The Hole in the Wall Page 12

  CHAPTER XII

  IN THE CLUB-ROOM

  By the side of the bills stuck at the corner of Hole-in-the-WallStairs--the bills that had so fascinated Stephen--a new one appeared,with the heading "Body Found." It particularised the personal marks anddescription of the unhappy Marr; his "fresh complexion," his brown hair,his serge suit and his anklejacks. The bill might have stood on everywall in London till it rotted, and never have given a soul who knew hima hint to guess the body his: except Viney, who knew the fact already.And the body might have been buried unidentified ere Viney would haveshown himself in the business, were it not for the interference of Mr.Cripps. For industry of an unprofitable kind was a piece of Mr. Cripps'snature; and, moreover, he was so regular a visitor at the mortuary as tohave grown an old friend of the keeper. His persistent prying among theghastly liers-in-state, at first on plea of identifying a friend--acontingency likely enough, since his long-shore acquaintance waswide--and later under the name of friendly calls, was an indulgence thathad helped him to consideration as a news-monger, and twice had raisedhim to the elevation of witness at an inquest; a distinction verygratifying to his simple vanity. He entertained high hopes of beingcalled witness in the case of the man stabbed at the side door of theHole in the Wall; and was scarce seen at Captain Nat's all the next day,preferring to frequent the mortuary. So it happened that he saw theother corpse that was carried thence from Hole-in-the-Wall Stairs.

  "There y'are," said the mortuary-keeper. "There's a fresh 'un, just infrom the river, unknown. _You_ dunno 'im either, I expect."

  But Mr. Cripps was quite sure that he did. Curious and eager, he walkedup between the two dead men, his grimy little body being all thatdivided them in this their grisly reunion. "I _do_ know 'im," heinsisted, thoughtfully. "Leastways I've seen 'im somewheres, I'm sure."The little man gazed at the dreadful head, and then at the rafters: thenshut his eyes with a squeeze that drove his nose into amazing lumps andwrinkles; then looked at the head again, and squeezed his eyelidstogether once more; and at last started back, his eyes rivalling hisvery nose itself for prominence. "Why!" he gasped, "it is! It is, s'elpme!... It's Mr. Marr, as is pardners with Mr. Viney! I on'y see 'im oncein my life, but I'll swear it's 'im!... Lord, what a phenomenal go!"

  And with that Mr. Cripps rushed off incontinent to spread the newswherever anybody would listen. He told the police, he told the loafers,he told Captain Nat and everybody in his bar; he told the watermen atthe stairs, he shouted it to the purlmen in their boats, and he wriggledinto conversation with perfect strangers to tell them too. So that itcame to pass that Viney, being called upon by the coroner's officer, wasfain to swallow his reluctance and come forward at the inquest.

  That was held at the Hole in the Wall twenty-four hours after the bodyhad been hauled ashore. The two inquests were held together, in fact,Marr's and that of the broken-nosed man, stabbed in the passage. Twoinquests, or even three, in a day, made no uncommon event in thoseparts, where perhaps a dozen might be held in a week, mostly ending withthe same doubtful verdict--Found Drowned. But here one of the inquiriesrelated to an open and witnessed murder, and that fact gave some touchof added interest to the proceedings.

  Accordingly a drifting group hung about the doors of the Hole in theWall at the appointed time,--just such an idle, changing group as hadhung there all the evening after the man had been stabbed; and in themidst stood Blind George with his fiddle, his vacant white eye rollingupward, his mouth full of noisy ribaldry, and his fiddle playingpunctuation and chorus to all he said or sang. He turned his ear at thesound of many footsteps leaving the door near him.

  "There they go!" he sang out; "there they go, twelve on 'em!" And indeedit was the jury going off to view the bodies. "There they go, twelvegood men an' true, an' bloomin' proud they are to fancy it! Got a copperfor Blind George, gentlemen? Not a brown for pore George?... Not them;not a brass farden among the 'ole dam good an' lawful lot.... Ahoy!ain't Gubbins there,--the good an' lawful pork-butcher as 'ad to payforty bob for shovin' a lump o' fat under the scales? Tell the crownerto mind 'is pockets!"

  The idlers laughed, and one flung a copper, which Blind George snatchedalmost before it had fallen. "Ha! ha!" he cried, "there's a toffsomewhere near, I can tell by the sound of his money! Here goes for astave!" And straightway be broke into:--

  O they call me Hanging Johnny, With my hang, boys, hang!

  The mortuary stood at no great distance and soon the jury were back inthe club-room over the bar, and at work on the first case. The policehad had some difficulty as to identification of the stabbed man. Thedifficulty arose not only because there were no relations in theneighbourhood to feel the loss, but as much because the persons able tomake the identification kept the most distant possible terms with thepolice, and withheld information from them as a matter of principle.Albeit a reluctant ruffian was laid hold of who was induced sulkily toadmit that he had known the deceased to speak to, and lodged near him inBlue Gate; that the deceased was called Bob Kipps; that he was quitelately come into the neighbourhood; and that he had no particularoccupation, as far as witness knew. It needed some pressure to extractthe information that Kipps, during the short time he was in Blue Gate,chiefly consorted with one Dan Ogle, and that witness had seen nothingof Ogle that day, nor the day before.

