CHAPTER XXIV
ON THE COP
Once he had cut clear from his lodgings without delay and trouble, Vineyfell into an insupportable nervous impatience, which grew with everyminute. His reasons for the day's postponement now seemed whollyinsufficient: it must have been, he debated with himself, that the firstshock of the suggestion had driven him to the nearest excuse to put thejob off, as it were a dose of bitter physic. But now that the thing wasresolved upon, and nothing remained to do in preparation, the suspenseof inactivity became intolerable, and grew to torment. It was no matterof scruple or compunction; of that he never dreamed. But the enterprisewas dangerous and novel, and, as the vacant hours passed, he imaginednew perils and dreamed a dozen hangings. Till at last, as night came on,he began to fear that his courage could not hold out the time; and,since there was now no reason for delay, he ended with a resolve to getthe thing over and the money in his pockets that same night, if it werepossible. And with that view he set out for the Cop....
* * * * *
Meantime no nervousness troubled his confederate; for him it was but agood stroke of trade, with a turn of revenge in it; and the pennilessinterval mattered nothing--could be slept off, in fact, more or less,since there was nothing else to do.
The sun sank below London, and night came slow and black over themarshes and the Cop. Grimes, rising from the doorstep of his office,knocked the last ashes from his pipe and passed indoors. Dan Ogle,sitting under the lee of his shed, found no comfort in his own emptypipe, and no tobacco in his empty pocket. He rose, stretched his arms,and looked across the Lea and the Cop. He could see little or nothing,for the dark was closing on him fast. "Blind man's holiday," mutteredDan Ogle; and he turned in for a nap on his bed of sacks.
A sulky red grew up into the darkening western sky, as though theextinguished sun were singeing all the world's edge. So one saw London'snimbus from this point every night, and saw below it the scatteredspangle of lights that were the suburban sentries of the myriads beyond.The Cop and the marshes lay pitch-black, and nothing but the faint lapof water hinted that a river divided them.
Here, where an hour's habit blotted the great hum of London from theconsciousness, sounds were few. The perseverance of the lapping waterforced a groan now and again from the moorings of an invisible bargelying by the wharf; and as often a ghostly rustle rose on the wind froman old willow on the farther bank. And presently, more distinct thaneither, came a steady snore from the shed where Dan Ogle lay....
A rustle, that was not of any tree, began when the snore was at itssteadiest; a gentle rustle indeed, where something, some moving shadowin the black about it, crept over the river wall. Clearer against afaint patch, which had been white with lime in daylight, the figure grewto that of a man; a man moving in that murky darkness with an amazingfacility, address, and quietness. Down toward the riverside he went, andthere stooping, dipped into the water some small coarse bag of cloth,that hung in his hand. Then he rose, and, after a listening pause,turned toward the shed whence came the snore.
With three steps and a pause, and three steps more, he neared the door:the stick he carried silently skimming the ground before him, his faceturned upward, his single eye rolling blankly at the sky that was thesame for him at night or noon; and the dripping cloth he carrieddiffused a pungent smell, as of wetted quick-lime. So, creeping andlistening, he reached the door. Within, the snore was regular and deep.
Nothing held the door but a latch, such as is lifted by a finger thrustthrough a hole. He listened for a moment with his ear at this hole, andthen, with infinite precaution, inserted his finger, and lifted thelatch....
* * * * *
Up by the George Tavern, beyond Stepney, Henry Viney was hastening alongthe Commercial Road to call Dan Ogle to immediate business. Ahead of himby a good distance, Musky Mag hurried in the same direction, bearingfood in a saucer and handkerchief, and beer in a bottle. But hurry asthey might, here was a visitor well ahead of both....
* * * * *
The door opened with something of a jar, and with that there was alittle choke in the snore, and a moment's silence. Then the snore beganagain, deep as before. Down on his knees went Dan Ogle's visitor, and socrawled into the deep of the shed.
He had been gone no more than a few seconds, when the snore stopped. Itstopped with a thump and a gasp, and a sudden buffeting of legs andarms; and in the midst arose a cry: a cry of so hideous an agony thatGrimes the wharf-keeper, snug in his first sleep fifty yards away,sprang erect and staring in bed, and so sat motionless for half a minuteere he remembered his legs, and thrust them out to carry him to thewindow. And the dog on the wharf leapt the length of its chain,answering the cry with a torrent of wild barks.
Floundering and tumbling against the frail boards of the shed, the twomen came out at the door in a struggling knot: Ogle wrestling andstriking at random, while the other, cunning with a life's blindness,kept his own head safe, and hung as a dog hangs to a bull. His handsgripped his victim by ear and hair, while the thumbs still drove at theeyes the mess of smoking lime that clung and dripped about Ogle's head.It trickled burning through his hair, and it blistered lips and tongue,as he yelled and yelled again in the extremity of his anguish. Over theyrolled before the doorway; and Ogle, snatching now at last instead ofstriking, tore away the hands from his face.
"Fight you level, Dan Ogle, fight you level now!" Blind George gaspedbetween quick breaths. "Hit me now you're blind as me! Hit me! Knock medown! Eh?"
