The Victorian Villains Megapack (38 page)

The exercise warmed him after his long spell of frigid inaction; he turned towards the Surrey bank, and skirting the grounds of the Observatory, ran ashore just beyond the railway-bridge. A ragged object, asleep on the towing-path woke up as the boat grounded, and mechanically scratched itself.

“Mind the boat for yer, guv’nor?”

He looked like a tramp. From his obviously impecunious condition he was not likely to be overburdened with scruples.

“Yes; but find me a cab first, and bring it as near as you can.”

As the man, scenting a tip, rose with alacrity, Pringle tumbled the box on to the shingle. It now showed little trace of its adventures, was already dry upon the surface, and, clear of the markings, bore an innocent resemblance to a box of ship’s cocoa.

It was nearing seven when the emissary returned.

“Keb waitin’ for yer up the road by the corner there,” he reported.

“Give us a hand with this box, then,” said Pringle. “It’s quartz, and rather heavy.”

“Why, but it’s that!” ejaculated the man as he lifted one end with an unwonted expenditure of muscular force.

“Now, look here,” said Pringle impressively, as they reached the cab, “I shall be back about noon, and I want you to look after the boat for me till then. That will be five hours—suppose we say at two shillings each?”

The tramp’s eyes glistened, and he touched his cap-peak.

“Well, here’s half a sovereign.” Pringle shrewdly discounted the unlikelihood of the man’s rendering any part of the service for which he was being paid in advance.

“Right yer are, guv’nor,” agreed the tramp cheerfully, and slipped towards the river-bank.

The cab, with Pringle and the box inside, had scarcely disappeared round the corner when the tramp made off at a tangent toward Kew, and was seen no more. As to the boat, with a dip and a rock as the tide rose, it floated off into the stream, and resumed its travels in the opposite direction.

Romney Pringle in THE SILVER INGOTS

The morning was raw, the sun, when it deigned to shine, feeling chill and distant. There was no wind, and as they threaded the curves of the river the occasional funnels wrote persistent sooty lines upon the grey clouds. The park, with its avenues mere damp vistas of naked and grimy boughs, was deserted even by the sparrows, no longer finding a precarious meal at the hands of the children as yet only playing in their slums.

There is little pleasure in cycling towards the end of February, and, preferring walking to the perils of sideslip in the mud, Mr. Pringle had walked from Furnival’s Inn by way of the Embankment and Grosvenor Road and now sat smoking on the terrace in front of Battersea Park.

There was a new moon, and the rubbish borne during the night on the spring tide from downstream was returning on the ebb to the lower reaches from which it had been ravished. As Mr. Pringle smoked and gazed absently at the river, now nearly at its lowest, a large ‘sou’-wester’ caught his eye; it swam gravely with the stream, giving an occasional pirouette as it swirled every now and then into an eddy.

As it floated opposite him he caught a glimpse of some white thing below it—the whole mass seemed to quiver, as if struggling and fighting for life. Could it be a drowning man? Just there the river was solitary; not a soul was visible to help. Vaulting lightly over the low railings, Pringle sprang from the Embankment on to a bed of comparatively clean shingle, which here replaced the odorous mud-level, and reached the water side just as the ‘sou’wester’, in a more violent gyration, displayed in its grasp a woolen comforter.

Amused and a trifle vexed at his own credulity, Pringle turned, and, walking a yard or two along the beach, tripped and fell as his toe caught in something. Scrambling to his feet, he discovered a loop of half-inch manila rope, the colour of which told of no long stay there. He gave it a gentle pull, without moving it in the slightest. A harder tug gave no better result; and, his curiosity now thoroughly aroused, he seized it with both hands, and, with his heels dug into the shingle, dragged out of the water just a plaited carpenter’s tool-basket.

The rope, in length about six feet, was rove through the handles as if for carrying over the shoulder. Surprised at its weightiness, he peeped inside. They were odd-looking things he found—no mallets or chisels, planes or turnscrews, only half a dozen dirty-looking bricks.

Wondering more and more, he picked one up and examined it carefully. Towards the end was faint suggestion as it were of a scallop-shell, and, turning it over, he detected another and more perfect impression of the same with a crest and monogram, the whole enclosed within an oblong ornamental border, which a closer scrutiny revealed as the handle of a spoon. On another brick he identified a projection as the partially fused end of a candlestick; and, when he scraped off some of the dirt with his knife, the unmistakable lustre of silver met his gaze. All six ingots were of very irregular outline, as if cast in a clumsy or imperfect mould.

