The Victorian Villains Megapack (17 page)

“Beginnin’ early in the mornin’!” observ
ed one customer.

The barber laughed. “Yes,” he said. “He wants to get a proper bust on before he goes to bed, I s’pose.”

Samuel Greer’s chin being smooth at last, he rose and turned to where he had hung his hat. His jaw dropped, and his eyes almost sprang out to meet each other as he saw—a bare peg! The unsteady customer had walked off with the wrong hat—his hat, and—the paper concealed inside!

“Lor!” cried the dismayed Greer, “he’s took my hat!”

All the shopful of men set up a guffaw at this. “Take ’is then,” said one. “It’s a blame sight better one than yourn!”

But Greer, without a hat, rushed into the street, and the barber, without his penny, rushed after him. “Stop ’im!” shouted Greer distractedly. “Stop thief!”

Thus it was that Dorrington, at this time of a far less well-groomed appearance than was his later wont, watching outside the barber’s, observed the mad bursting forth of Greer, followed by the barber. After the barber came the customers, one grinning furiously beneath a coating of lather.

“Stop ’im!” cried Greer. “’E’s got my ’at! Stop ’im!”

“You pay me my money,” said the barber, catching his arm. “Never mind yer ’at—you can ’ave ’is. But just you pay me first.”

“Leave go! You’re responsible for lettin’ ’im take it, I tell you! It’s a special ’at—valuable; leave go!”

Dorrington stayed to hear no more. Three minutes before he had observed a slightly elevated navvy emerge from the shop and walk solemnly across the street under a hat manifestly a size or two too small for him. Now Dorrington darted down the turning which the man had taken. The hat was a wretched thing, and there must be some special reason for Greer’s wild anxiety to recover it, especially as the navvy must have left another, probably better, behind him. Already Dorrington had conjectured that Greer was carrying the codicil about with him, for he had no place else to hide it, and he would scarcely have offered so confidently to negotiate over it if it had been in the Bermondsey Wall house, well in reach of Paul Cater. So he followed the elevated navvy with all haste. He might never have seen him again were it not that the unconscious bearer of the fortunes of Flint (and, indeed, Dorrington) hesitated for a little while whether or not to enter the door of a public-house near St. Saviour’s Dock. In the end he decided to go on, and it was just as he had started that Dorrington sighted him again.

The navvy walked slowly and gravely on, now and again with a swerve to the wall or the curb, but generally with a careful and laboured directness. Presently he arrived at a dock-bridge, with a low iron rail. An incoming barge attracted his eye, and he stopped and solemnly inspected it. He leaned on the low rail for this purpose, and as he did so the hat, all too small, fell off. Had he been standing two yards nearer the centre of the bridge it would have dropped into the water. As it was it fell on the quay, a few feet from the edge, and a dockman, coining toward the steps by the bridge-side, picked it up and brought it with him.

“Here y’are, mate,” said the dockman, offering the hat.

The navvy took it in lofty silence, and inspected it narrowly. Then he said, “’Ere—wot’s this? This ain’t my ’at!” And he glared suspiciously at the dockman.

“Ain’t it?” answered the dockman carelessly. “Aw right then, keep it for the bloke it b’longs to. I don’t want it.”

“No,” returned the navvy with rising indignation, “but I want mine, though! Wotcher done with it? Eh? It ain’t a rotten old ’un like this ’ere. None o’ yer ’alf-larks. Jist you ’and it over, come on!”

“’And wot over?” asked the dockman, growing indignant in his turn. “You drops yer ’at over the bridge like some kid as can’t take care of it, and I brings it up for ye. ’Stead o’ sayin’ ‘thank ye,’ like a man, y’ asks me for another ’at! Go an’ bile yer face!” And he turned on his heel.

“No, ye don’t!” bawled the navvy, dropping the battered hat and making a complicated rush at the other’s retreating form. “Not much! You gimme my ’at!” And he grabbed the dock-man anywhere, with both hands.

The dockman was as big as the navvy, and no more patient. He immediately punched his assailant’s nose; and in three seconds a mingled bunch of dockman and navvy was floundering about the street. Dorrington saw no more. He had the despised hat in his hand, and, general attention being directed to the action in progress, he hurried quietly up the nearest court.

