CHAPTER XI
STEPHEN'S TALE
I had never seen either of the partners in the firm of Viney and Marr:as I may have said already. On the day after the man was stabbed at ourside door I saw them both.
That morning the tide was low, and Hole-in-the-Wall Stairs ended in acauseway in the midst of a little flat of gravel and mud. So, since themud was nowhere dangerous, and there was no deep water to fall into, Iwas allowed to go down the steps alone and play on the foreshore whileGrandfather Nat was busy with his morning's affairs; the two or threewatermen lying by the causeway undertaking to keep an eye on me. Andthere I took my pleasure as I would, now raking in the wet pebbles, andheaving over big stones that often pulled me on to all-fours, nowclimbing the stairs to peep along the alley, and once or twice runningas far as the bar-parlour door to report myself to Grandfather Nat, andinform him of my discoveries.
The little patch of foreshore soon rendered up all its secrets, and itsarea grew less by reason of the rising tide; so that I turned to othermatters of interest. Out in mid-stream a cluster of lighters lay moored,waiting for the turn of the tide. Presently a little tug came puffingand fussing from somewhere alongshore, and after much shoving andhauling and shouting, scuffled off, trailing three of the lightersbehind it; from which I conjectured that their loads were needed in ahurry. But the disturbance among the rest of the lighters was not donewith when the tug had cleared the three from their midst; for a hawserhad got foul of a rudder, and two or three men were at work with polesand hooks, recrimination and forcible words, to get things clear. Thoughthe thing seemed no easy job; and it took my attention for some time.
But presently I tired of it, and climbed the steps to read the billsdescribing the people who had been found drowned. There were eleven ofthe bills altogether, fresh and clean; and fragments of innumerableothers, older and dirtier, were round about them. Ten men and one womanhad been picked up, it would seem, and all within a week or two, as Ilearned when I had spelled out the dates. I pored at these bills till Ihad read them through, being horribly fascinated by the personal marksand peculiarities so baldly set forth; the scars, the tattoo marks, thecolour of the dead eyes; the clothes and boots and the contents of thepockets--though indeed most of the pockets would seem to have beenempty. The woman--they guessed her age at twenty-two--wore one earring;and I entangled myself in conjectures as to what had become of theother.
I was disturbed by a shout from the causeway. I looked and saw BillStagg in his boat. "Is your gran'father there?" shouted Bill Stagg."Tell him they've found his boat."
This was joyful news, and I rushed to carry it. "They've found our boat,Grandfather Nat," I cried. "Bill Stagg says so!"
Grandfather Nat was busy in the bar, and he received the informationwith calmness. "Ah," he said, "I knew it 'ud turn up somewhere. BillStagg there?" And he came out leisurely in his shirt sleeves, and stoodat the head of the stairs.
"P'lice galley found your boat, cap'en," Bill Stagg reported. "You'llhave to go up to the float for it."
"Right. Know where it was?"
"Up agin Elephant stairs"--Bill Stagg pointed across the river--"turnedadrift and jammed among the lighters."
Grandfather Nat nodded serenely. Bill Stagg nodded in reply, shoved offfrom the causeway and went about his business.
The hawser was still foul among the lighters out in the stream, and aman had pulled over in a boat to help. I had told grandfather of thedifficulty, and how long it had baffled the lightermen, and was askingthe third of a string of questions about it all, when there was a stepbehind, and a voice: "Good mornin', Cap'en Nat."
My grandfather turned quickly. "Mr. Viney!" he said. "Well.... Goodmornin'."
I turned also, and I was not prepossessed by Mr. Viney. His face--a faceno doubt originally pale and pasty, but too long sun-burned to revert toanything but yellow in these later years of shore-life--his yellow facewas ever stretched in an uneasy grin, a grin that might mean eitherpropitiation or malice, and remained the same for both. He had thewatery eyes and the goatee beard that were not uncommon among seamen,and in total I thought he much resembled one of those same hang-dogfellows that stood at corners and leaned on posts in the neighbourhood,making a mysterious living out of sailors; one of them, that is to say,in a superior suit of clothes that seemed too good for him. I suppose hemay have been an inch taller than Grandfather Nat; but in the contrastbetween them he seemed very small and mean.
He offered his hand with a stealthy gesture, rather as though he weretrying to pick my grandfather's waistcoat pocket; so that the old manstared at the hand for a moment, as if to see what he would be at,before he shook it.
"Down in the world again, Cap'en Nat," said Viney, with a shrug.
"Ay, I heard," answered Captain Nat. "I'm very sorry; but there--perhapsyou'll be up again soon...."
* * * * *
"I come to ask you about something," Viney proceeded, as they walkedaway toward the bar-parlour door. "Something you'll tell me, bein' anold shipmate, if you can find out, I'm sure. Can we go into your place?No, there's a woman there."
"Only one as does washin' up an' such. I'll send her upstairs if youlike."
