The Hole in the Wall Page 18

  CHAPTER XVIII

  ON THE COP

  When the limy man left Blue Gate he went, first, to the Hole in theWall, there to make to Captain Kemp some small report on the wharf bythe Lea. This did not keep him long, and soon he was on his journey hometo the wharf itself, by way of the crooked lanes and the CommercialRoad.

  He had left Blue Gate an hour and more when Musky Mag emerged from herblack stairway, peering fearfully about the street ere she ventured herfoot over the step. So she stood for a few seconds, and then, as onechancing a great risk, stepped boldly on the pavement, and, turning herback to the Highway, walked toward Back Lane. This was the nearer end ofBlue Gate, and, the corner turned, she stopped short, and peeped back.Satisfied that she had no follower, she crossed Back Lane, and takingevery corner, as she came to it, with a like precaution, threaded themaze of small, ill-lighted streets that lay in the angle between thegreat Rope Walk and Commercial Road. This wide road she crossed, andthen entered the dark streets beyond, in rear of the George Tavern; andso, keeping to obscure parallel ways, sometimes emerging into the glareof the main road, more commonly slinking in its darker purlieus, butnever out of touch with it, she travelled east; following in the mainthe later course of the limy man, who had left Blue Gate by its oppositeend.

  The fog, that had dulled the lights in Ratcliff Highway, met her againnear Limehouse Basin; but, ere she reached the church, she was clear ofit once more. Beyond, the shops grew few, and the lights fewer. For alittle while decent houses lined the way: the houses of those lastmerchants who had no shame to live near the docks and the works thatbrought their money. At last, amid a cluster of taverns and shops thatwere all for the sea and them that lived on it, the East India Dockgates stood dim and tall, flanked by vast raking walls, so that onemight suppose a Chinese city to seethe within. And away to the left, thedark road that the wall overshadowed was lined on the other side byhedge and ditch, with meadows and fields beyond, that were now no morethan a vast murky gulf; so that no stranger peering over the hedge couldhave guessed aright if he looked on land or on water, or on mere blackvacancy.

  Here the woman made a last twist: turning down a side street, and comingto a moment's stand in an archway. This done, she passed through thearch into a path before a row of ill-kept cottages; and so gained themarshy field behind the Accident Hospital, the beginning of the wastecalled The Cop.

  Here the great blackness was before her and about her, and she stumbledand laboured on the invisible ground, groping for pits and ditches, andstanding breathless again and again to listen. The way was so hard as toseem longer than it was, and in the darkness she must needs surmountobstacles that in daylight she would have turned. Often a ditch barredher way; and when, after long search, a means of crossing was found, itwas commonly a plank to be traversed on hands and knees. There werestagnant pools, too, into which she walked more than once; and twice shesuffered a greater shock of terror: first at a scurry of rats, and laterat quick footsteps following in the sodden turf--the footsteps, afterall, of nothing more terrible than a horse of inquiring disposition, outat grass.

  So she went for what seemed miles: though there was little more thanhalf a mile in a line from where she had left the lights to where atlast she came upon a rough road, seamed with deep ruts, and made visibleby many whitish blotches where lime had fallen, and had there beenground into the surface. To the left this road stretched away toward thelights of Bromley and Bow Common, and to the right it rose by an easyslope over the river wall skirting the Lea, and there ended at Kemp'sWharf.

  Not a creature was on the road, and no sound came from the black spacebehind her. With a breath of relief she set foot on the firmer ground,and hurried up the slope. From the top of the bank she could see Kemp'sWharf just below, with two dusty lighters moored in the dull river; andbeyond the river the measureless, dim Abbey Marsh. Nearer, among thesheds, a dog barked angrily at the sound of strange feet.

  A bright light came from the window of the little house that made officeand dwelling for the wharf-keeper, and something less of the same lightfrom the open door; for there the limy man stood waiting, leaning on thedoor-post, and smoking his pipe.

  He grunted a greeting as Mag came down the bank. "Bit late," he said."But it ain't easy over the Cop for a stranger."

  "Where?" the woman whispered eagerly. "Where is he?"

  The limy man took three silent pulls at his pipe. Then he took it fromhis mouth with some deliberation, and said: "Remember what I said? Idon't want 'im 'ere. I dunno what 'e's done, an' don't want; but if 'elikes to come 'idin' about, I ain't goin' to play the informer. I dunnowhy I should promise as much as that, just 'cos my brother married 'issister. _She_ ain't done me no credit, from what I 'ear now. Though she'ad a good master, as I can swear; 'cos 'e's mine too."

  "Where is he?" was all Mag's answer, again in an anxious whisper.

  "Unnerstand?" the limy man went on. "I'm about done with the pair on 'emnow, but I ain't goin' to inform. 'E come 'ere a day or two back an'claimed shelter; an' seein' as I was goin' up to Wappin' to-night, 'ewanted me to tell you where 'e was. Well, I've done that, an' I ain'tgoin' to do no more; see? 'E ain't none o' mine, an' I won't 'ave partnor parcel with 'im, nor any of ye. I keep myself decent, I do. I shan'tsay 'e's 'ere an' I shan't say 'e ain't; an' the sooner 'e goes thebetter 'e'll please me. See?"

  "Yes, Mr. Grimes, sir; but tell me where he is!"

  The limy man took his pipe from his mouth, and pointed with acomprehensive sweep of the stem at the sheds round about. "You can goan' look in any o' them places as ain't locked," he said off-handedly."The dog's chained up. Try the end one fust."

  Grimes the wharfinger resumed his pipe, and Mag scuffled off to wherethe light from the window fell on the white angle of a small woodenshelter. The place was dark within, dusted about with lime, and its doorstood inward. She stopped and peered.

  "All right," growled Dan Ogle from the midst of the dark. "Can't ye seeme now y' 'ave come?" And he thrust his thin face and big shoulders outthrough the opening.

  "O Dan!" the woman cried, putting out her hands as though she would takehim by the neck, but feared repulse. "O Dan! Thank Gawd you're safe,Dan! I bin dyin' o' fear for you, Dan!"

  "G-r-r-r!" he snorted. "Stow that! What I want's money. Got any?"