Charles Palliser (98 page)

A lanthorn gleamed on my closed eyes. I heard his steps advance and then I knew that he was leaning over me for I smelt gin and tobacco and heard his heavy breath. I was afraid that in my attempt to mimic sleep I was screwing up THE VEIL

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my eyes too much, and then wondered whether he would become suspicious if I did not pretend to be awoken by the light or whether he was so far intoxicated as not to realize how much noise he was making.

I was about to open my eyes when I heard him moving away and then crashing about the room. At first I dared not look in case he was watching me but at last I very slowly opened my eyes, fearing that he might catch their glitter in the light of his lanthorn. I saw that he was standing apparently facing me but in fact with his head lowered, intent upon my clothes which he had picked up from where I had left them on the floor.

I looked at him full square on and saw his heavy brow, his protruding eyes, his big nose and pointed jaw, and it was as if a veil was lifted from his face so that I saw it clearly for the first time. The years seemed to roll back and I was a small child again, pretending, just as I was now, to be asleep, but on that occasion lying in my own little bed in my mother’s house and wakened suddenly from a nightmare to find that it was happening: the face I was now looking at was the face of the housebreaker I saw in the window at Melthorpe!

I closed my eyes and lay with my heart pounding so loud I was sure he must hear it.

In my first shock of terror, I could not believe that this extraordinary connexion was a mere coincidence, and therefore I believed that the man standing a few feet away was the instrument of some inexorable and complex machinery of destruction that I was fated never to escape from, that was designed to wreak my ruin as it had that of my grandfather and my parents.

At last, however, Barney went out and when I was sure he had descended the stairs, I struck a flint and lit my candle for I needed the reassurance of the light as I tried to unravel the meaning of this extraordinary discovery. Suddenly it came to me that he had known of his connexion with me from the first. The reason why he had so mysteriously changed his mind about admitting me to the house was that I had mentioned Melthorpe and that had alerted him to my identity. But why should he be concerned with me?
Why,
unless he was in touch with Sancious and the Clothiers?
That must be so! I thought of the attorney he had mentioned as the source of his fraudulent bills — surely that was Sancious! But how could this link between Barney and myself have come about? Since I knew nothing of the identity of the housebreaker and did not know if he had chosen my mother’s house by chance or had come as the agent of one of our enemies, I could make no headway in following that line. But how had I come to encounter Barney again? I retraced my steps mentally: I had been directed here by Pulvertaft to whom I had been sent by old Sam’el whom in his turn I had found in searching for the Digweeds.

The Digweeds! That must be the answer for they linked Barney with my mother’s house. At that realization it was as if the formless lump of links snapped straight and I saw the connexions that enchained me. Had Mrs Digweed and her son come to the house not by chance as they had claimed, but in connexion with the house-breaking that had taken place a few years before? I remembered how I had discovered Joey apparently searching my mother’s escritoire that night they had stayed with us. Was he the same Joey that Barney had referred to just now? And yet it all seemed very fine-spun and wire-drawn. In strict logic, I could have no certainty that there was any connexion between Barney and Mrs Digweed. Yet if there was, then perhaps 450 THE

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he was her husband? Though when I recalled her frankness and kindliness I could not believe that she was the consort of a criminal, and I did not want to. To accept that she had come to my mother’s house fraudulently and abused my mother’s generosity and trust was too horrible an idea to entertain. And yet I could see no alternative, except to assume that the re-appearance of the housebreaker in my life was the product of mere chance. Yet even this did not end the matter for if it were completely accidental, then in a paradoxical way that implied a kind of design. The thought made my head spin and at that moment there suddenly came into my mind the memory of Barney boasting that he had killed a gentleman. From what he had said, it appeared to have been about a year before my birth. If he were indeed so mysteriously connected with myself and my family and if he had acted as an agent of the Clothiers, could it not be that the murder he had hinted at was … ? No, surely I was mad to speculate so far! Yet everything seemed to be connected and to fit together.

