The Black Bag

by Louis Joseph Vance

  IX

  AGAIN "BELOW BRIDGE"; AND BEYOND

  Kirkwood wasted little time, who had not much to waste, were he to do thatupon whose doing he had set his heart. It irked him sore to have to losethe invaluable moments demanded by certain imperative arrangements, but hishaste was such that all was consummated within an hour.

  Within the period of a single hour, then, he had ransomed his luggage atSt. Pancras, caused it to be loaded upon a four-wheeler and transferred toa neighboring hotel of evil flavor but moderate tariff, where he engageda room for a week, ordered an immediate breakfast, and retired with hisbelongings to his room; he had shaved and changed his clothes, selectinga serviceable suit of heavy tweeds, stout shoes, a fore-and-aft cap and anegligee shirt of a deep shade calculated at least to seem clean for a longtime; finally, he had devoured his bacon and eggs, gulped down his coffeeand burned his mouth, and, armed with a stout stick, set off hotfoot in thestill dim glimmering of early day.

  By this time his cash capital had dwindled to the sum of two pounds, tenshillings, eight-pence, and would have been much less had he paid for hislodging in advance. But he considered his trunks ample security for thebill, and dared not wait the hour when shopkeepers begin to take downshutters and it becomes possible to realize upon one's jewelry. Besideswhich, he had never before been called upon to consider the advisability ofraising money by pledging personal property, and was in considerable doubtas to the right course of procedure in such emergency.

  At King's Cross Station on the Underground an acute disappointment awaitedhim; there, likewise, he learned something about London. A sympatheticbobby informed him that no trains would be running until after five-thirty,and that, furthermore, no busses would begin to ply until half after seven.

  "It's tramp it or cab it, then," mused the young man mournfully, hislonging gaze seeking a nearby cab-rank--just then occupied by a solitaryhansom, driver somnolent on the box. "Officer," he again addressedthe policeman, mindful of the English axiom: "When in doubt, ask abobby."--"Officer, when's high-tide this morning?"

  The bobby produced a well-worn pocket-almanac, moistened a massive thumb,and rippled the pages.

  "London Bridge, 'igh tide twenty minutes arfter six, sir," he announcedwith a glow of satisfaction wholly pardonable in one who combines thefunctions of perambulating almanac, guide-book, encyclopedia, and conserverof the peace.

  Kirkwood said something beneath his breath--a word in itself a comfortablemouthful and wholesome and emphatic. He glanced again at the cab andgroaned: "O Lord, I just dassent!" With which, thanking the bureau ofinformation, he set off at a quick step down Grey's Inn Road.

  The day had closed down in brilliance upon the city--and the voice of themilkman was to be heard in the land--when he trudged, still briskly if atrifle wearily, into Holborn, and held on eastward across the Viaduct anddown Newgate Street; the while addling his weary wits with heart-sickeningcomputations of minutes, all going hopelessly to prove that he would belate, far too late even presupposing the unlikely. The unlikely, be itknown, was that the _Alethea_ would not attempt to sail before the turn ofthe tide.

  For this was his mission, to find the _Alethea_ before she sailed.Incredible as it may appear, at five o'clock, or maybe earlier, on themorning of the twenty-second of April, 1906, A.D., Philip Kirkwood,normally a commonplace but likable young American in full possession ofhis senses, might have been seen (and by some was seen) plodding manfullythrough Cheapside, London, England, engaged upon a quest as mad, forlorn,and gallant as any whose chronicle ever inspired the pen of a Malory ora Froissart. In brief he proposed to lend his arm and courage to be theshield and buckler of one who might or might not be a damsel in distress;according as to whether Mrs. Hallam had spoken soothly of Dorothy Calendar,or Kirkwood's own admirable faith in the girl were justified of itself.

  Proceeding upon the working hypothesis that Mrs. Hallam was a polished liarin most respects, but had told the truth, so far as concerned her statementto the effect that the gladstone bag contained valuable real property(whose ownership remained a moot question, though Kirkwood was definitelycommitted to the belief that it was none of Mrs. Hallam's or her son's):he reasoned that the two adventurers, with Dorothy and their booty, wouldattempt to leave London by a water route, in the ship, _Alethea_, whosename had fallen from their lips at Bermondsey Old Stairs.

