The Symbol Seekers

by A. A. Glynn

  There was no question of leaving for London that same day for the next train, leaving in the late afternoon, would arrive in the capital after dark and that would lead to complications in finding their accommodation. The General had made arrangements for all three of his agents to stay with one of the League’s British supporters, a maker of breech-loading rifles in Camden Town. Like many of the British supporters, he had supplied the struggling forces of Dixie during the Civil War with armaments through blockade-breaking.

  Neither man had ever been to England before and both had the uneasy feeling that looking for Grandon in a city so big as they understood the British capital to be would be seeking a needle in a haystack. Neither communicated his qualms to the other.

  Totally disgruntled through meeting frustration every time they turned a corner in Liverpool, they trudged back to Paradise Street, heading for Salty Sheldon’s establishment. The atmosphere had turned several degrees colder and the sky darkened. Sadler and Dobbs shuddered and, just as they were passing an eating house at the corner of Paradise Street, the drifting aroma of cooking reminded Jefferson Dobbs that the morning’s alarms at Salty Sheldon’s hotel had robbed them of breakfast.

  The aroma was powerful enough to turn their steps towards the door of the establishment. They found it catered to the appetites of mariners. Its décor must not have changed in over fifty years. The ceiling was low; there were models of old sailing vessels on a shelf running the length of one wall and a faded engraving of Lord Nelson was on the wall behind the long counter with sections of sea charts as neighbours. A set of oaken booths, offering privacy to customers, was established along the walls.

  At this hour of the morning, the place was empty save for a little man in a too-long waiter’s apron, leaning against the counter, apparently asleep. He jerked into wakefulness when the two Georgians entered.

  ‘I’ll take your order at the counter, lads. Then you take a seat,’ he said in the nasal tones of Merseyside to which the pair were becoming accustomed. His demeanour suggested that the ethos of the house was akin to that aboard a merchantman. The menu was based solidly on meat and vegetables, geared to appetites sharpened by sea breezes and Sadler and Dobbs found there was plenty of it. And it was highly satisfactory.

  Seated in one of the booths with a table between them, they had been eating for only a few minutes when a couple of men entered. Such was the position of the booth occupied by the Georgians in relation to the door and the counter that they could not see the newcomers but they heard them negotiate with the waiter. Then the newly arrived pair tramped across the floor and settled in the booth next to their own. The little waiter delivered their orders a short time later.

  The tops of the booths were open and gruff conversation floated over the dividing partition into Sadler and Dobbs’ booth. It was of a nondescript nature and of no interest to the Georgians until the gruffer of the two voices said:

  ‘I heard Bill Twist was talkin’ too much in the Mermaid and Flagon the other night. Almost went too far but his mate, Sephton, shut him up.’

  The second man gave a harsh laugh. ‘I’m not surprised, Bill never could keep his lip buttoned up when he’s full of grog. The scuppers have never nabbed ’em yet, but Bill’s gab’ll put both of ’em in shackles one day.’

  ‘Yeh, nothing so sure,’ said the other. ‘It seems Bill was boasting about a big job they did at some toff’s place over the water and got away with something special.’

  Lewis Sadler’s hand, holding a fork conveying a piece of beef to his mouth, stilled in mid-air while Jefferson Dobbs almost choked on a portion of potato. They had both been in Liverpool long enough to know that ‘over the water’ referred to the opposite shore of the River Mersey, the Cheshire shore, where Birkenhead was located.

  Sadler rose to his feet, put a finger to his mouth to signal silence then moved forward, beckoning to Dobbs to follow him. They slipped out of the booth quickly and made a noiseless and speedy invasion of the next one.

  Frozen in surprise and staring at them from either side of a table bearing their meals were a couple of men, one large and the other smaller, wearing labourers’ clothing. Each bore a strong resemblance to the ruffians shown in the ‘Known to the Police’ engravings in the crime pages of the newspapers.

  Before he knew it, the larger of the two found one of the pair of lean apparitions in black topcoats sitting on the seat beside him. The second was standing menacingly over his companion with his hand in his coat pocket suggestive of his levelling a hidden gun.