V

Samuel Greer, having got clear of the barber
by paying his penny, was in much perplexity, and this notwithstanding his acquisition of the navvy’s hat, a very decent bowler, which covered his head generously and rested on his ears. What should be the move now? His hat was clean gone, and the codicil with it. To find it again would be a hopeless task, unless by chance the navvy should discover his mistake and return to the barber’s to make a rectification of hats. So Samuel Greer returned once more to the barber’s, and for the rest of the day called again and again fruitlessly. At first the barber was vastly amused, and told the story to his customers, who laughed. Then the barber got angry at the continual worrying, and at the close of the day’s barbering he earned his night’s repose by pitching Samuel Greer neck and crop into the gutter. Samuel Greer gathered himself up disconsolately, surrounded his head with the navvy’s hat, and shuffled off to the “Ship and Anchor.”

At the “Ship and Anchor” he found one Barker, a decayed and sodden lawyer’s clerk out of work. Greer’s temporary affluence enabling him to stand drinks, he was presently able, by putting artfully hypothetical cases, to extract certain legal information from Barker. Chiefly he learned that if a will or a codicil were missing, it might nevertheless be possible to obtain probate of it by satisfying the court with evidence of its contents and its genuineness. Here, at any rate, was a certain hope. He alone, apparently, of all persons, knew the contents of the codicil and the names of the witnesses; and since it was impossible to sell the codicil, now that it was gone, he might at least sell his evidence. He resolved to offer his evidence for sale to Flint at once, and take what he could get. There must be no delay, for possibly the navvy might find the paper in the hat and carry it to Flint, seeing that his name was beneficially mentioned in it, and his address given. Plainly the hat would not go back to the barber’s now. If the drunken navvy had found out his mistake he probably had not the least notion where he had been nor where the hat had come from, else he would have returned it during the day, and recovered his own superior property. So Samuel Greer went at once, late as it was, and knocked up Mr. Flint.

Flint congratulated himself, feeling sure that Greer had thought better of his business and had come to give his information for anything he could get. Greer, on his part, was careful to conceal the fact that the codicil had been in his possession and had been lost. All he said was that he had seen the codicil, that its date was nine months later than that of the will, and that it benefited Jarvis Flint to the extent of some ten thousand pounds; leaving Flint to suppose, if he pleased, that Cater, the executor, had the codicil, but would probably suppress it. Indeed this was the conclusion that Flint immediately jumped at.

And the result of the interview was this: Flint, with much grudging and reluctance, handed over as a preliminary fee the sum of one pound, the most he could be screwed up to. Then it was settled that Greer should come on the morrow and consult with Flint and his solicitor Lugg, the object of the consultation being the construction of a consistent tale and a satisfactory
soi-disant
copy of the codicil, which Greer was to swear to, if necessary, and armed with which Paul Cater might be confronted and brought to terms.

It may be wondered why, ere this, Flint had not received the genuine codicil itself, recovered by Dorrington from Greer’s hat. The fact was that Dorrington, as was his wont, was playing a little game of his own. Having possessed himself of the codicil, he was now in a position to make the most from both sides, and in a far more efficient manner than the clumsy Greer. People of Jarvis Flint’s sordid character are apt, with all their sordid keenness, to be wonderfully shortsighted in regard to what might seem fairly obvious to a man of honest judgment. Thus it never occurred to Flint that a man like Dorrington, willing, for a miserable wage, to apply his exceptional subtlety to the furtherance of his employer’s rascally designs, would be at least as ready to swindle that master on his own account when the opportunity offered; would be, in fact, the more ready, in proportion to the stinginess wherewith his master had treated him.

Having found the codicil, Dorrington’s procedure was not to hand it over forthwith to Flint. It was this: first he made a careful and exact copy of the codicil; then he procured two men of his acquaintance, men of good credit, to read over the copy, word for word, and certify it as being an exact copy of the original by way of a signed declaration written on the back of the copy. Then he was armed at all points.

He packed the copy carefully away in his pocket-book, and with the original in his coat pocket, he called at the house in Bermondsey Wall, where Paul Cater had taken up his quarters to keep guard over everything till the will should be proved. So it happened that while Samuel Greer, Jarvis Flint, and Lugg, the lawyer, were building their scheme, Dorrington was talking to Paul Cater at Cater’s Wharf.