  Kirkwood's initial task, then, would be to find the needle in thehaystack--the metaphor is poor: more properly, to sort out from thehundreds of vessels, of all descriptions, at anchor in midstream, moored tothe wharves of 'long-shore warehouses, or in the gigantic docks that linethe Thames, that one called _Alethea_; of which he was so deeply mired inignorance that he could not say whether she were tramp-steamer, coastwisepassenger boat, one of the liners that ply between Tilbury and all theworld, Channel ferry-boat, private yacht (steam or sail), schooner,four-master, square-rigger, barque or brigantine.

  A task to stagger the optimism of any but one equipped with the sublimeimpudence of Youth! Even Kirkwood was disturbed by some little awe whenhe contemplated the vast proportions of his undertaking. None the lessdoggedly he plugged ahead, and tried to keep his mind from vain surmisesas to what would be his portion when eventually he should find himself apassenger, uninvited and unwelcome, upon the _Alethea_....

  London had turned over once or twice, and was pulling the bedclothes overits head and grumbling about getting up, but the city was still soundasleep when at length he paused for a minute's rest in front of the MansionHouse, and realized with a pang of despair that he was completely tuckeredout. There was a dull, vague throbbing in his head; weights pressed uponhis eyeballs until they ached; his mouth was hot and tasted of yesterday'stobacco; his feet were numb and heavy; his joints were stiff; he yawnedfrequently.

  With a sigh he surrendered to the flesh's frailty. An early cabby, cruisingup from Cannon Street station on the off-chance of finding some one astirin the city, aside from the doves and sparrows, suffered the surprise ofhis life when Kirkwood hailed him. His face was blank with amazement whenhe reined in, and his eyes bulged when the prospective fare, on impulse,explained his urgent needs. Happily he turned out a fair representative ofhis class, an intelligent and unfuddled cabby.

  "Jump in, sir," he told Kirkwood cheerfully, as soon as he had assimilatedthe latter's demands. "I knows precisely wotcher wants. Leave it all tome."

  The admonition was all but superfluous; Kirkwood was unable, for the timebeing, to do aught else than resign his fate into another's guidance. Oncein the cab he slipped insensibly into a nap, and slept soundly on, asreckless of the cab's swift pace and continuous jouncing as of the sunlightglaring full in his tired young face.

  He may have slept twenty minutes; he awoke faint with drowsiness, tinglingfrom head to toe from fatigue, and in distress of a queer qualm in the pitof his stomach, to find the hansom at rest and the driver on the step,shaking his fare with kindly determination. "Oh, a' right," he assentedsurlily, and by sheer force of will made himself climb out to thesidewalk; where, having rubbed his eyes, stretched enormously and yawneddiscourteously in the face of the East End, he was once more himself anda hundred times refreshed into the bargain. Contentedly he counted threeshillings into the cabby's palm--the fare named being one-and-six.

  "The shilling over and above the tip's for finding me the waterman andboat," he stipulated.

  "Right-o. You'll mind the 'orse a minute, sir?"

  Kirkwood nodded. The man touched his hat and disappeared inexplicably.Kirkwood, needlessly attaching himself to the reins near the animal's head,pried his sense of observation open and became alive to the fact that hestood in a quarter of London as strange to him as had been Bermondsey Wall.

  To this day he can not put a name to it; he surmises that it was Wapping.

  Ramshackle tenements with sharp gable roofs lined either side of the way.Frowsy women draped themselves over the window-sills. Pallid and wastedparodies on childhood contested the middle of the street with great, slowdray
s, drawn by enormous horses. On the sidewalks twin streams of masculinehumanity flowed without rest, both bound in the same direction: docklaborers going to their day's work. Men of every nationality known to theworld (he thought) passed him in his short five-minute wait by the horse'shead; Britons, brown East Indians, blacks from Jamaica, swart Italians,Polaks, Russian Jews, wire-drawn Yankees, Spaniards, Portuguese, Greeks,even a Nubian or two: uniform in these things only, that their backs werebent with toil, bowed beyond mending, and their faces stamped with theblurred type-stamp of the dumb laboring brute. A strangely hideousprocession, they shambled on, for the most part silent, all uncouth andunreal in the clear morning glow.

  The outlander was sensible of some relief when his cabby popped hurriedlyout of the entrance to a tenement, a dull-visaged, broad-shoulderedwaterman ambling more slowly after.