Now it came to me: my life had a design, but it was that of another! I wondered who held the threads of the conspiracy, who had spun them and why? But at least by seeing the pattern I had escaped being caught in the web. From now on I would no longer be a mere pawn of destiny. I would give my life a purpose and it would be to seek Justice. To seek Justice for my mother and my father and my grandfather and myself against those who had done us wrong. Against Mrs Fortisquince and her smiling duplicity. Against the cold-hearted and arrogant Mompessons. Above all, against Silas Clothier who surely held the threads in his mouth.

At any rate, I knew I had to get away, and this very night. Quickly and silently I got up and dressed myself, donning not the fine clothes that Sally had bought for me in the West-end, but the old slops she had purchased in Shepherd’s-market when I had discarded my rags, for I wished to steal nothing from Barney and regretted having to take the great-coat and boots.

Once dressed and holding my boots in my hand, I glanced round the room before blowing out the candle: there was nothing else to take. Then as my arm brushed against the pocket of my jacket, I realized to my horror that it was empty. I searched the floor but eventually I had to concede that everything — my mother’s pocket-book, the copy of the codicil which I had made, the map, and the letter from my grandfather — had been removed. That was what Barney had been doing when I had opened my eyes and recognised him! Feeling the loss of the pocket-book as a further assault upon my mother and my links with her, for a moment I gave way to my rage and pain. The loss of the other documents I felt as a dull ache which would grieve me later though I hardly had time to consider this now. I blew out the candle and left the room.

I crept down the upper flight wondering how I would manage to effect my escape since the street-door — assuming it were unguarded — was the only way out of the house and that required that I pass the door from the hall into the drawing-room. With the vague intention of waiting until everyone had gone to sleep, I went back to my station in the chamber above the drawing-room and began to listen.

1 had obviously missed the recital of the evening’s achievements.

“That’s the right stuff!” Will was exclaiming in the midst of a chorus of hoots and laughter.

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“Bli’ me,” cried Bob. “Wouldn’t I love to have seen them swells’ phizes when they laid their peepers on Jack!”

I heard the popping of corks and the sounds of celebration. Time passed. I had to remain alert to the sound of anyone coming up the stairs and to avoid falling asleep and toppling forward into the chamber below.

Card-games broke out, someone began to play the fiddle and I saw dancing figures whirling by below me. As the weary hours dragged by in drinking, gaming, quarrelling

— and even fighting — I heard and glimpsed scenes of the most abandoned depravity to which my long exposure had still not inured me.

Suddenly I was awakened from near-sleep by Meg’s voice: “Here, what o’clock is it?”

“A little arter four and a quarter,” said Bob.

“Well, where’s Sam and Jack, then?” she said.

“That’s right!” cried Barney. “They should be here by now.”

“Something’s amiss!” cried Sally.

At that moment there was a knock at the door and, leaning forward, I saw Bob leave the room and a moment later heard him call out: “Who is it?”

I could not hear the reply but Bob shouted: “It’s Jack!” He began to unlock the door as excitement mounted in the drawing-room.

Then I heard a sudden hubbub of voices, but amongst them cries of: “What’s happened?” and “Where’s Sam?”

Above the noise I heard Barney’s voice: “Don’t worry. It was only Jack what I expected. Not Sam.”

“What do you mean?” Will called out.

“Me and Jack will explain,” he answered. “And a wery interesting story it’ll be, too.”

Then suddenly he broke off and cried: “By heavens, Jack, what’s happened to you?”

There was a sudden silence and then I heard Sally scream and Jack’s voice feebly saying: “I’m all right. I ain’t a-dying, gal.”

“You’re all over blood!” she cried.

“I took a few knocks,” he said.

“What happened, Jack?” Barney asked anxiously.

“Where’s Sam?” Meg cried.

“Where’s the blunt?” Bob demanded.

“Sam won’t be comin’ back and I ain’t got the blunt. Pulvertaft nabbed it of me.”

At this there was uproar for some minutes while Barney’s voice, like an angry bull’s, rose above the others and beat them into silence, until eventually it was quiet enough for Jack’s feeble accents to be heard.

“Tell ’em what we knowed, Barney,” Jack said in an exhausted tone, “while I ketch my breath.”

He came into sight as he lowered himself onto the sopha, helped by Sally who seated herself beside him. She had something in one hand which she let fall to the floor as she began wiping the blood from her beau’s face.