  ‘Wh-what’s this?’ stammered the larger. ‘Are you scuppers, or what?’

  ‘Not scuppers,’ said Sadler, beside him. ‘We’re a damned sight worse than scuppers. We’re not telling you who we are but we’ll tickle you’re innards with hot lead if you play smart with us.’

  Sadler had his hand in the coat pocket close to the man beside him, the larger of the two and the man felt something hard prod him in the ribs.

  ‘It’s a Colt revolver, Cousin, and if you don’t believe me, just you get my dander up and I’ll let daylight into you. We want to know about the two gents you mentioned awhile back—the pair who robbed a house in Birkenhead.’

  ‘Don’t know much. I only heard rumours about them,’ said the man. He was obviously scared but he was trying to hold on to any information he had.

  He received another prod in the ribs, more severe than the last.

  ‘You know plenty, Cousin’ growled Sadler. ‘Their names, for instance. C’mon, their names, before my friend yonder and I get tired of fooling around and start shooting.’

  ‘Charlie Sephton and Bill Twist,’ said the man, now shaking with fear.

  ‘And this place where they hang out. Sounds like a saloon or a pub. Where is it?’

  ‘The Mermaid and Flagon? It’s in Hackin’s Court, near Cape Town Dock.’

  ‘And are they in there every night?’

  ‘Near enough every night. They’re demons for their grog.’

  ‘Are they likely to be there tonight, Cousin?’

  ‘I reckon so.’

  ‘Well, my friend yonder and I will be there to have a chat with them so, if you should meet them in the course of the day and mention that we’re coming calling and you scare them away from taking what’s coming to them, by thunder, we’ll come after you. What do they call you, Cousin?’

  ‘Dick Rimmer.’

  ‘And your dithering friend back there?’

  ‘Jackie Fullbrook,’ answered the second man for himself though he was still intimidated by scowling Jefferson Dobbs pointing the weapon inside his pocket.

  ‘And what do this Sephton and Twist look like? Sadler asked. ‘We wouldn’t want to pump lead into the wrong gents.’

  ‘Both small. Sephton has a scrubby black beard and Twist stoops and has a scrap of hair at the front of his chin—just a patch of it—like Frenchmen have. And both of ’em wear working men’s moleskin caps.’

  Dick Rimmer seemed eager to gush forth information now that he had started.

  ‘One last thing. Do these two gentlemen carry firearms?’ asked Sadler.

  This touched a patriotic spark in Rimmer. ‘Certainly not! They might be scallies but they’re Englishmen. Pistols and knives are for foreigners,’ he said heatedly.

  Sadler chuckled. ‘Grubby foreigners, like my friend and I, who don’t play according to the rules of cricket, eh? Well, just remember, we’ll be lurking around, ready to deal out retribution with our pistols if you say you’ve seen us or if you say anything about how we aim to visit the Mermaid and Flagon. Get on with your eating if you have the stomach for it.’

  The two Georgians made a quick exit and returned to their interrupted meals in the next door booth.

  ‘They’re just a pair of waterfront no-accounts,’ murmured Sadler.

  ‘Sure, but mighty useful in leading us to the pair who stole the bo
x,’ said Dobbs.

  ‘Unless they led us up the garden path.’

  After the disappointments of the day, Sadler was not ready to accept that, at last, they had been dealt a stroke of luck.

  In view of their need to take the train to London the following day, they knew the next step in their quest for the box must be taken at once.

  Back at their accommodation, Salty Sheldon frowned when they inquired as to the location of Hackin’s Court and the Mermaid and Flagon.

  ‘You’d best not drop anchor in those waters for too long,’ he said. ‘There’s some uncommon dangerous fish in ’em.’ After their delaying misunderstanding that morning which almost certainly contributed to their loss of Ned Grandon, Sheldon was very much chastened. He drew a sketch map indicating where the court and the pub could be found.