  "Nevvy of mine, sir," announced the cabby; "and a fust-ryte waterman; knowsthe river like a book, he do."

  The nephew touched his forelock sheepishly.

  "Thank you," said Kirkwood; and, turning to the man, "Your boat?" he askedwith the brevity of weariness.

  "This wye, sir."

  At his guide's heels Kirkwood threaded the crowd and, entering thetenement, stumbled through a gloomy and unsavory passage, to come out atlast upon a scanty, unrailed veranda overlooking the river. Ten feet below,perhaps, foul waters purred and eddied round the piles supporting therear of the building. On one hand a ladder-like flight of rickety stepsdescended to a floating stage to which a heavy rowboat lay moored. In thelatter a second waterman was seated bailing out bilge with a rusty can.

  "'Ere we are, sir," said the cabman's nephew, pausing at the head of thesteps. "Now, where's it to be?"

  The American explained tersely that he had a message to deliver a friend,who had shipped aboard a vessel known as the _Alethea_, scheduled to sailat floodtide; further than which deponent averred naught.

  The waterman scratched his head. "A 'ard job, sir; not knowin' wot kind ofa boat she are mykes it 'arder." He waited hopefully.

  "Ten shillings," volunteered Kirkwood promptly; "ten shillings if you getme aboard her before she weighs anchor; fifteen if I keep you out more thanan hour, and still you put me aboard. After that we'll make other terms."

  The man promptly turned his back to hail his mate. "'Arf a quid, Bob, if weputs this gent aboard a wessel name o' _Allytheer_ afore she syles at turno' tide."

  In the boat the man with the bailing can turned up an impassivecountenance. "Coom down," he clenched the bargain; and set about shippingthe sweeps.

  Kirkwood crept down the shaky ladder and deposited himself in the stern ofthe boat; the younger boatman settled himself on the midship thwart.

  "Ready?"

  "Ready," assented old Bob from the bows. He cast off the painter, placedone sweep against the edge of the stage, and with a vigorous thrust pushedoff; then took his seat.

  Bows swinging down-stream, the boat shot out from the shore.

  "How's the tide?" demanded Kirkwood, his impatience growing.

  "On th' turn, sir," he was told.

  For a long moment broadside to the current, the boat responded to thesturdy pulling of the port sweeps. Another moment, and it was in fullswing, the watermen bending lustily to their task. Under their unceasingurge, the broad-beamed, heavy craft, aided by the ebbing tide, surged moreand more rapidly through the water; the banks, grim and unsightly withtheir towering, impassive warehouses broken by toppling wooden tenements,slipped swiftly up-stream. Ship after ship was passed, sailing vesselsin the majority, swinging sluggishly at anchor, drifting slowly with theriver, or made fast to the goods-stages of the shore; and in keen anxietylest he should overlook the right one, Kirkwood searched their bows andsterns for names, which in more than one case proved hardly legible.

  The _Alethea_ was not of their number.

  In the course of some ten minutes, the watermen drove the boat sharplyinshore, bringing her up alongside another floating stage, in the shadowof another tenement.--both so like those from which they had embarked thatKirkwood would have been unable to distinguish one from another.

  In the bows old Bob lifted up a stentorian voice, summoning one William.

  Recognizing that there was some design in this, the passenger subdued hisdisapproval of the delay, and sat quiet.

  In answer to the third ear-racking hail, a man, clothed simply in dirtyshirt and disreputable trousers, showed himself in the doorway above,rubbing the sleep out of a red, bloated countenance with a mighty and grimyfist.

  "'Ello," he said surlily. "Wot's th' row?"

  "'Oo," interrogated old Bob, holding the boat steady by grasping the stage,"was th' party wot engyged yer larst night, Bill?"

  "Party name o' _Allytheer_," growled the drowsy one. "W'y?"

  "Party 'ere's lookin' for 'im. Where'll I find this _Allytheer?_"

  "Best look sharp 'r yer won't find 'im," retorted the one above. "'E _was_at anchor off Bow Creek larst night."

  Kirkwood's heart leaped in hope. "What sort of a vessel was she?" he asked,half rising in his eagerness.

  "Brigantine, sir."

  "_Thank--you!_" replied Kirkwood explosively, resuming his seat withuncalculated haste as old Bob, deaf to the amenities of social intercoursein an emergency involving as much as ten-bob, shoved off again.