Quickly he climbed to his feet, and aimed a parting blow with the stickthat hung from his wrist. "Dead?" he whispered hoarsely. "Not afore I'vepaid you! No!"
He might have stayed to strike again, but his own hands were blisteredin the struggle, and he hastened off toward the bank, there to wash themclear of the slaking lime. Away on the wharf the dog was yelping andchoking on its chain like a mad thing.
Screaming still, with a growing hoarseness, and writhing where he lay,the blinded wretch scratched helplessly at the reeking lime thatscorched his skin and seared his eyes almost to the brain. Grimes camerunning in shirt and trousers, and, as soon as he could find how mattersstood, turned and ran again for oil. "Good God!" he said. "Lime in hiseyes! Slaking lime! Why--why--it must be the blind chap! It must! Fighthim level, he said--an' he's blinded him!..."
* * * * *
There was a group of people staring at the patients' door of theAccident Hospital when Viney reached the spot. He was busy enough withhis own thoughts, but he stopped, and stared also, involuntarily. Thedoor was an uninteresting object, however, after all, and he turned: tofind himself face to face with one he well remembered. It was the limyman he had followed from Blue Gate to the Hole in the Wall, and thenlost sight of.
Grimes recognised Viney at once as Ogle's visitor of the morning."That's a pal o' yourn just gone in there," he said.
Viney was taken aback. "A pal?" he asked. "What pal?"
"Ogle--Dan Ogle. He's got lime in his eyes, an' blinded."
"Lime? Blinded? How?"
"I ain't goin' to say nothing about how--I dunno, an' 'tain't mybusiness. He's got it, anyhow. There's a woman in there along ofhim--his wife, I b'lieve, or something. You can talk to her about it, ifyou like, when she comes out. I've got nothing to do with it."
Grimes had all the reluctance of his class to be "mixed up" in anymatter likely to involve trouble at a police-court; and what was more,he saw himself possibly compromised in the matter of Ogle's stay at theWharf. But Viney was so visibly concerned by the news that soon thewharf-keeper relented a little--thinking him maybe no such bad fellowafter all, since he was so anxious about his friend. "I've heard said,"he added presently in a lower tone, "I've heard said it was a blind chapdone it out o' spite; but of course I dunno; not to say myself; on'ywhat I heard, you see. I don't think they'll let you in; but you mightsee the woman. They won't let her stop long, 'specially ta
kin' on as shewas."
Indeed it was not long ere Musky Mag emerged, reluctant and pallid,trembling at the mouth, staring but seeing nothing. Grimes took her bythe arm and led her aside, with Viney. "Here's a friend o' Dan's,"Grimes said, not unkindly, giving the woman a shake of the arm. "Hewants to know how he's gettin' on."
"What's 'nucleate?" she asked hoarsely, with a dull look in Viney'sface. "What's 'nucleate? I heard a doctor say to let 'im rest to-nightan' 'nucleate in the mornin'. What's 'nucleate?"
"Some sort o' operation," Grimes hazarded. "Did they say anything else?"
"Blinded," the woman answered weakly. "Blinded. But the pain's easedwith the oil."
"What did he say?" interposed Viney, fullest of his own concerns. "Didhe say someone did it?"
"He told me about it--whispered. But I shan't say nothing; nor him, nottill he comes out."
"I say--he mustn't get talkin' about it," Viney said, anxiously."It--it'll upset things. Tell him when you see him. Here, listen." Hetook her aside out of Grimes's hearing. "It wouldn't do," he said, "itwouldn't do to have anybody charged or anything just now. We've gotsomething big to pull off. I say--I ought to see him, you know. Can't Isee him? But there--someone might know me. No. But you must tell him. Hemustn't go informing, or anything like that, not yet. Tell him, won'tyou?"
"Chargin'? Infornin'?" Mag answered, with contempt in her shaking voice."'Course 'e wouldn't go informin', not Dan. Dan ain't that sort--'elooks arter hisself, 'e does; 'e don't go chargin' people. Not if 'e wasdyin'."
Indeed Viney did not sufficiently understand the morals of Blue Gate:where to call in the aid of the common enemy, the police, was a foultrick to which none would stoop. In Blue Gate a man inflicted his ownpunishments, and to ask aid of the police was worse than mean andscandalous: it was weak; and that in a place where the weak "did notlast," as the phrase went. It was the one restraint, the sole virtue ofthe place, enduring to death; and like some other virtues, in some otherplaces, it had its admixture of necessity; for everybody was "wanted" inturn, and to call for the help of a policeman who might, as likely asnot, begin by seizing oneself by the collar, would even have been poorpolicy: bad equally for the individual and for the community. So that toresort to the law's help in any form was classed with "narking" as theunpardonable sin.
"You're sure o' that, are you?" asked Viney, apprehensively.
"Sure? 'Course I'm sure. Dunno what sort o' chap you take 'im for._'E's_ no nark. An' besides--'e can't. There's other things, an'----"
She turned away with a sigh that was near a sob, and her momentaryindignation lapsed once more into anxious grief.
Viney went off with his head confused and his plans in the melting-pot.Ogle's scheme was gone by the board, and alone he could scarce trusthimself in any enterprise so desperate. What should he do now? Make whatterms he might with Captain Nat? Need was pressing; but he must think.