start you in life when you grow up. I won't pay it intothe bank--not for a bit, anyhow. There's numbers on bank notes: an' theylead to trouble, often. But they're as good one time as another, an'easy sent abroad later on, or what not. So there you are, my boy! Eighthundred odd to start you like a gentleman, with as much more asGrandfather Nat can put to it. Eh?"

  He kissed me and rubbed his hands in my curls, and I took the occasionto communicate my decision as to being a purlman. Grandfather Natlaughed, and patted my head down on the pillow; and for a little Iremembered no more.

  I awoke in an agony of nightmare. The dead man, with blood streamingfrom mouth and eyes, was dragging my grandfather down into the river,and my mother with my little dead brother in her arms called me to throwout the pocket-book, and save him; and throw I could not, for the thingseemed glued to my fingers. So I awoke with a choke and a cry, and satup in bed.

  All was quiet about me, and below were the common evening noises of thetavern; laughs, argumentation, and the gurgle of drawn beer; thoughthere was less noise now than when I had come up, and I judged it notfar from closing time. Out in the street a woman was singing a ballad;and I got out of bed and went to the front room window to see and tohear; for indeed I was out of sorts and nervous, and wished to look atpeople.

  At the corner of the passage there was a small group who pointed andtalked together--plainly discussing the murder; and as one or twodrifted away, so one or two more came up to join those remaining. Nodoubt the singing woman had taken this pitch as one suitable to herware--for she sang and fluttered at length in her hand one of theversified last dying confessions that even so late as this were hawkedabout Ratcliff and Wapping. What murderer's "confession" the woman wassinging I have clean forgotten; but they were all the same, all set to adoleful tune which, with modifications, still does duty, I believe, asan evening hymn; and the burden ran thus, for every murderer and anymurder:--

  Take warning by my dreadful fate, The truth I can't deny; This dreadful crime that I are done I are condemned to die.

  The singular grammar of the last two lines I never quite understood, nothaving noticed its like elsewhere; but I put it down as a distinguishingcharacteristic of the speech of murderers.

  I waited till the woman had taken her ballads away, and I had grownuncommonly cold in the legs, and then crept back to bed. But now I hadfully awakened myself, and sleep was impossible. Presently I got upagain, and looked out over the river. Very black and mysterious it lay,the blacker, it seemed, for the thousand lights that spotted it, craftand shore. No purlmen's fires were to be seen, for work on the collierswas done long ago, but once a shout and now a hail came over the water,faint or loud, far or near; and up the wooden wall I leaned on came thesteady sound of the lapping against the piles below. I wondered whereGrandfather Nat's boat--our boat--lay now; if the murderer were stillrowing in it, and would row and row right away to sea, where my fatherwas, in his ship; or if he would be caught, and make a dying confessionwith all the "haves" and "ams" replaced by "ares"; or if, indeed, he hadalready met providential retribution by drowning. In which case Idoubted for the safety of the boat, and Grandfather would buy another.And my legs growing cold again, I retreated once more.

  I heard the customers being turned into the street, and the shuttersgoing up; and then I got under the bed-clothes, for I recalled thenightmare, and it was not pleasant. It grew rather worse, indeed, for mywaking fancy enlarged and embellished it, and I longed to hear the treadof Grandfather Nat ascending the stair. But he was late to-night. Iheard Joe the potman, who slept off the premises, shut the door and gooff up the street. For a few minutes Grandfather Nat was moving aboutthe bar and the bar-parlour; and then there was silence, save for thenoises--the clicks and the creaks--that the old house made of itself.

  I waited and waited, sometimes with my head out of the clothes,sometimes with no more than a contrived hole next my ear, listening.Till at last I could wait no longer, for the house seemed alive withstealthy movement, and I shook with the indefinite terror that comes,some night or another, to the most unimaginative child. I thought, atfirst, of calling to my grandfather, but that would seem babyish; so Isaid my prayers over again, held my breath, and faced the terrors of thestaircase. The boards sang and creaked under my bare feet, and the blackabout me was full of dim coloured faces. But I pushed the door and drewbreath in the honest lamplight of the bar-parlour at last.

  Nobody was there, and nobody was in the bar. Could he have gone out? WasI alone in the house, there, where the blood was still on the carpet?But there was a slight noise from behind the stairs, and I turned tolook farther.

  Behind the bar-parlour and the staircase were two rooms, that projectedimmediately over the river, with their frames resting on the piles. Onewas sometimes used as a parlour for the reception of mates and skippers,though such customers were rare; the other held cases, bottles andbarrels. To this latter I turned, and mounting the three steps behindthe staircase, pushed open the door; and was mightily astonished at whatI saw.

  There was my grandfather, kneeling, and there was one half of Bill Staggthe purlman, standing waist-deep in the floor. For a moment it wasbeyond me to guess what he was standing on, seeing that there wasnothing below but water; but presently I reasoned that the tide washigh, and he must be standing in his boat. He was handing my grandfathersome small packages, and he saw me at once and pointed. Grandfather Natturned sharply, and stared, and for a moment I feared he was angry. Thenhe grinned, shook his finger at me, and brought it back to his lips witha tap.