A cold sensation about the feet made him look down. Unnoticed by him, the tide had turned and he now stood to the ankles in water. For a moment longer he continued to crouch, while sending a cautious glance about him. In the quarter of an hour or less he had spent by the waterside only a single lighter had passed, and the man in charge had been too much occupied in making the most of the tide to spare any attention ashore. The terrace behind him was quite deserted, and he was sheltered from any observation from the bridge by a projection of the Embankment, which made of the patch of shingle a miniature bay. As to the little steamboat pier, to the naked eye his movements were as indistinguishable from that as from the opposite side of the river. His privacy was complete.

Straightening up, he turned his back on the water and directly faced the terrace. Right in front of him he could see a sycamore standing in the park, and, carefully noting its appearance, he scrambled up the ten feet or so of embankment wall, which at that point was much eroded and gave an easy foothold.

Once on the terrace, he walked briskly up and down to warm his frozen feet, and as he walked he tried to reason out the meaning of his discovery. Here was an innocent-looking carpenter’s basket with half a dozen silver ingots of obviously illicit origin—for they had been clumsily made by the fusing together indiscriminately of various articles of plate.

Roughly estimating their weight at about eight pounds apiece, then their aggregate value was something over £100—not a large sum, perhaps, but no doubt representing the proceeds of more than one burglary. They must have been sunk below low-water mark, say, about a week ago, when they would have been covered at all states of the tide; now, with the onset of the spring tides, they would be exposed twice daily for an hour.

Could the owner have known of this fact? Probably not. Pringle hardly credited him with much skill or premeditation. Such a hiding-place rather pointed to a hasty concealment of compromising articles, and the chances were all against the spot having been noted.

On the whole, although it was a comparatively trifling find, Pringle decided it was worth annexing. Nothing could be done for the present, however. By this time the rising tide had concealed even the rope; besides, he could never walk out of the park with a carpenter’s basket over his shoulder, even if he were to wait about until it had dried. No; he must return for it in clothing more suited to its possession.

As he walked back to Furnival’s Inn, a clock striking half-past eleven suggested a new idea. By ten that night the basket would be again exposed, and it might be his last chance of securing it; the morning might see its discovery by someone else. The place was a public one, and although he had been singularly fortunate in its loneliness today, who could tell how many might be there tomorrow? This decided him.

* * * *

About half-past ten that evening Pringle crossed the Albert Bridge to the south side, and turning short off to the left descended a flight of steps which led down to the water; the park gates had been long closed, and this was the only route available. His tall, lithe figure was clothed in a seedy, ill-fitting suit he reserved for such occasions; his tie was of a pattern unspeakable, his face and hands dirty; but although his boots were soiled and unpolished, they showed no further departure from their wonted, and even feminine, neatness. Since the morning his usually fair hair had turned black, and a small strip of whisker had grown upon his clean-shaven face, whilst the port-wine mark emblazoning his right cheek had disappeared altogether.

At the foot of the steps he waited until a nearing wagon had got well upon the bridge, and then, as its thunder drowned his footsteps, he tramped over the shelving beach, and rounding the projection of the embankment found himself in the little bay once more. With his back to the water, he sidled along until opposite the sycamore, and then, facing about, he went down on his hands and knees groping for the loop. Everything seemed as he had left it, and the basket, already loosened from its anchorage, came rattling up the pebbles as soon as he made a very moderate traction on the rope. What with the noise he made himself, slight though it was, and his absorption in the work, Pringle never heard a gentle step approaching by the path he had himself taken; but as he hastily arranged the ingots on the beach, and was about to hold the basket up to drain, his arm was gripped by a muscular hand.

“Fishing this time of night’?” inquired a refined voice in singular contrast to the rough appearance of the speaker. Then, more sharply, “Come—get up! Let’s have a look at you.”

Pringle rose in obedience to the upward lift upon his arm, and as the two men faced each other the stranger started, exclaiming: “So it’s you, is it! I thought we should meet again some day.”

“Meet again?” repeated Pringle stupidly, as for about the second or third time in his life his presence of mind deserted him.

“Don’t say you’ve forgotten me at Wurzleford last summer! Let’s see—what was your name? I ought to remember it, too—ah, yes, Courtley! Have you left the Church, Mr. Courtley? Seem rather down on your luck now. Why, Solomon in all his glory wasn’t in it with you at Wurzleford? And you don’t seem to need your glasses, either. Has your sight improved?”

Pringle remembered him before he had got half way through his string of sarcasms. He had not altered in the least; the shell might be rough, but the voice and manner of the gentleman-burglar were as Chesterfieldian as ever. Of all people in the world, he was the one whom Pringle would have least desired to see at that moment, and he prepared himself for a very bad quarter of an hour.

“It’s lucky for you we haven’t met before,” continued the other. “If I could have got at you that night, it would have been your life or mine! Don’t think I’ve forgiven you. I must say, though, you did it very neatly; it’s something, I can tell you, to get the better of me. Why, I’ve never dared to breathe a word of it since; I should be a laughing-stock for the rest of my days. I, the ‘Toff,’ as they call me!