  The first shades of evening were falling when Sadler and Dobbs set out to walk to Hackin’s Court, deep in dockland, where a forest of tall masts and furled sails rose starkly against a darkening sky. Full night was almost blanketing the region by the time they found Hackin’s Court, a cramped cul-de-sac squeezed between a row of ill-kept houses. Tenement-like dwellings huddled along either side of the court and the dim illumination of lamp and candle from their grimy windows mottled the cobbled footway.

  At the blind end of the cul-de-sac crouched a small tavern, making its presence felt by extra bright lights and the bellowing by many voices of a sad ballad, long woven into the fabric of Liverpool, the tale of Maggie May, a ‘Judy’ (girl) who was no better than she ought to be.

  ‘Oh, Maggie, Maggie May

  ‘They have taken you away

  ‘And you’ll never walk down Lime Street anymore…’

  Evidently, this was the Mermaid and Flagon and the grog was flowing good and strong there.

  Sadler and Dobbs walked up to the building above the door of which swung an old painted sign showing a fish-tailed woman with a truly evil leer, holding an outsize flagon. They opened the door which immediately caused an almost tangible gust of warm air, alcoholic fumes, tobacco smoke, bodily odours to gush out. Riding on it was a raucous snatch of song:

  ‘Oh, I was a bloody fool,

  ‘In the port of Liverpool,

  ‘The first time that l came home from sea…’

  The interior was crowded with the motley mixture of humanity to be expected in the dock quarter of a major port. Deck officers and deckhands, juvenile cabin boys, various grades of “greasers” from steam vessels that were increasing in number, every type of dockside cargo handler and a scattering of painted ladies were all imbibing strong drink and voicing alcohol-induced song.

  Some were seated at tables and others stood around in knots and clusters, swinging pint pots and bellowing the song.

  The two Georgians’ eyes had to pierce a veil of tobacco smoke to distinguish faces, even those of individuals quite close to them and Dobbs suddenly nudged Sadler.

  ‘Look. Over to the left—two moleskin caps,’ he said. The wearers of the caps were two undersized men created by slum conditions and poor diets to be burglars or what the underworld called “snakesmen”, thin enough to slither through any narrow window or tight aperture, As they stared at the pair, one man turned his head and showed a dark patch of hair under his mouth, a not notably successful attempt to cultivate a French imperial beard.

  Lewis Sadler grinned. ‘Look at the size of them. We could each pick one of them up from the back and rush out of the door. It’s on a swivel hinge, so we’ll have no trouble with locks. And they’ll be out in picturesque Hackin’s Court before they know it.’

  Dobbs grinned back at Sadler. The idea suited him because he relished a little rough handed action now and again. Both moved cautiously behind Sephton and Twist unnoticed by their neighbours who were intent on drinking and murdering the song.

  As if acting on a word of command, the Georgians sprang forward, each encircled the waist of a burglar with his arms, hoisted him off his feet, whirled him around, causing two ale pots to fly in the air and neighbouring drinkers to be splashed with grog. Sadler and Dobbs turned and ran for the door, each with his bewildered burden. Sephton and Twist were shaken out of their State of stunned surprise the moment they were carried out into the cold night air and both began to struggle but to no avail.

  Both were slammed up against a grimy brick wall in a dark corner across the court from the pub. If the nature of their snatching caused any concern among their fellow imbibers it was not demonstrated. No one followed the captors and captives out of the pub. This was because it was not unknown for patrons of the Mermaid and Flagon to be suddenly seized by men who made an abrupt appearance. In those cases, the men were officers of Liverpool Police, not men of American appearance in dark clothing and broad-brimmed hats. Whoever did such snatching, their fellow patrons found it best to mind their own business and say nothing.

  Sephton and Twist, pinned against the wall, felt the grog that was so comforting so short a time ago, turn sour inside them when the dim light showed that each of their captors was flourishing a large pistol. Having at last caught up with the pair who stole the Birkenhead box, Sadler and Dobbs were less cautious about showing their Colt revolvers in this country where firearms were not so universally accepted as in the New World.

