The Hole in the Wall Page 14

  CHAPTER XIV

  STEPHEN'S TALE

  A policeman brought my grandfather a bill, which was stuck against thebar window with gelatines; and just such another bill was posted on thewall at the head of Hole-in-the-Wall Stairs, above the smaller billsthat advertised the found bodies. This new bill was six times the sizeof those below; it was headed "Murder" in grim black capitals, and itset forth an offer of fifty pounds reward for information which shouldlead 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 atthe pains to cut from newspapers such reports of the inquest as wereprinted; and though they sadly disappointed him by their brevity, andall but two personally affronted him by disregarding his evidence andhimself altogether, still he made great play with the exceptional two,in the bar. But he was quick to drop the subject when Captain Nat urgedhim in pursuit of the reward.

  "Come," my grandfather would say, "you're neglecting your fortune, youknow. There's fifty pound waitin' for you to pick up, if you'd only goan' 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 pushedhim over bounds at the inquest, so far that he committed himself to anabsolute recognition of the murderer. The fact alarmed him not a little,on his return to calmness, and my grandfather, who understood hisindiscretion as well as himself, and enjoyed its consequences, in hisown grim way, amused himself at one vacant moment and another by settingMr. Cripps's alarm astir again.

  "You're throwing away your luck," he would say, perhaps, "seein' youknow him so well by sight. If you're too well-off to bother about fiftypound, give some of us poor 'uns a run for it, an' put us on to him. Iwish I'd been able to see him so clear." For in truth Grandfather Natwell knew that nobody had had so near a chance of seeing the murderer'sface as himself; and that Mr. Cripps, at the top of the passage--perhapseven round the corner--had no chance at all.

  It was because of Mr. Cripps's indiscretion, in fact--this I learnedlater still--that the police were put off the track of the realcriminal. For after due reflection on the direful complicationswhereinto his lapse promised to fling him, that distinguished witness,as I have already hinted, fell into a sad funk. So, though he needs musthold to the tale that he knew the man by sight, and could recognise himagain, he resolved that come what might, he would identify nobody, andso keep clear of further entanglements. Now the police suspicions fellshrewdly on Dan Ogle, a notorious ruffian of the neighbourhood. He hadbeen much in company of the murdered man of late, and now was suddenlygone from his accustomed haunts. Moreover, there was the plain agitationof the woman he consorted with, Musky Mag, at the inquest: she hadfainted, indeed, when Mr. Cripps had been so positive about identifyingthe murderer. These things were nothing of evidence, it was true; forthat they must depend on the witness who saw the fellow's face, knew himby sight, and could identify him. But when they came to this witnesswith their inquiries and suggestions the thing went overboard at abreath. 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 ratherthan bony. Did Mr. Cripps ever happen to have seen a man called DanOgle, and was this man at all like him? Mr. Cripps had been familiarwith Dan Ogle's appearance from his youth up (this was true, for thepainter's acquaintance was wide and diverse) but the man who killed BobKipps was as unlike him as it was possible for any creature on two legsto be. Then, would Mr. Cripps, if the thing came to trial, swear thatthe man he saw was not Dan Ogle? Mr. Cripps was most fervently anddesperately ready and anxious to swear that it was not, and could not byany possibility be Dan Ogle, or anybody like him.

  This brought the police inquiries to a fault; even had their suspicionsbeen stronger and better supported, it would have been useless to arrestDan Ogle, supposing they could find him; for this, the sole possiblewitness to identity, would swear him innocent. So they turned theirinquiries to fresh quarters, looking among the waterside populationacross the river--since it was plain that the murderer had rowedover--for recent immigrants from Wapping. For a little while Mr. Crippswas vexed and disquieted with invitations to go with a plain-clothespoliceman and "take a quiet look" at some doubtful characters; but ofcourse with no result, beyond the welcome one of an occasional freedrink ordered as an excuse for waiting at bars and tavern-corners; andin time these attentions ceased, for the police were reduced to waitingfor evidence to turn up; and Mr. Cripps breathed freely once more. WhileDan Ogle remained undisturbed, and justice was balked for a while; forit turned out in the end that when the police suspected Dan Ogle theywere 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 thanwonder to see Mr. Cripps abashed at an encouragement to earn fiftypounds; for he seemed not a penny richer than before, and stillimpetrated odd coppers on account of the signboard of promise.

  Once or twice we saw Mr. Viney, and on each occasion he borrowed moneyoff Grandfather Nat. The police were about the house a good deal at thistime, because of the murder, or I think he might have come oftener. Thefirst time he came I heard him telling my grandfather that he had gothold of Blind George, that Blind George had told him a good deal aboutthe missing money, and that with his help he hoped for a chance ofsaving some of it. He added, mysteriously, that it had been "nearerhereabouts than you might think, at one time"; a piece of news that mygrandfather received with a proper appearance of surprise. But was itsafe to confide in Blind George? Viney swore for answer, and said thatthe rascal had stipulated for such a handsome share that it would payhim 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 thanmy grandfather was disposed to give him. They were together in the backroom where the boxes and bottles were--the room into which I had seenBill Stagg's head and shoulders thrust by way of the trap-door. Mygrandfather's voice was low, and from time to time he seemed to bebegging Viney to lower his; so that I wondered to find Grandfather Natso 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 Vineypaid no heed, but talked as he would, so that I could catch his phrasesagain and again.

  "Let them hush as is afraid--I ain't," he said. And again: "O, am I? Notme.... It's little enough for me, if it does; not the rope, anyway." Andlater, "Yes, the rope, Cap'en Kemp, as you know well enough; the rope atNewgate Gaol.... Dan Webb, aboard o' the _Florence_.... The _Florence_that was piled up on the Little Dingoes in broad day.... As you wasordered 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, besensible--... I'm friendly enough.... Very well."

  Presently my grandfather, blacker than common about brow and eyes, but ashade paler in the cheek, came into the bar-parlour and opened the tradecash-box--not the one that Mrs. Grimes had hidden among the cinders, buta smaller one used for gold and silver. He counted out a number ofsovereigns--twenty, I believe--put the box away, and returned to theback room. And in a few minutes, with little more talk, Mr. Viney wasgone.

  Grandfather Nat came into the bar-parlour again, and his face clearedwhen 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 onewhose mind is engaged elsewhere. Then he rubbed his hand on my head, andsaid abstractedly, and rather to himself, I fancied, than to me: "Nevermind, Stevy; we got it back beforehand, forty times over." A remark thatI thought over afterward, in bed, with the reflection that forty timestwenty 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 grandfatherafter my arrival at the Hole in the Wall: "Did you ever kill a man,Grandfather Nat?"