CHAPTER XVII.
TWO PASSENGERS FROM CALAIS.
It was the 9th of November, Lord Mayor's Day, and in London the usualclammy compound of fog and mist--was there ever a Lord Mayor's Daywithout it?--hung like a shroud in the city streets, though it waspowerless to chill the ardor of the vast crowds who waited for theprocession to come by in all its pomp and pageantry.
At Dover the weather was as bad, but in a different way. Leaden cloudswent scudding from horizon to horizon, accentuating the chalky whitenessof the cliffs, and reflecting their sombre hue on the gray waters. Acold, raw wind swept through the old town, lashing the sea tomilk-crested waves. It was an ugly day for cross-Channel passages, butthe expectant onlookers sighted the black smoke of the _Calais-Douvres_fully twenty minutes before she was due. The steamer's outline grew moredistinct. On she came, pitching and rolling, until knots of people couldbe seen on the fore-deck.
The majority of the passengers, excepting a few Frenchmen and otherforeigners, were heartily glad to be at home again, after sojourns ofvarious lengths on the Continent. Two, in particular, could scarcelyrestrain their impatience as they looked eagerly landward, though thesocial gulf that separated them was as wide as the Channel itself. Onthe upper deck, exposed to the buffeting of the wind, stood a short,portly gentleman in a dark-blue suit and cape-coat; he had a soldierlycarriage, a ruddy complexion, and an iron-gray mustache. Sir LuciusChesney was in robust health again, and his liver had ceased to troublehim. Norway had pulled him together, and a few months of aimless roamingon the Continent had done the rest. He was anxious to get back to PrioryCourt, among his pictures and hot-houses, his horses and cattle, and heintended to go there after a brief stop in London.
Down below, among the second-class passengers, Mr. Noah Hawker paced toand fro, gazing meditatively toward the Shakespeare Cliff. Mr. Hawker,to give him the name by which he was known in Scotland Yard circles, wasa man of fifty, five feet nine in height, and rather stockily built. Hewas lantern-jawed and dark-haired, with a coarse, black mustache curledup at the ends like a pair of buffalo horns, and so strong a beard thathis cheeks were the color of blue ink, though he had shaved only threehours before. His long frieze overcoat, swinging open, disclosed beneatha German-made suit of a bad cut and very loud pattern. His soft hat,crushed in, was perched to one side; a big horseshoe pin and a scarletcravat reposed on a limited space of pink shirt-front.
There was about one chance in ten of guessing his calling. He lookedequally like a successful sporting man, an ex-prize fighter, a barman,a racing tout, a book-maker, or a public house thrower-out. But the mostunprejudiced observer would never have taken him for a gentleman.
It was a thrilling moment when the _Calais-Douvres_, slipping betweenthe waves, ran close in to the granite pier. She accomplished the featsafely, and was quickly made fast. The gangway was thrown across, andthere was a mad rush of passengers hurrying to get ashore. A babel ofshouting voices broke loose: "London train ready!" "Here you are, sir!""Luggage, sir?" "Extry! extry!"
Sir Lucius Chesney, who was rarely disturbed by anything, showed onthis occasion a fussy solicitude about his trunks and boxes; nor washe appeased until he had seen them all on a truck, waiting for theinspection of the customs officers. Mr. Hawker, slouching along the pierwith his ulster collar turned up and his hat well down over his eyes,observed the military-looking gentleman and then the prominentwhite-lettered name on the luggage. He passed on after an instant'shesitation.
"Sir Lucius Chesney!" he muttered. "It's queer, but I'll swear I'veheard that name before. Now, where could it have been? The bloke's faceain't familiar--I never ran across him. But the name? Ah, hang me if Idon't think I've got it!"
Mr. Hawker did not get into the London train, though his goal wasthe metropolis. He left the pier, and as he walked with apparentcarelessness through the town--he had no luggage--he took an occasionalcrafty survey over his shoulder, as a man might do who feared that hewas being shadowed. When the train rattled out of Dover he was in thepublic bar of a tavern not far from the Lord Warden Hotel, fortifyinghimself with a brandy-and-soda after the rough passage across theChannel. Meanwhile, Sir Lucius Chesney, seated in a first-classcarriage, was regarding with an ecstatic expression the one piece ofluggage that he had refused to trust to the van. This was a flat leathercase, and it contained something of much greater importance than thedress-suit for which it was intended.
Dover was honored by Mr. Hawker's presence until three o'clock in theafternoon, and he took advantage of the intervening couple of hours toeat a hearty meal and to count his scanty store of money, after which hedozed on a bench in the restaurant until roused by a waiter. There aretwo railway stations in the town, and he chose the inner one. He foundan empty third-class compartment, and his relief was manifest when thetrain pulled out. He produced a short briar-root pipe, and stuffed itwith the last shreds of French Caporal tobacco that remained in hispouch.
"Give me the shag of old England," he said to himself, as he puffed awaywith a poor relish and watched the flying sides of the deep railwaycutting. "This is no class--it's cabbage leaf soaked in juice. I wonderif I ain't a fool to come back! But it can't be helped--there wasnothing to be picked up abroad, after that double stroke of hard luck.And there's no place like London! I'll be all right if I dodge theferrets at Victoria. For the last ten years they've only known meclean-shaven or with a heavy beard, and this mustache and the rig willpuzzle them a bit. Yes, I ought to pass for a foreign gent come acrossto back horses."