  Lewis Sadler had his left hand on Charlie Sephton’s chest, pinning him against the wall. His other hand gripped his revolver the business end of which was almost touching the point of Sephton’s nose.

  ‘You took a box from a house in Birkenhead—where is it?’ demanded Sadler.

  Sephton opened and closed his mouth three or four times without managing to produce any words. All his attention was given to squinting at the barrel of the revolver almost tickling his nose. Next to him, Bill Twist made an attempt to wriggle free of Dobbs’ grasp but, for all his lean frame, the Georgian proved remarkably powerful, shoving him back against the wall and prodding him in the region of the navel with his firearm.

  ‘Your mate’s lost the power of speech, bub, so let’s hear the answer from you and if the cat’s got your tongue, too, I’ll give you a belly button to match the one nature gave you. C’mon, cough up—where is that box?’

  ‘Dunno, mister, and that’s God’s honest truth.’ Twist was sweating profusely and his voice was quivering with fear.

  ‘All we know is it’s somewhere in London. Mr. O took it there.’

  ‘Who’s Mr. O?’ said Sadler and Dobbs in unison.

  ‘The fella from London who put up the job,’ said Sephton, finding a rather jittery voice at last. ‘We don’t know nothing about him. He just turned up at this pub and offered us the job. He’s a real toff. Smokes Turkish cigarettes. Smokes ’em all the time, as if he’s eatin ’em. Smokes ’em right down to nothing.’

  ‘And he’s a Dago,’ put in Twist.

  ‘A Dago?’ queried Sadler.

  ‘Yeh. From wherever Dagoes come from. He’s all London style airs and graces but he’s not a proper Englishman.’

  ‘If he’s not an Englishman, do you mean he might have taken the box to another country? Or does he live in London and is he holed up there with the box? And what’s the whole story behind its theft, anyway? Do you know what’s in that box?’

  ‘No, I don’t. I never ask questions when I’m asked to do a job. I just do the job.’

  Sadler snorted in disgust. Now that Dobbs and he had their hands on the burglars it looked as if the pair could part with little genuine information simply because they did not have it. He was frustrated with the negative responses to his questions and, from what he could hear of it, Dobbs’ interrogation of Twist, next to him, was meeting with no greater success. It seemed there were deeper implications to the theft of the box than appeared at first sight.

  Elements of the affair marched through his mind as he continued to prod Sephton’s undernourished body with the mouth of his revolver. The Gene
ral, back in Georgia, wanted the box for some reason connected with his “League”. The mysterious Mr. O, from London, wanted it so badly that he travelled north, found a couple of professional thieves and paid them to steal it. And nobody wanted the box more urgently than Lewis Sadler and Jefferson Dobbs.

  So far as it could be tracked from the testimony of the burglars it was now in London, taken there by the ‘Dago’, Mr. O. Unless, of course, Mr. O, being a foreigner, had since spirited it out of the country. Further questioning brought forth nothing more valuable than two nuggets of information: the existence of Mr. O and the fact that he had taken the box to London.

  Lewis Sadler indicated that Dobbs should relax his armed vigilance over Bill Twist and he took his own pistol away from Sephton’s midriff. He jerked his head towards the glittering door of the Mermaid and Flagon.

  ‘Scoot back to your grog,’ he said.

  Both of the miscreants looked at him dumbly then Sephton said: ‘You mean you ain’t going to hand us over to the scuppers for crackin’ that crib over the water?’

  ‘Cousin, we don’t have time for that,’ said Sadler. ‘And I always believed our hometown preacher when he said our sins will surely find us out, so I reckon you two’ll naturally fall into the hands of the scuppers all in good time. Meantime, we have other fish to fry.’

  When he and Dobbs considered the fish they had to fry, they were alarmed at how much they must accomplish in a short space of time. They had to take the train for London the following morning. In London, they had to make contact with English members of the General’s League who would settle them into accommodation and advise them of the time and place of the meeting between the visitors and British members of the league. This would have already been arranged by the British end of the venture and the advertisement “copy” already supplied to the press.