I knew he was right, that I’d never find Shot-in-the-Head again; but I was far from satisfied. In fact, I felt miserably unhappy and, not for the first time, cursed my father’s watch and all that it had brought me. If I hadn’t found the paper, then most likely I’d still be up among the chimney pots with Shot-in-the-Head; and better off than now.
The paper! Club Cottage! How strange it was that I’d forgotten it! Yet not so long ago it had been the most important thing in the world! Not so long ago, I’d wanted to make my Uncle Turner eat his words; I’d wanted to find Mr Alfred Diamond, then John Diamond, then Club Cottage and maybe ten thousand pounds. Now it was only Shot-in-the-Head. I suppose, as my schoolmaster would have said, I lacked concentration.
There came a knock at the door. It was Mrs Branch with a bowl of timid soup. She seemed to make soup as the rain makes mud, absolutely without thinking about it. I wondered how much it would cost.
Mr Seed nodded; and Mrs Branch, reassured, gave me the bowl and departed. I began to spoon away.
‘I don’t want to pry, Mr Jones,’ said the dwarf, looking very much as if he did. ‘I know you like to keep your secrets. But you owe me money, Mr Jones. You’re not a person of independent means. Last night you mentioned a certain John Diamond, and a certain Club Cottage and Limehouse Hole. You talked about Shot-in-the-Head and a baby on a roof. Now it’s no good saying that these are private matters. That won’t do. You must tell me everything, Mr Jones … because you owe me money.’
He scowled ferociously and made it as plain as he could that he was a relentless creditor and was determined to be paid. In other words, he was human enough to be eaten up with curiosity and wasn’t going to leave me alone until I’d told him all.
So I told him, and it was a great relief. I told him everything, right from the beginning, from the time before my father died.
He sat beside me, listening carefully, with his stubby fingers spread across his stubby knees He nodded his head.
‘I thought as much,’ he kept saying, no matter how striking the turns my story took. ‘I guessed it was something like that. Of course … of course …’
Little by little, I found myself growing irritated with him, as he couldn’t possibly have guessed. Nobody could. Once or twice I thought about inventing something really wild, just to catch him out; and I was particularly annoyed when I got to the part about finding the paper in the watch.
‘Of course! Naturally!’ he said. ‘I thought so all the time!’
‘How?’ I said. ‘How did you do that? I didn’t!’
‘Oh,’ said he deeply. ‘I have thoughts where those that have overgrowed only have skin and bone. I have finger thoughts, and arm thoughts, and leg thoughts.’ He held up each article as he mentioned it. ‘I can think where you can only wear your clothes!’
There was simply no surprising him. I think if I’d sprouted wings and flown out of the window, he’d have nodded and said: ‘I thought it might turn out like that!’ I wondered if this was because, when first he’d seen himself in a mirror, he’d got such a shock that nothing ever after could really amount to much.
‘So now it’s come down to Club Cottage,’ he said. ‘That’s to be the answer to everything. All the way down the river to Limehouse Hole. And what do you think you’ll find?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Haven’t you any ideas, Mr Jones?’
I thought; and suggested that it might be the ten thousand pounds. Even as I said it, I felt uncomfortably that it was rather a mercenary thing to have said, and that I ought to have been more spiritual somehow. But when you are twelve, and lying in a narrow bed, with no clothes, and with a fierce creditor bending over you, ten thousand pounds is quite spiritual.
But Mr Seed took it in good part. After all, he was fond of money.
‘And what would you do with it?’
I thought deeply.
‘Would you restore it to John Diamond?’
I shook my head.
‘Would you, say, give it to me?’
It was impossible for him not to look hopeful; and equally impossible for me not to disappoint him. He shrugged his shoulders.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Mr Carwardine will take us down to Limehouse Hole in his boat. Then we’ll see what there is in Club Cottage, and whether it’s been worth the journey.’
He went away and left me a prisoner in his room. Suddenly I had the mean thought that he was off to Club Cottage to take whatever he could find. I wondered if that was why he’d tried to warn me that I might find nothing there.
Almost at once I felt ashamed of thinking it, particularly when Mrs Carwardine told me about the terrible distraction my absence had caused.
She came in with my good shirt and hung it over the chair and stood admiring it in a melancholy sort of way, as if it was me as an angel.
She smoothed it and patted it and told me that everybody had been sure that I was killed on account of my clothes and gold watch and that I’d turn up at Deptford or Wapping Old Stairs and that Mr Carwardine had been keeping a sharp lookout for me and had once thought he’d seen me floating past Billingsgate but that I’d turned out to be a dog.
And there was Mr Seed running about all over the town looking for me and even asking Mr K’Nee, who’d thought I’d gone back to my home and so had that Mr Needleman and somebody in the Horse Boy, which was a place Mr Seed never liked on account of them stuck-up clerks. But he’d known all along that I wasn’t dead and when I’d been fetched in, in the middle of the night, by them cutthroats from Whitefriars with my head kicked in, he hadn’t been in the least surprised.
‘Now don’t touch nothin’, you two!’ she said, as the two Miss Carwardines drifted in together, unwound themselves, and drifted about separately.
They were called—and I don’t know why—Butter and Cress, Butter being the taller; and you certainly had to keep your eye on them. They couldn’t leave anything alone, and they fought like cats when one got hold of something first.
Butter got hold of my watch; and Cress pulled her hair. I said I’d call Mr Seed if they didn’t put it down.
‘Dirty little telltale!’ said Butter; and at once the Miss Carwardines were friends.
‘Don’t ’e look a fright,’ said Cress.
‘Serve ’im right,’ said Butter.