  There was also a woman called to identify--a woman more reluctant thanthe man; a woman of coarse features, dull eyes, tousled hair, and thickvoice, sluttish with rusty finery. Name, Margaret Flynn; though at theback of the little crowd that had squeezed into the court she was calledMusky Mag. It was said there, too, that Mag, in no degree one of thefainting sort, had nevertheless swooned when taken into themortuary--gone clean off with a flop; true, she explained it, afterward,by saying that she had only expected to see one body, but found herselfbrought face to face with two; and of course there was the otherthere--Marr's. But it was held no such odds between one corpse and twothat an outer-and-outer like Mag should go on the faint over it. Thiswas reasonable enough, for the crowd. But not for a woman who had sat todrink with three men, and in a short hour or so had fallen over thebattered corpse of one of them, in the dark of her room; who had beenforced, now, to view the rent body of a second, and in doing it to meetonce again the other, resurrected, bruised, sodden and horrible; and whoknew that all was the work of the last of the three, and that man inperil of the rope: the man, too, of all the world, in her eye....

  Her evidence, given with plain anxiety and a nervous unsteadiness of themouth, added nothing to the tale. The man was Bob Kipps; he was astranger till lately--came, she had heard tell, from Shoreditch orHoxton; saw him last a day or two ago: knew nothing of his death beyondwhat she had heard; did not know where Dan Ogle was (this veryvehemently, with much shaking of the head); had not seen him withdeceased--but here the police inspector handed the coroner a scribblednote, and the coroner having read it and passed it back, said no more.Musky Mag stood aside; while the inspector tore the note into smallpieces and put the pieces in his pocket.

  Nathaniel Kemp, landlord of the house, told the story of the murder ashe saw it, and of his chase of the murderer. Did not know deceased, andshould be unable to identify the murderer if he met him again, havingseen no more than his figure in the dark.

  All this time Mr. Cripps had been standing, in eager trepidation,foremost among the little crowd, nodding and lifting his hand anxiously,strenuous to catch the coroner's officer's attention at the dismissal ofeach witness, and fearful lest his offer of evidence, made a dozen timesbefore the coroner came, should be forgotten. Now at last the coroner'sofficer condescended to notice him, and being beckoned, Mr. Crippsswaggered forward, his greasy widewake crushed under his arm, and hisface radiant with delighted importance. He bowed to the coroner, kissedthe book with a flourish, and glanced round the court to judge how muchof the due impression was yet visible.

  The coroner signified that he was ready to hear whatever Mr. Cripps knewof this matter.

  Mr. Cripps "threw a chest," st
uck an arm akimbo, and raised the otherwith an oratorical sweep so large that his small voice, when it came,seemed all the smaller. "Hi was in the bar, sir," he piped, "the bar,sir, of this 'ouse, bein' long acquainted with an' much respectin'Cap'en Kemp, an' in the 'abit of visitin' 'ere in the intervals of thepursoot of my hart. Hem! Hi was in the bar, sir, when my attention wasattracted by a sudden noise be'hind, or as I may say, in the rear of,the bar-parlour. Hi was able to distinguish, gentlemen of the jury, whatmight be called, in a common way o' speakin', a bump or a bang, sich aswould be occasioned by an unknown murderer criminally shoving hisun'appy victim's 'ed agin the back-door of a public-'ouse. Hi was ableto distinguish it, sir, from a 'uman cry which follered: a 'uman cry, oras it might be, a holler, sich as would be occasioned by the un'appyvictim 'avin' 'is 'ed shoved agin the back-door aforesaid. Genelmen, I'esitated not a moment. I rushed forward."

  Mr. Cripps paused so long to give the statement effect that the coronerlost patience. "Yes," he said, "you rushed forward. Do you mean youjumped over the bar?"

  For a moment Mr. Cripps's countenance fell; truly it would have beenmore imposing to have jumped over the bar. But he was on his oath, andhe must do his best with the facts. "No, sir," he explained, a littletamely, "not over the bar, but reether the opposite way, so to speak,towards the door. I rushed forward, genelmen, in a sort of rearwardsdirection, through the door, an' round into the alley. Immediate as Iturned the corner, genelmen, I be'eld with my own eyes the unknownmurderer; I see 'im a-risin' from over 'is un'appy victim, an' I see asthe criminal tragedy had transpired. I--I rushed forward."

  The sensation he looked for being slow in coming, another rush seemedexpedient; but it fell flat as the first, and Mr. Cripps struggled on,desperately conscious that he had nothing else to say.