"No, out here's best; we'll walk up and down; people get hangin' rounddoors an' keyholes in a place like that. Here we can see who's near us."
"What, secrets?"
"Ay." Viney gave an ugly twist to his grin. "I know some o' yours--onebig un' at any rate, Cap'en Nat, don't I? So I can afford to let youinto a little 'un o' mine, seein' I can't help it. Now I'd like to knowif you've seen anything of Marr."
"No,--haven't seen him for months. Bolted, they tell me, an'--well youknow better'n me, I expect."
"I don't know," Viney replied with emphasis. "I ought to know, but Idon't. See here now. Less than a week ago he cleared out, an' then Ifiled my petition. He might ha' been gone anywhere--bolted. Might beabroad, as would seem most likely. In plain fact he was only coming downin these parts to lie low. See? Round about here a man can lie low an'snug, an' safer than abroad, if he likes. And he had money with him--allwe could get together. See?" And Viney frowned and winked, and glancedstealthily over his shoulder.
"Ah," remarked Captain Nat, drily, "I see. An' the creditors----"
"Damn the creditors! See here, Cap'en Nat Kemp. Remember a man calledDan Webb?"
Captain Nat paled a little, and tightened his lips.
"Remember a man called Dan Webb?" Viney repeated, stopping in his walkand facing the other with the uneasy grin unchanged. "A man called DanWebb, aboard o' the _Florence_ along o' you an' me? 'Cause I do, anyhow.That's on'y my little hint--we're good friends altogether, o' course,Cap'en Nat; but you know what it means. Well, Marr had money with him,as I said. He was to come to a quiet anchorage hereabout, got up like aseaman, an' let me know at once."
Captain Nat, his mouth still set tight, nodded, with a grunt.
"Well, he didn't let me know. I heard nothing at all from him, an' itstruck me rather of a heap to think that p'raps he'd put the double onme, an' cleared out in good earnest. But yesterday I got news. A blindfiddler chap gave me some sort o' news."
Captain Nat remembered the meeting at the street corner in the eveningafter the funeral. "Blind George?" he queried.
"Yes, that was all the name he gave me; a regular thick 'un, that blindchap, an' a flow o' language as would curl the sheathing off a ship'sbottom. He came the evening before, it seems, but found the place shutup--servant gal took her hook. Well now, he'd done all but see Marr downhere at the Blue Gate--he'd seen him as clear as a blind man could, hesaid, with his ears: an' he came to me to give me the tip an' earnanything I'd give him for it. It amounted to this. It was plain enoughMarr had come along here all right, an' pitched on some sort o'quarters; but it was clear he wasn't fit to be trusted alone in such aplace at all. For the blind chap found him drunk, an' in tow with asprecious a pair o' bully-boys as Blue Gate could show. Not only drunk,neither, but drunk with a slack jaw--drun
k an' gabbling, drunk an'talkin' business--_my_ business--an' lettin' out all there was tolet,--this an' that an' t'other an' Lord knows what! It was only becauseof his drunken jabber that the blind man found out who he was."
"And this was the day before yesterday?" asked Captain Nat.
"Yes."
Captain Nat shook his head. "If he was like that the day beforeyesterday," he said, "in tow with such chaps as you say,--well, whateverhe had on him ain't on him now. An' it 'ud puzzle a cleverer man than meto find it. You may lay to that."
Viney swore, and stamped a foot, and swore again. "But see," he said,"ain't there a chance? It was in notes, all of it. Them chaps'll beafraid to pass notes. Couldn't most of it be got back on an arrangementto cash the rest? You can find 'em if you try, with all your chances.Come--I'll pay fair for what I get, to you an' all."
"See how you've left it," remarked Captain Nat; and Viney swore again."This was all done the day before yesterday. Well, you don't hear of ityourself till yesterday, an' now you don't come to me till to-day."
Viney swore once more, and grinned twice as wide in his rage. "Yes," hesaid, "that was Blind George's doing. I sent him back to see what _he_could do, an' ain't seen him since. Like as not he's standing in withthe others."
"Ay, that's likely," the old man answered, "very likely. Blind George isas tough a lot as any in Blue Gate, for all he's blind. You'd never ha'heard of it at all if they'd ha' greased him a bit at first. I expectthey shut him out, to keep the plant to themselves; an' so he came toyou for anything he could pick up. An' now----"
Viney cursed them all, and Blind George and himself together; but mosthe cursed Marr; and so talking, the two men walked to and fro in thepassage.
* * * * *
I could see that Viney was angry, and growing angrier still. But I gaveall my attention to the work at the fouled hawser. The man in the boat,working patiently with a boat-hook, succeeded suddenly and withoutwarning, so that he almost pitched headlong into the river. The ropecame up from its entanglement with a spring and a splash, flinging someamazing great object up with it, half out of water; and the men gave acry as this thing lapsed heavily to the surface.
