CHAPTER XXIII
DANDY CHATER COMES FROM THE GRAVE
Dr. Cripps—partly from excitement, partly from sheer vindictivenessagainst Ogledon—was only too ready for the expedition. Indeed, bothmen were so eager for it, though each for a different reason, thatPhilip almost forgot the caution that was necessary, in his own case;he would have started off, in broad daylight that very hour, to trackdown the man of whom he was in search, had not Cripps pointed out tohim the madness of such a course.
“You see, my dear Chater,” he said—“you’ll get me into trouble, aswell as yourself; it’s a dangerous thing to be running about thecountry with a notorious criminal—I beg that you will excuse theexpression; but you really are a bit notorious, you know—and I have nowish to appear in the dock, for anything beyond my own privatesins—and they are heavy enough, Heaven knows. So that, if I mightsuggest, I think it would be wiser for us to smuggle you to London, insome way or other—that is, if you are really resolved on going.”
“Of course I am resolved,” cried Philip, eagerly; “nothing shall turnme back. Cripps, I won’t believe you are so bad as men have paintedyou, or made you—or as you have made yourself. There’s a heart in yousomewhere, and all the brandy in the world hasn’t washed it out of you.”
“Thank you,” said Cripps, in a low voice; and hung his head.
“Let me tell you this; that I love this girl with all my heart andsoul; she is in danger—and I know that Ogledon will not hesitate toadd another crime to his list. The question is (for you are right aboutthe necessity for smuggling me) how am I to get to London?”
They decided to consult Betty Siggs forthwith; and, although that ladywas at first very chary of holding any communication with Cripps, shecheerfully accepted Philip’s assurance that the little man was to betrusted, and set about devising a plan to help them. Taking Toby intoher confidence, also, she brought him up to the room, where Philip andCripps were waiting, and they put the case before him.
Toby Siggs thought about it for a long time; turned it over this wayand that, but could make nothing of it. Betty, after all, settled thedifficulty in her own quick fashion.
She happened to be standing near the window, looking down into the yardat the back of the inn; when she suddenly clapped her hands, andlaughed aloud. “’Ere you are!” she exclaimed—“the very thing!”
Philip ran to her side, and looked down into the yard. A heavy wagon,laden with hay, had drawn into the yard, and the carter was at thatmoment climbing down, ready to enter the house.
“See, dear lad,” whispered Betty—“the man is a stranger, and ’alf asov’rin will be a fortune to ’im, an’ ’e’ll ask no questions. You ain’tabove roughing it—an’ you an’ the other man can creep in under thetarpaulin, and get to town, without no one bein’ any the wiser. It’llbe slow—but it’ll be better than bein’ caught ’arf-way, an’ ’avin’ yerjourney for nothin’—won’t it?”
The plan seemed an excellent one; and Betty went downstairs at once toarrange it. The carter, being an easy fellow, earning small wages, wasdelighted at the prospect of gathering in ten shillings with so littletrouble; and, in half an hour Cripps and Philip Chater were lyingsnugly on top of the sweet-smelling hay, under the tarpaulin,travelling slowly but surely on the road to London.
Cripps was very valiant—in whispers—on the road; professing hisability to run Ogledon to earth, and openly charge him with the murderof Dandy Chater. Repentance was strong upon him for the time, and hewas ready to perform impossible deeds, by way of reparation for pastmisdeeds. In particular, he was anxious about the bank notes which hadbeen handed to Philip at The Three Watermen.
“For of course I know, by this time, Mr. Chater, that they were handedto you,” he said—“and not to the man who is dead. Let me warn you, foryour own sake, not to deal in them; they are stopped, and keenlywatched for already.”
“The warning comes too late,” replied Philip, with a groan. “I dealt inthem almost at once. I had to cover up a—well, call it a mistake—onthe part of my late brother, and I paid away the notes as hush-money.”
“To whom did you pay it?”
“To a money-lender—a man bearing the distinctive name of Isaacson,”replied Philip.