The truth about Mr. Noah Hawkins, though it may shock the reader, mustbe told in plain words. He was a professional burglar; none of yourpetty, clumsy craftsmen that get lagged for smashing a shopkeeper'still, but a follower to some extent in the footsteps of the masterfulCharles Peace. During the previous February he had come out ofDartmoor--it was his third term of penal servitude--with a period ofpolice supervision to undergo. For the space of four months he regularlyreported himself, and then, in company with a pal of even higherprofessional standing than himself, he suddenly disappeared from London.
A well-planned piece of work, cleverly performed, made it advantageousto the couple to go abroad. It was a question of money, not dread ofdiscovery and arrest; they had covered their tracks well, and theybelieved that no suspicion could fall upon them. They were not preparedfor the ill-luck that awaited them on the Continent. Their fruit of hopeturned to ashes of despair, or very nearly so. They realized but afraction of the sum they had expected, and Hawker lost his share of eventhat through the treachery of his pal, who departed by night from theGerman town where they were stopping. So Hawker started for home, andhe had landed at Dover with, two sovereigns and a few silver coins. Hestill believed that the police were ignorant of the business that hadtaken him abroad; the worst that he feared was getting into trouble forfailing to report himself.
"There isn't much danger if I'm sharp," he thought, as the Kentishlandscape, the Garden of England, sped by him in the gathering dusk;"and I won't touch a crib of any sort till I've tried those other twolays. It's more than doubtful about the papers--I forget what was inthem. And they may be gone by this time. But, leaving that out, I've gota pretty sure thing up my sleeve. What happened in Germany put me on thetrack--but for that I wouldn't have suspected. I'll make somebody forkover to a stiff tune, and serve him d---- right. It's the first time Iwas caught napping."
The endless chimney-pots and glowing lights of the great city gladdenedHawker's heart, and a whiff from the murky Thames bade him welcome home.He gave up his ticket at Grosvenor road, and when the train pulled intoVictoria he walked boldly through the immense station. He loved Londonwith a thoroughbred cockney's passion, and he exulted in the sights andsounds around him.
Hawker spent his last coppers for a packet of tobacco, and broke one ofhis sovereigns to get a drink. He speedily lost himself in the crowds ofVictoria street, satisfied that he had not been recognized or followed.He went on foot to Charing Cross, and climbed to the top of a brown andyellow bus
. Three-quarters of an hour later he got off in Kentish Townand made his way to a squalid and narrow thoroughfare in the vicinity ofPeckwater street. He stopped before a house in the middle of a dirty andmonotonous row, and looked at it reminiscently. He had lodged there fiveyears back, previous to his third conviction, and here he had beenarrested. He had not returned since, for on his release from Dartmoor hewent to live near his pal, who was then planning the lay that had endedso disastrously.
He pulled the bell and waited anxiously. A stout, slatternly womanappeared, and uttered a sharp exclamation at sight of her visitor. Shewould have closed the door in his face, but Hawker quickly thrust a leginside.
"None o' that," he growled. "Don't you know me, missus?"
"It ain't likely I'd furgit _you_, Noah Hawker! What d'ye want?"
"A lodging, Mrs. Miggs," he replied. "Is my old room to let?" he addedeagerly.
"It's been empty a week, but what's that to you? I won't 'ave nojail-bird in my 'ouse. I'm a respectable woman, an' I won't be disgracedagain by the likes of you."
"Come, stow that! Can't you see I'm a foreign gent from abroad? Thepolice ain't after me--take my word for it. I've come back here becauseyou always made me snug and comfortable. I'll have the room, and if youwant to see the color of my money--"
He produced a half-sovereign, and a relenting effect was immediatelyvisible. A brief parley ensued, which ended in Mrs. Miggs pocketing themoney and inviting Mr. Hawker to enter. A moment after the door hadclosed a rather shabby man strolled by the house and made a mental noteof the number.
Presently a light gleamed from the window of the first floor back, whichoverlooked, at a distance of six feet, a high, blank wall. Noah Hawkerput the candle on a shelf, locked the door noiselessly, and glancedabout the well-remembered room, with its dirty paper, frayed carpet andscanty furniture. A little later, after listening to make sure that hewas not being spied upon, he blew out the candle and opened the window.He fumbled for a minute, then closed the window and drew down the blind.When he relighted the candle he held in one hand a packet wrapped in apiece of mildewed leather.
Seating himself in a rickety chair he lighted his pipe and opened thepacket, which contained several papers in a good state of preservation.He read them carefully and thoughtfully, and the task occupied him forhalf an hour or more.
"Whew! It's a heap better than I counted on--I didn't have the time toexamine them right before," he muttered. "There may be a tidy littlefortune in it. I'll make something out of this, or my name ain't NoahHawker. The old chap is out of the running, to start with, so I musthunt up the others. And that won't be easy, perhaps."