The man in the boat snatched his hook again and reached for the thing asit floated. Somebody threw him a length of line, and with this he madeit fast to his boat, and began pulling toward the stairs, towing it. Iwas puzzled to guess what the object might be. It was no part of thelighter's rudder, for it lay in, rather than on, the water, and itrolled and wallowed, and seemed to tug heavily, so that the boatman hadto pull his best. I wondered if he had caught some curiouswater-creature--a porpoise perhaps, or a seal, such as had been flungashore in a winter storm at Blackwall a year before.
Viney and Grandfather Nat had turned their steps toward the stairs, andas they neared, my grandfather, lifting his eyes, saw the boatman andhis prize, and saw the watermen leaving their boats for the foreshore.With a quick word to Viney he hastened down the stairs; and Vineyhimself, less interested, followed half way down, and waited.
The boatman brought up alongside the foreshore, and he and anotherhauled at the tow-rope. The thing in the water came in, rolling andbobbing, growing more hideously distinct as it came; it checked at themud and stones, turned over, and with another pull lay ashore, staringand grey and streaming: a dead man.
The lips were pulled tight over the teeth, and, the hair being fair, itwas the plainer to see that one side of the head and forehead was blackand open with a great wound. The limbs lay limp and tumbled, all; butone leg fell aside with so loose a twist that plainly it was broken, andI heard, afterwards, that it was the leg that had caused the difficultywith the hawser.
Grandfather Nat, down at the waterside, had no sooner caught sight ofthe dead face than with wide eyes he turned to Viney, and shouted theone word "Look!" Then he went and took another view, longer and closer;and straightway came back in six strides to the stairs, whereon Vineywas no longer standing, but sitting, his face tallowy and his grinfaded.
"See him?" cried Grandfather Nat in a hushed voice. "See him! It's Marrhimself, if I know him at all! Come--come and see!"
Viney pulled his arm from the old man's grasp, turned, and crawled up astair or two. "No," he said faintly, "I--I won't, now--I--they'd know mep'raps, some of them." His breath was short, and he gulped. "Good God,"he said presently, "it's him--it's him sure enough. And the clothes hehad on.... But ... Cap'en--Cap'en Nat; go an' try his pockets.--Go on.There's a pocket-book--leather pocket-book.... Go on!"
"What's the good?" asked Captain Nat, with a lift of the eyebrows, andthe same low voice. "What's the good? I can't fetch it away, with allthem witnesses. Go yourself, an' say you're his pardner; you'd have achance then."
"No--no. I--it ain't good enough. You know 'em; I don't. I'll stand inwith you--give you a hundred if it's all there! Square 'em--you know'em!"
"If they're to be squared you can do it as well as me. There'll be aninquest on this, an' evidence. I ain't going to be asked what I did withthe man's pocket-book. No. I don't meddle in this, Mr. Viney. If itain't good enough for you to get it for yourself, it ain't good enoughfor me to get it for you."
"Kemp, I'll go you halves--there! Get it, an' there's four hundred foryou. Eight hundred an' odd quid, in a pocket-book. Come, that's worthit, ain't it? Eight hundred an' odd quid--in a leather pocket-book! An'I'll go you halves."
Captain Nat started at the words, and stood for a moment, staring."Eight hundred!" he repeated under his breath. "Eight hundred an' oddquid. In a leather pocket-book. Ah!" And the stare persisted, and grewthoughtful.
"Yes," replied Viney, now a little more himself. "Now you know; and it'sworth it, ain't it? Don't waste time--they're turning him overthemselves. You can manage all these chaps. Go on!"
"I'll see if anything's there," answered Captain Nat. "More I can't; an'if there's nothing that's an end of it."
He went down to where the men were bending over the body, to disengagethe tow-line. He looked again at the drawn face under the gapingforehead, and said something to the men; then he bent and patted thesoddened clothes, now here, now there; and at last felt in thebreast-pocket.
Meantime Viney stood feverishly on the stairs, watching; fidgetingnervously down a step, and then down another, and then down two more.And so till Captain Nat returned.
The old man shook his head. "Cleaned out," he reported. "Cleaned out, o'course. Hit on the head an' cleaned out, like many a score better menbefore him, down these parts. Not a thing in the pockets anywhere.Flimped clean."
Viney's eyes were wild. "Nothing at all left?" he said. "Nothing of hisown? Not a watch, nor anything?"
"No, not a watch, nor anything."
Viney stood staring at space for some moments, murmuring many oaths.Then he asked suddenly, "Where's this blind chap? Where can I find BlindGeorge?"
Grandfather Nat shook his head. "He's all over the neighbourhood," heanswered. "Try the Highway; I can't give you nearer than that."
And with no more counsel to help him, Mr. Viney was fain to depart. Hewent grinning and cursing up the passage and so toward the bridge,without another word or look. And when I turned to my grandfather I sawhim staring fixedly at me, lost in thought, and rubbing his hand up inhis hair behind, through the grey and out at the brown on top.