  And again the boat was flying down in midstream, the leaden waters, shotwith gold of the morning sun, parting sullenly beneath its bows.

  The air was still, heavy and tepid; the least exertion brought out beadedmoisture on face and hands. In the east hung a turgid sky, dull with haze,through which the mounting sun swam like a plaque of brass; overhead itwas clear and cloudless, but besmirched as if the polished mirror of theheavens had been fouled by the breath of departing night.

  On the right, ahead, Greenwich Naval College loomed up, the greatgray-stone buildings beyond the embankment impressively dominating thescene, in happy relief against the wearisome monotony of the river-banks;it came abreast; and ebbed into the backwards of the scene.

  The watermen straining at the sweeps, the boat sped into Blackwall Reach,Bugsby Marshes a splash of lurid green to port, dreary Cubitt Town and theWest India Docks to starboard. Here the river ran thick with shipping.

  "Are we near?" Kirkwood would know; and by way of reply had a grunt of theyounger waterman.

  Again, "Will we make it?" he asked.

  The identical grunt answered him; he was free to interpret it as he would;young William--as old Bob named him--had no breath for idle words. Kirkwoodsubsided, controlling his impatience to the best of his ability; the men,he told himself again and again, were earning their pay, whether or notthey gained the goal of his desire.... Their labors were titanic; ontheir temples and foreheads the knotted veins stood out like discoloredwhip-cord; their faces were the shade of raw beef, steaming with sweat;their eyes protruded with the strain that set their jaws like vises; theirchests heaved and shrank like bellows; their backs curved, straightened,and bent again in rhythmic unison as tiring to the eye as the swinging of apendulum.

  Hugging the marshy shore, they rounded the Blackwall Point. Young Williamlooked to Kirkwood, caught his eye, and nodded.

  "Here?"

  Kirkwood rose, balancing himself against the leap and sway of the boat.

  "Sumwhere's ... 'long ... o' 'ere."

  From right to left his eager glance swept the river's widening reach.Vessels were there in abundance, odd, unwieldy, blunt-bowed craft withhuge, rakish, tawny sails; long strings of flat barges, pyramidal mounds ofcoal on each, lashed to another and convoyed by panting tugs; steam cargoboats, battered, worn, rusted sore through their age-old paint; a steelleviathan of the deep seas, half cargo, half passenger boat, warpingreluctantly into the mouth of the Victoria Dock tidal basin,--but nobrigantine, no sailing vessel of any type.

  The young man's lips checked a cry that was half a sob of bitterdisappointment. He had entered into the spirit of the chase heart and soul,with an enthusiasm t
hat was strange to him, when he came to look backupon the time; and to fail, even though failure had been discounted ahundredfold since the inception of his mad adventure, seemed hard, veryhard.

  He sat down suddenly. "She's gone!" he cried in a hollow gasp.

  The boatmen eased upon their oars, and old Bob stood up in the bows,scanning the river-scape with keen eyes shielded by a level palm.Young William drooped forward suddenly, head upon knees, and breathedconvulsively. The boat drifted listlessly with the current.

  Old Bob panted: "'Dawn't--see--nawthin'--o' 'er." He resumed his seat.

  "There's no hope, I suppose?"

  The elder waterman shook his head. "'Carn't sye.... Might be round--nex'bend--might be--passin' Purfleet.... 'Point is--me an' young Wilyum'ere--carn't do no more--'n we 'as. We be wore out."

  "Yes," Kirkwood assented, disconsolate, "You've certainly earned your pay."Then hope revived; he was very young in heart, you know. "Can't you suggestsomething? I've _got_ to catch that ship!"

  Old Bob wagged his head in slow negation; young William lifted his.

  "There's a rylewye runs by Woolwich," he ventured. "Yer might tyke trynean' go to Sheerness, sir. Yer'd be positive o' passin' 'er if she didn'tsyle afore 'igh-tide. 'Ire a boat at Sheerness an' put out an' look for'er."

  "How far's Woolwich?" Kirkwood demanded instantly.

  "Mile," said the elder man. "Tyke yer for five-bob extry."

  "Done!"

  Young William dashed the sweat from his eyes, wiped his palms on his hips,and fitted the sweeps again to the wooden tholes. Old Bob was as ready.With an inarticulate cry they gave way.