  "All right--my pardner," he whispered, and Bill Stagg grinned too. Thebusiness was short enough, and in a few seconds Bill Stagg, with anothergrin at me, and something like a wink, ducked below. My grandfather,with noiseless care, put back in place a trap-door--not a square,noticeable thing, but a clump of boards of divers lengths that fell intoplace with as innocent an aspect as the rest of the floor. This done, herolled a barrel over the place, and dropped the contents of the packagesinto a row of buckets that stood near.

  "What's that, Grandfather Nat?" I ventured to ask, when all was safelyaccomplished.

  My grandfather grinned once more, and shook his head. "Go on," he said,"I'll tell you in the bar-parlour. May as well now as let ye find out."He blew out the light of his candle and followed me.

  "Well," he said, wrapping my cold feet in my nightgown as I sat on hisknee. "What brought ye down, Stevy? Did we make a noise?"

  I shook my head. "I--I felt lonely," I said.

  "Lonely? Well, never mind. An' so ye came to look for me, eh? Well, now,this is another one o' the things as you mustn't talk about, Stevy--alittle secret between ourselves, bein' pardners
."

  "The stuff in the pail, Gran'fa' Nat?"

  "The stuff in the pail, an' the hole in the floor. You're sure you won'tget talkin', an' get your poor old gran'father in trouble?"

  Yes, I was quite sure; though I could not see as yet what there was tocause trouble.

  "The stuff Bill Stagg brought, Stevy, is 'bacca. 'Bacca smashed down sohard that a pound ain't bigger than that matchbox. An' I pitch it in thewater to swell it out again; see?"

  I still failed to understand the method of its arrival. "Did Bill Staggsteal it, gran'father?" I asked.

  Grandfather Nat laughed. "No, my boy," he said; "he bought it, an' I buyit. It comes off the Dutch boats. But it comes a deal cheaper takin' itin that way at night-time. There's a big place I'll show you one day,Stevy--big white house just this side o' London Bridge. There's a lot o'gentlemen there as wants to see all the 'bacca that comes in fromaboard, an' they take a lot o' trouble over it, and charge too, fearful.So they're very angry if parties--same as you an' me--takes any inwithout lettin' 'em know, an' payin' 'em the money. An' they can get youlocked up."

  This seemed a very unjust world that I had come into, in whichGrandfather Nat was in danger of such terrible penalties for suchinnocent transactions--buying a watch, or getting his tobacco cheap. SoI said: "I think people are very wicked in this place."

  "Ah!" said my grandfather, "I s'pose none of us ain't over good. Butthere--I've told you about it now, an' that's better than lettin' youwonder, an' p'raps go asking other people questions. So now you know,Stevy. We've got our little secrets between us, an' you've got to keep'em between us, else--well, you know. Nothing about anything I buy, norabout what I take in _there_,"--with a jerk of the thumb--"nor about'bacca in buckets o' water."

  "Nor about the pocket-book, Gran'fa' Nat?"

  "Lord no. 'Specially not about that. You see, Stevy, pardners ispardners, an' they must stick together, eh? We'll stick together, won'twe?"

  I nodded hard and reached for my grandfather's neck.

  "Ah, that we will. What others like to think they can; they can't provenothing, nor it wouldn't be their game. But we're pardners, an' I'vetold you what--well, what you might ha' found out in a more awkward way.An' it ain't so bad a thing to have a pardner to talk to, neither. Inever had one till now--not since your gran'mother died, that you neversaw, Stevy; an' that was twenty years ago. I been alone most o' mylife--not even a boy, same as it might be you. 'Cause why? When yourfather was your age, an' older, I was always at sea, an' never saw him,scarcely; same as him an' you now."

  And indeed Grandfather Nat and I knew each other better than my fatherknew either of us. And so we sat for a few minutes talking of ourselves,and once more of the notes in the pocket-book upstairs; till the trampof the three policemen on the beat stayed in the street without, and weheard one of the three coming down the passage.

  He knocked sharply at the bar-parlour door, and Grandfather Nat put medown and opened it.

  "Good evenin', Cap'en Kemp," said the policeman. "We knew you was up,seein' a bit o' light." Then he leaned farther in, and in a lower voice,said: "He ain't been exactly identified yet, but it's thought some ofour chaps knows 'im. Know if anything's been picked up?"

  My heart gave a jump, as probably did my grandfather's. "Picked up?" herepeated. "Why, what? What d'ye mean?"

  "Well, there was nothing partic'lar on the body, an' our chaps didn'tsee the knife. We thought if anybody about 'ad picked up anything, knifeor what not, you might 'ear. So there ain't nothing?"

  "No," Grandfather Nat answered blankly. "I've seen no knife, nor heardof none."

  "All right, Cap'en Kemp--if you do hear of anything, give us the tip.Good night!"

  Grandfather Nat looked oddly at me, and I at him. I think we had afeeling that our partnership was sealed. And so with no more words wewent to bed.