“But I can see a joke, even if it’s against myself, and I’ve laughed several times since when I’ve thought of it. Fancy locking me in that room while you coolly walked off with the stuff that I’d been working for for months. And such stuff too! I think you’d have done better to act squarely with me. Those rubies don’t seem to have done you much good. I never thought you’d do much with them at the time. It needs a man with capital to plant such stuff as that. But what’s the game now? Who put you up to this?”

He had been taking short steps up and down the beach, half soliloquising as he walked, and now he broke off abruptly and fronted Pringle.

“No one.” Pringle had now recovered his self-possession. They were alone; it was man to man, and anyhow, the “Toff” did not seem to be very vindictive.

“Then how did you know it was here? You’re a smart fellow, I know; but I don’t think you’re quite smart enough to see to the bottom of the river.”

“It was quite accidental,” said Pringle frankly. “It was this way.” And he sketched the doings of the morning.

“Upon my word,” exclaimed the “Toff”, “you and I seem fated to cross one another’s paths. But I’ll be kinder than you deserve. This stuff”—he kicked the ingots—“is the result of a ‘wedge-hunt,’ as we call it. Nervous chap, bringing it up the river, got an idea that he was being shadowed—dropped it from a steamer three days ago—wasn’t certain of his bearings when he had done it. That comes of losing one’s head. Now, if it hadn’t been for you, I might never have found it, although it looks as if I was right in calculating the tides and so on. As you seem in rather hard case, I’ll see you’re not a loser over the night’s work so long as you make yourself useful.”

Pringle assented cheerfully; he was curious to see the end of it all. While the other was speaking he had decided to fall in with his humour. Indeed, unless he fled in cowardly retreat, there was nothing else to be done. The “Toff”, as he knew, was wiry, but although in good form himself, Pringle’s arm throbbed and tingled where it had been gripped. They were equally matched so far as strength went, unless the “Toff” still carried a revolver. Besides, the ingots were not worth disputing over. Had they been gold now—!

“Well, just lend a hand then.” And, the “Toff” producing some cotton-waste, they commenced to pack the ingots back into the basket.

“Look here,” the “Toff” continued as they worked; “why don’t you join me? You want someone to advise you, I should say. Whatever your game was at Wurzleford, you don’t seem to have made much at it, nor out of me, either—ah!”

The subject was evidently a sore one, and the “Toff’s” face hardened and he clenched his hands at the memories it aroused.

“Yes,” he went on, “you seem a man of some resource, and if only you’d join me, what with that and my experience—why, we’d make our pile and retire in a couple of years! And what a life it is! Talk of adventure and excitement and all that—what is there to equal it? Canting idiots talk of staking one’s liberty. Liberty, indeed! Why, what higher stake can one play for?—except one’s life, and I’ve done that before now. I’ve played for a whole week at Monte Carlo, and believe I broke the bank (I couldn’t tell for certain—they don’t let you know, and never close till eleven, in spite of all people think and talk to the contrary); I’ve played poker with some of the ‘cutest American players; I’ve gambled on the Turf; I’ve gambled on the Stock Exchange; I’ve run Kanakas to Queensland; I’ve smuggled diamonds; I’ve hunted big game all over the world; I’ve helped to get a revolution in Ecuador, and nearly (ha! ha!) got myself made President; I’ve—hang it, what haven’t I done?

“And I tell you there’s nothing in all I’ve gone through to equal the excitement of the life I’m leading now. Then, too, we’re educated men. I’m Rugby and John’s, and that’s where I score over most I have to work with; they sicken me with their dirty, boozy lives. They have a bit of luck, then they’re drunk for a month, and have to start again without a penny, and the rats running all over them Now, we two—Gentle! Don’t take it by the handles. Wait a second. D’you hear anything?”

A cab trotted over the wooden-paved bridge, then silenced again. The “Toff” wound one end of the rope round and round his wrist, and motioned Pringle to do the same; then, with a sign to tread warily, he started to make the circuit of the promontory, the basket swaying between them as they kept step. Pringle, with an amused sense of the other’s patronising airs, followed submissively behind him up the shelving beach. By the wooden steps the “Toff” paused.

“Under here,” he directed; and they stuffed the basket under the bottom step.

“Now,” he murmured in Pringle’s ear, “you go up to the road, and if you see no one about walk a little way down, as if you’d come off the bridge, and stamp your feet like this.” He stamped once or twice, as if to restore the circulation in his feet, but with a rhythmical cadence in the movement.

“Yes; what then?”

“There ought to be a trap waiting down the first turning on the opposite side of the road. If it doesn’t come up, count twenty and stamp again.”