“You see,” Barney began, “Jack and me knowed something we had to keep secret from the rest of you. Sam was Pulvertaft’s nose all along.”

There was uproar at this revelation. I remembered how Sam had gone off that time that he and Sally had driven to the West-end with me.

“How do you mean?” Bob cried. “So what about Nan?”

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“She didn’t do nothing,” Barney said. “We only let on as how we b’lieved it was her.”

“You mean you and Jack was lying?” Will said.

“Aye, and Sam, except that in course he knowed it weren’t her because it were him, but he didn’t know that we knowed that.”

“I don’t understand!” Sally cried and the others showed that they were equally puzzled.

“Well,” said Barney, “you rec’lleck that time the boy brung the message from the Cat’s-meat-man? So we knowed someone had sold us?”

As the others cried out at the memory, I peered down at what Sally had dropped, increasingly certain that it was my mother’s pocket-book.

“Well, right arter that,” Barney went on, “Jack smoked that it was Sam what was the nose. Tell ’em, Jack.”

“Why it was Sal as put me onto him. One day she told me that she seen him talking to a bald cull with a wooden leg.”

So here was the explanation of the conversation I had overheard between Barney and Jack when the latter had informed the former that Sally had told him something crucial without understanding its significance.

I looked at Sally, and was struck by the fact that at these words she started and stared at Jack.

“Peg!” several of the others exclaimed, referring, of course, to the man I had known as

“Blueskin” whom we had seen hanged.

“That’s right,” Barney went on. “So I arst you, didn’t I Sal, and you told me that was right.”

Sally stared at him and then nodded slowly.

“So then I knowed as Jack was onto the nose,” Barney went on.

“And jist to be sure,” Jack said, “I dodged him and one day I seen him go down the Old Mint into the nethersken what Pulvertaft lives in. Well, 1 come back and told Barney and …”

“Me and Jack,” Barney interrupted, “settled as how we had to get rid of Sam, and do it so as Pulvertaft wouldn’t get fly that we had rumbled him. That was the only way to stop him ruining our plans for the fakement. So we agreed to let on to Sam that we thought as how Nan was the nose.”

So if I had overheard the rest of that conversation between Jack and Barney I would have heard them agree to pretend to Sam that they believed that Nan was the spy. And presumably Sally had helped them to incriminate her simply because of her spite against the other girl. But, of course, I knew that Jack, not Sam, was really Pulvertaft’s secret collaborator.

“So Nan hadn’t done nothing?” asked Will angrily.

“That’s right,” Barney went on. “So arter that me and Jack was letting on to Sam as how we thought we’d got rid of Pulvertaft’s nose. And to ketch Pulvertaft on the wrong foot we agreed to bring the date forward by a week. But in fact we only done this to make Sam think we believed we’d wiped Pulvertaft’s eyes, ’cause we knowed he’d find a way of telling him.”

“But when did Sam have the chance?” asked Meg.

“Tell her, Sa!,” Barney commanded.

She remained silent.

“Sal told me,” Jack said, “as how Sam sneaked off that day he went with her and the boy to buy togs. Ain’t that right, Sal?”

Pale-faced, she nodded.

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“So,” Barney went on, “we knowed Pulvertaft would try to get the blunt of us once we’d got it. Now Sam was very keen that he and Jack should take it straight to the crib in Thrawl-street, so we guessed that Pulvertaft would either ambush them on the way or else be hiding there already.”

“That’s right,” Bob agreed. “That’s how I’d do it if I was Pulvertaft. Let Sam and Jack bring the blunt to me jist where I wanted it and then jump out on ’em with a couple of coves.”

“That’s the ticket, Bob,” Barney agreed. Then he paused for a moment before saying:

“So that’s why me and Jack agreed that we would have to take the blunt of Sam a-forc that.”

“So what happened, Jack?” Will asked.

“As soon as me and Sam left the hell, and got into that narrer lane from Bedford-court into Bedford-Bury, he pulled out a knife and tried to pink me. But I was ready for him, so I had my pocket-pistol and I made him quiet.”

There was a stunned silence.

Suddenly Sally screamed and the horror of her cry made the hair on the back of my neck rise. Of course, she had had a fancy for Sam.