On the assurance that he had business of extreme importance, Cater took Dorrington into the room in which the old man had died. Cater was using this room as an office in which to examine and balance his uncle’s books, and the corpse had been carried to a room below to await the funeral. Dorrington’s clothes at this time, as I have hinted, were not distinguished by the excellence of cut and condition that was afterwards noticeable; in point of fact, he was seedy. But his assurance and his presence of mind were fully developed, and it was this very transaction that was to put the elegant appearance within his reach.

“Mr. Cater,” he said, “I believe you are sole executor of the will of your uncle, Mr. Jeremiah Cater, who lived in this house.” Cater assented.

“That will is one extremely favourable to yourself. In fact, by it you become not only sole executor, but practically sole legatee.”

“Well?”

“I am here as a man of business and as a man of the world to give you certain information. There is a codicil to that will.”

Cater started. Then he shrugged his shoulders and shook his head as though he knew better.

“There is a codicil,” Dorrington went on, imperturbably, “executed in strict form, all in the handwriting of the testator, and dated nine months later than the will. That codicil benefits your cousin, Mr. Jarvis Flint, to the extent of ten thousand pounds. To put it in another way, it deprives
you
of ten thousand pounds.”

Cater felt uneasy, but he did his best to maintain a contemptuous appearance. “You’re rushing ahead pretty fast,” he said, “talking about the terms of this codicil, as you call it. What I want to know is, where is it?”

“That,” replied Dorrington, smilingly, “is a question very easily answered. The codicil is in my pocket.” He tapped his coat as he spoke.

Paid Cater started again, and now he was plainly discomposed. “Very well,” he said, with some bravado, “if you’ve got it you can show it to me, I suppose.”

“Nothing easier,” Dorrington responded affably. He stepped to the fireplace and took the poker. “You won’t mind my holding the poker while you inspect the paper, will yon?” he asked politely. “The fact is, the codicil is of such a nature that I fear a man of your sharp business instincts might be tempted to destroy it, there being no other witness present, unless you had the assurance (which I now give you) that if you as much as touch it I shall stun you with the poker. There is the codicil, which you may read with your hands behind you.” He spread the paper out on the table, and Cater bent eagerly and read it, growing paler as his eye travelled down the sheet.

Before raising his eyes, however, he collected
himself, and as he stood up he said, with affected contempt, “I don’t care a brass farthing for this thing! It’s a forgery on the face of it.”

“Dear me!” answered Dorrington placidly, recovering the paper and folding it up; “that’s very disappointing to hear. I must take it round to Mr. Flint and see if that is his opinion.”

“No, you mustn’t!” exclaimed Cater, desperately. “You say that’s a genuine document. Very well. I’m still executor, and you are bound to give it to me.”

“Precisely,” Dorrington replied sweetly. “But in the strict interests of justice I think Mr. Flint, as the person interested, ought to have a look at it first,
in case
any accident should happen to it in your hands. Don’t you?”

Cater knew he was in a corner, and his face betrayed it.

“Come,” said Dorrington in a more businesslike tone. “Here is the case in a nutshell. It is my business, just as it is yours, to get as much as I can for nothing. In pursuance of that business I quietly got hold of this codicil. Nobody but yourself knows I have it, and as to
how
I got it you needn’t ask, for I sha’n’t tell you. Here is the document, and it is worth ten thousand pounds to either of two people, yourself and Mr. Flint, your worthy cousin. I am prepared to sell it at a very great sacrifice—to sell it dirt cheap, in fact, and I give you the privilege of first refusal, for which you ought to be grateful. One thousand pounds is the price, and that gives you a profit of nine thousand pounds when you have destroyed the codicil—a noble profit of nine hundred percent, at a stroke! Come, is it a bargain?”

“What?” ejaculated Cater, astounded. “A thousand pounds?”

“One thousand pounds exactly,” replied Dorrington complacently, “and a penny for the receipt stamp—if you want a receipt.”

“Oh,” said Cater, “you’re mad. A thousand pounds! Why, it’s absurd!”

“Think so?” remarked Dorrington, reaching for his hat. “Then I must see if Mr. Flint agrees with you, that’s all. He’s a man of business, and I never heard of his refusing a certain nine hundred percent, profit yet. Good-day!”