“That sounds bad,” said the little man. “He would be sure to find outabout the notes before any one. Have you heard nothing from him?”
“How should I? I have not been to Chater Hall since that time; Heavenknows how many letters may be waiting for me—or for Dandy Chater. Atall events, it’s no use worrying about it, or wondering what is goingto happen within the next twenty-four hours.”
The cart in which they travelled was heavily laden, and slow; and thecarter stopped many times upon the road, on the strength of the tenshillings he had received, for refreshment. They chafed at the delay,but could do nothing; for they dared not express impatience, for fearof arousing suspicion. Worse than all, from the Doctor’s standpoint, atleast, it was impossible for them to stir from under the tarpaulin, orto show themselves; so that, through the dust and heat of many hours,they had the melancholy satisfaction of seeing the carter bury his facein huge tankards of ale, whilst nothing came their way. At such momentsas these, the Doctor buried _his_ face in the hay, and positivelygroaned aloud.
It was quite late in the afternoon, when they came into London, and thecart was hacked into a huge stable-yard. There, another delay occurred;for night was still far off, and they dared not stir in daylight.Fortunately, the hay was not to be disturbed until the next morning, sothat they lay there, listening to the busy noise of the streets, andlonging for darkness.
Dusk at last, and the noises in the streets growing fainter. They hadagreed upon their plan of action, and had decided to take afour-wheeled cab to Woolwich—choosing that conveyance, as being likelyto attract less attention than a hansom—and then to walk to The ThreeWatermen. They slipped down the side of the hay wagon, and crept out ofthe stable-yard into the streets.
Philip dived into the first crawling “growler” he saw, leaving Crippsto give the necessary directions. Philip leaned back in the cab, asmuch out of sight as possible, and began to wonder, with fieryimpatience, whether they would be too late—or whether they would missthose of whom they were in pursuit—or whether Madge had really come toLondon, and, if so, where she was at that time.
After a long journey through endless streets, Cripps stopped thevehicle, and they alighted. Philip found himself at the corner of anarrow and very dirty street, in a neighbourhood evidently of thepoorest class—and yet a neighbourhood which seemed familiar.
“Now, Mr. Chater,” said the little man, who was evidently growing morenervous at every step they took—“Now comes the necessity for greatercaution than ever. We—we may absolutely ruin everything, if we are tooprecipitate. We must find out first where Ogledon is, and whether ornot he has gone to the hut spoken of by the Shady ’un. Ah—you don’tknow what Ogledon is—or what he is capable of.”
“I can guess,” said Philip, quietly—“and that makes me the moreanxious to get on without delay. How far are we from the place?”
“A hundred yards or so,” replied Cripps, who was beginning to tremblelike a leaf. “You don’t—don’t feel that you would like—like to turnback, I suppose?”
“Turn back!” cried Philip with a grim laugh. “Turn back now—when I amwithin touch of this man! No—not if greater dangers than any I havemet yet fronted me. Show me the way, wherever it may be!”
The Doctor led the way down a side street, which brought them, withanother sharp turn to the left to The Three Watermen; Philip knew it ina moment.
“I know the way now,” he said—“I have been to the spot before. Comeon—let us waste no further time.”
In his eagerness, he dived himself into that small alley-way, intowhich he had gone on that first night of his coming to the place. Onlywhen he reached the end of it, did he look round for his companion; butCripps was gone. His fe
ars had been too much for him, and, watching hisopportunity, he had fled. There was no time to wait for him, or to lookfor him; Philip made his way rapidly in the direction of thosetumble-down out-houses he had noticed on the night he found hisbrother’s body.
Coming within sight of these, he suddenly stopped, and dropped downbehind the shelter of a ruined boat, which lay half buried in the mud.For, at the door of one of those dilapidated buildings, stood the Shady’un, as if on guard.