  "I rushed forward, sir; seein' which the miscreant absconded--absconded,no doubt with--with the proceeds; an' seein' Cap'en Kemp abscondin'after him, I turned an' be'eld the un'appy victim--the corpse now incustody, sir--a-layin' in the bar-parlour, 'elpless an'--an'decimated.... I--rushed forward."

  It was sad to see how little the coroner was impressed; there was evensomething in his face not unlike a smile; and Mr. Cripps was at the endof his resources. But if he could have seen the face of Musky Mag, inthe little crowd behind him, he might have been consoled. She alone, ofall who heard, had followed his rhetoric with an agony of attention,word by word: even as she had followed the earlier evidence. Now herstrained face was the easier merely by contrast with itself when Mr.Cripps was in full cry; and a moment later it was tenser than ever.

  "Yes, yes, Mr. Cripps," the coroner said; "no doubt you were veryactive, but we don't seem to have increased the evidence. You say yousaw the man who stabbed the deceased in the passage. Did you know him atall? Ever see him before?"

  Here, mayhap, was some chance of an effect after all. Mr. Cripps couldscarce have distinguished the murderer from one of the posts in thealley; but he said, with all the significance he could give the words:"Well, sir, I won't go so far as to swear to 'is name, sir; no, sir, notto 'is _name_, certainly not." And therewith he made his sensation atlast, bringing upon himself the twenty-four eyes of the jury alltogether.

  The coroner looked up sharply. "Oh," he said, "you know him by sightthen? Does he belong to the neighbourhood?"

  Now it was not Mr. Cripps who had said he knew the murderer by sight,but the coroner. Far be it from him, thought the aspirant for fame, tocontradict the coroner, and so baulk himself of the credit thus thrustupon him. So he answered with the same cautious significance and asuccession of portentous nods. "Your judgment, sir, is correct; quitecorrect."

  "Come then, this is important. You would be able to recognise him again,of course?"

  There was no retreat--Mr. Cripps was in for it. It was an unforeseenconsequence of the quibble, but since plunge he must he plunged neck andcrop. "I'd know 'im anywhere," he said triumphantly.

  There was an odd sound in the crowd behind, and a fall. Captain Natstrode across, and the crowd wondered; for Musky Mag had fainted again.

  The landlord lifted her, and carried her to the stairs. When the doorhad closed behind them, and the coroner's officer had shouted the littlecrowd into silence, the inquest took a short course to its end.

  Mr. Cripps, in the height of his consequence, began to feel seriousmisgivings as to the issue of his stumble beyond the verities; and thecoroner's next words were a relief.

  "I think that will be enough, Mr. Cripps," the coroner said; "no doubtthe police will be glad of your assistance." And with that he gave thejury the little summing up that the case needed. There was the medicalevidence, and the evidence of the stabbing, and that evidence pointed toan unmistakable conclusion. Nobody was in custody, nor had the murdererbeen positively identified, and such evidence as there was in thisrespect was for the consideration of the police. He thought the jurywould have no difficulty in arriving at a verdict. The jury had none;and the verdict was Murder by some Person or Persons unknown.

  The other inquest gave even less trouble. Mr. Henry Viney, shipowner,had seen the body, and identified it as that of his partner Lewis Marr.Marr had suddenly disappeared a week ago, and an examination of hisaccounts showed serious defalcations, in consequence of which witnesshad filed his petition in bankruptcy. Whether or not Marr had takenmoney with him witness could not say, as deceased had entire charge ofthe accounts; but it seemed more likely that embezzlement had been goingon for some time past, and Marr had fled when detection could no longerbe averted. This might account for his dressing, and presumably seekingwork, as a sailor.

  The divisional surgeon of police had examined the body, and found alarge wound on the head, fully sufficient to have caused death,inflicted either by some heavy, blunt instrument, or by a fall from aheight on a hard substance. One thigh was fractured, and there wereother wounds and contusions, but these, as well as the broken thigh,were clearly caused after death. The blow on the head might have beencaused by an accident on the riverside, or it might have been inflictedwilfully by an assailant.

  Then there was the evidence of the man who had found the body foul of arudder and a hawser, and of the police who had found nothing on thebody. And there was no more evidence at all. The coroner havingsympathised deeply with Mr. Viney, gave the jury the proper lead, andthe jury with perfect propriety returned the open verdict that thedoctor's evidence and the coroner's lead suggested. The case, except forthe circumstances of Marr's flight, was like a hundred others inquiredupon thereabout in the course of a few weeks, and in an hour it was in afair way to be forgotten, even by the little crowd that clumpeddownstairs to try both cases all over again in the bar of the Hole inthe Wall.

  To the coroner, the jury, and the little crowd, these were two inquestswith nothing to connect them but the accident of time and theconvenience of the Hole in the Wall club-room. But Blind George,standing in the street with his fiddle, and getting the news from theclub-room in scraps between song and patter, knew more and guessedbetter.