Probably Mr. Shadrach Nottidge had never been so surprised or terrifiedin all his life, as he was when a figure suddenly sprang up before him,and he felt himself caught by the throat, with a grip which threatenedto choke him with the least possible delay. And, when he looked intothe eyes of Philip Chater, and remembered how much cause that gentlemanhad for wreaking vengeance upon him, by reason of the treachery he haddisplayed in handing him over to the police, his fears were increased athousand-fold.
“Now—you sly sneaking villain,” whispered Philip between histeeth—“you runner and crawler for other rogues—where’s your master?”
The Shady ’un, wholly unable to speak, by reason of that grip upon histhroat, faintly moved his head in the direction of the hut.
“Is the lady you brought here with him?” asked Philip, in the samecautious voice.
The Shady ’un contrived to nod, and to screw his head again in thedirection of the door; Philip, glancing at it, saw that it stood sometwo inches open. Giving the Shady ’un one final squeeze and shake, heflung him away, so that he fell on his back on the mud—gently pushedopen the door—and crept in. The Shady ’un, the instant that Philip haddisappeared into the hut, got slowly to his feet, and then scurriedaway in the darkness towards the streets.
Inside the hut, Philip found himself in a maze of poles, and ropes, andplanks, and dusty tattered sails; gliding among these—(the shed hadevidently belonged to a boat-builder, and had long been abandoned)—hepeered past them into the shed itself, where a faint light glimmered.
As his eyes became accustomed to the twilight of the place, he saw thatthe light in it came from a guttering candle, thrust into the neck of abottle, and stood upon a table. Near this table, and at the further endof the room, stood Madge Barnshaw. At the side of it nearest to wherePhilip stood concealed, and with his back towards the door, stoodOgledon. With his hands clasped behind his back, and his head thrustforward towards the girl, he seemed to menace her, even while he wassilent. And yet, though he seemed to have her at his mercy, he hadabout him a dogged air of being at bay himself, and desperate. From thefirst words Philip heard, as he stood there in the darkness watchingthem, it appeared that Madge had only just reached the place, and wasstill ignorant of the full extent of her own danger.
“You sent for me in desperate haste, Mr. Ogledon,” she said—“to tellme about Dandy Chater—to tell me the truth about him.”
“Yes—I’ll tell you all the truth about Dandy Chater,” he said,sneeringly.
“I have taken a long journey, in the full hope that you might helphim—that you might show me a way to prove his innocence, and set himfree,” she said, in the same earnest pleading voice. “If you can dothat—if you will help him—I will bless you from the depths of mygrateful heart; I will believe that you are true and kind and generous;and I will beg you to forget any harsh thing I may ever have said toyou.”
He moved nearer to the table, and leant his hands upon it, and lookedat her across the flickering candle-light. “I have read somewhere,” hesaid, slowly—“in some book made for babes and sucklings—that the loveof a woman will make an angel of a man—and raise him up, and exalthim. It’s a lie; no such thing ever happened. So far as I have loved,the love of a woman is a thing wherein are bound up hatred andbitterness and murder—and every devil-made thing that belongs to thedarkness. They talk of a woman scorned; what think you of a manscorned? What think you of a man, who—eating his heart out for onesmile—one word of tenderness from a mere slip of a girl—is met bylooks which show him only disgust and repugnance? You thought it a finething to fling aside the love of a man like myself, and take up with amere boy—didn’t you?”
“I never flung aside your love,” replied the girl, scornfully. “I toldyou, from the first, that I could not care for you—that I loved someone else. Had you been a gentleman—even a man——”
“A gentleman!” he sneered. “What has gentility to do with thisbusiness? It’s a question between a man and a woman—and you shall findthat the man wins. Oh—my pretty maid—I swore a long time ago that noother man should stand between you and myself; I swore that I wouldhave you, and would bend you as it pleased me—or break you.Yes—you’ve roused a lurking devil in me—and I’ll stick at nothingnow. First—let us understand each other, in regard to Dandy Chater.”
He took a turn or two about the room, with his head bent, as thoughundecided what to say, or what to leave unsaid. At last, going to hisformer position near the table and standing there, he began to say whathe had to say.
“You loved Dandy Chater—oh—don’t interrupt me; you would say you lovehim still, I suppose?—I knew that, from your own lips, as well as fromwhat I saw and heard when you were together. I wonder if you would lovehim now—if you could see him?”
“I don’t understand you,” she said, in a low voice. “Why should I not?”
“Because—well because he wouldn’t look nice,” he responded, with agrim laugh. “In a word—because he’s dead.”
Through the mind of the girl there floated the words the little man whohad accompanied Harry had spoken—“One is dead—the other living!” Butshe said nothing; she was almost afraid to speak, because she wanted sodesperately to hear what he had to say in explanation of that mystery.
“Yes—he’s dead. He stood in my way—blocked up the path which led tomy desires. More than that, I had made a tool of him for years—hadused him for every mean and petty thing I did not care to soil my ownhands with. He might have told tales. Do you know what I did with him?”
She looked at him with a face of horror, and slowly shook her head.
“Look round these walls—look at this miserable place in which youstand. It should have a value in your eyes; for it has heard his deathscream. Within a dozen yards of it, on the bank of this river—atnight—I struck him down. And I’d strike him down again to-night, if hestood alive before me. And you—you thought to defy a man who felt thekilling of that puny lover of yours no more than he would have felt thekilling of a rat!”
He had felt it, though—and he felt it still; or why did his handstremble in their grip of the table, and why did he glance for a moment,with that blanched face, behind him?
She, too, began to fear him now, as she had not feared him before;looked about her wildly, as if for a way of escape.
“Ah—you shake and tremble now—do you?” he said, mockingly. “You’lltremble more when you know what I intend to do. Think of it. You’rehere, far away from any houses, and you may scream your heart out, andno one will hear you. Whatever love I felt for you has gone—turnedinto a viler thing. By God—pretty Miss Innocence”—he brought his fistdown heavily on the table—“you shall dally with me an hour or two—forthe first and last time; and then go join your lover in the river!”
He darted round the table towards her; but she evaded him, screaming,and made straight towards where Philip stood. Ogledon, in his mad rush,tripped and fell; and, at the same moment, Philip caught the girl,swung her round into the darkness where he had been standing, andstepped out into the light.
It was all done so rapidly, that Ogledon was on his feet, and hadactually come on, with a blind rush, before he saw who stood in hispath; and even then, he had no time to stop himself—scarcely time evento cry out. In a moment, Philip had him by the throat, and had forcedhim to his knees; bending over him, and looking full into his ghastlyface, he spoke the first words that rose to his lips; re-assumed, for amoment, that character he had taken upon himself near that very spotbut a week or two before.
/> “Dandy Chater is dead—is he? Struck down by your hand from behind inthe dark—murderer! Do you look into his eyes now—in this place whereyou killed him—or will you still cry that Dandy Chater has not comeback from the grave?”
The face into which Philip Chater looked, suddenly changed horribly;mouthed and chattered at him, in some unearthly tongue; and the headfell backwards. He felt the body relax, and droop under his hands;heard a sort of gasping cry; and then it slid out of his grasp to thefloor. At the same moment, the door was flung open, and the placeseemed full of people.
In the front of them were some constables—and, just behind them, theface of the Shady ’un. Philip had a dim idea that Madge had come outinto the light, and was bending over the prostrate form of Ogledon. Heknew, too, that handcuffs were on his wrists, and that he was stronglyheld by a couple of men. Some others had gone to Ogledon, and wereraising him up.
“Yes—take me,” he cried, recklessly; “I don’t mind now; my innocenceis proved. Look to that man”—he pointed towards Ogledon—“he knows mystory; he is my chief witness!”
One of the men, who had been bending over Ogledon, got up and adjustedhis chin-strap, and looked at Philip curiously.
“I’m afraid your witness won’t do you much good,” he said, shortly.“The man is dead!”