Cress got hold of my shirt. Butter kicked her. I told them again that I’d shout for Mr Seed. If ever two girls were born to go on the snick-an-lurk, they were the two Miss Carwardines; and it was misery lying there, with the blanket pulled up to my neck and wondering when they would try to nick that; I mean, the blanket.
It was only Mrs Baynim who put them off. She came in to see me and the two Miss Carwardines went out of the room sideways, like carvings on the wall. I suppose they were really quite separate, but I always saw them together, united in friendship or war.
It was a great honour to be visited by Mrs Baynim, who generally kept herself to herself, like a very refined friend. She stood in the doorway and stared at me; and I tried to look honoured and pitiful at the same time.
‘Hm! So much for your fine feathers, Mr Jones,’ she said, after asking me how I did, and not waiting for a reply. ‘Better to have been a beggar to start with, than a proud person come down.’
I never saw Mr Baynim. I could only suppose that I was beneath his notice altogether.
I didn’t sleep at all that night; my mind was too full of Club Cottage. It was stuffed so full of bank notes that it looked like a thatched cushion; it was full of jewels; my father was in it. He hadn’t died at all, and there he was, waiting at the door! Or Shot-in-the-Head, with a mug of ale. Then my thoughts took a gloomier turn. Club Cottage had vanished; it had fallen down Limehouse Hole. Or worse, Liverguts was there with his hook; and John Diamond was standing behind the door!
‘Any ideas?’ said Mr Seed, when he came in to wake me in the morning. ‘Any ideas about what we might find?’
‘None, Mr Seed. None at all.’
&nbs
p; At ten o’clock, we went to church and after that we were to go down to Mr Carwardine’s boat. My clothes looked quite presentable; but I must admit I cut a poor figure beside all the Carwardines, and Mrs Baynim and Mrs Branch, who were all highly decorated. I felt rather sad that I could no longer be a credit to them, and had to be hidden in the middle.
The service seemed to go on forever; and the only items of interest were that the two Miss Carwardines got hit for poking their fingers into the poor box, and Mrs Branch was sure that she’d seen Mr Branch on the other side of the aisle. Unfortunately he’d vanished before she could get to him; but she thought he’d looked thinner than before.
When we got back, Mr Seed had some food ready; but I couldn’t eat it, so he put it in a basket for our journey down the river.
We were gathered at the foot of the stairs and there was a great fuss going on as Butter and Cress wanted to come on the boat and kept screaming that Mr Carwardine was their pa and it was his boat and therefore they had a better right than me.
Mrs Carwardine was threatening them with the back of her hand and Mr Carwardine was threatening them with the front of his, bunched up in a fist.
‘I won’t ’ave it!’ shouted Mrs Carwardine. ‘I won’t be shamed! I’ll—’
‘What’s that!’
‘What?’
‘That there!’
‘Don’t touch it! It’s somethin’ to do with them ’orrible boys!’
A folded piece of paper had suddenly come under the front door. Immediately Mrs Carwardine rushed to the back of the hall and began thumping on the wall with her broomstick.
‘Pig! Villain!’ she shouted. ‘And on a Sunday, too!’
Back came the angry voice: ‘I’ll have the law on you! So help me, I will!’
Mr Seed picked up the paper. It was a letter, neatly sealed. He gave it to me. It was addressed to William Jones Esquire. A little frightened, I broke the seal and opened it. The writing was small and rather cramped.
‘Dear Mr Jones,’ it began.
It having come to the writer’s attention that you are now residing at a certain premises in Hanging Sword Alley, off Fleet Street, and are in good health, the writer firstly requires your absolute discretion in the matter of his identity, which must remain forever INCOGNITO.
Secondly, the writer wishes to inform you that a certain person, again INCOGNITO, does not wish to be associated, in word or deed with another person in that other person’s felonious intentions towards your goodself.
Thirdly, the writer wishes to make it plain that the above mentioned innocent party renounces here and now and entirely any connection with the other party of the said felonious intent. He, the innocent party, deeply regrets any inconvenience that might have been caused to your goodself and hopes that, if the matter should come to court, you will see your way clear to giving evidence on his behalf.
Fourthly, the writer wishes to inform you that inquiries have been made after your goodself in a certain place by a person from Hertford. As these Inquiries were made on Friday last, which was before the writer was aware of your present place of residence, he was unable to furnish a satisfactory answer to the person from Hertford and therefore had no choice, pending Corpus Delicti, but to presume the decease of your goodself.
Fifthly, the writer wishes to inform you that the above information was obtained from the aforesaid innocent party by means of threatening behaviour on the part of the person of felonious intent. In consequence of this, the felonious person has this day departed for Hertford.
I remain, dear sir, your well-wisher and friend, INCOGNITO.
I read it twice over and was beginning again, when Mr Seed took it out of my hand. He read it once, and scowled.
‘What does it mean?’ I asked. ‘Who is it from?’
‘I don’t think there’s much doubt,’ said he, ‘that it’s from our friend Mr Jenkins. And it means that he’s been smitten with conscience and cold feet. He’s frightened to death of what John Diamond was going to do, and he wants to be well out of the way. That’s what it means, Mr Jones. And I suppose we should honour him for having some spark of human feeling. That’s the fatty part of the letter. The meaty part is that John Diamond has taken himself off to Hertford.’
At once I felt the most enormous sense of relief! This was the best news ever. Knowing nothing of Club Cottage, he’d gone to Hertford in search of me. The nightmare of finding him waiting had been removed!
I thought no more about John Diamond, or what there might be in his dark and desperate mind. I thought only of Club Cottage and what I would find.
18
LIMEHOUSE HOLE LAY on a broad bend in the river, four miles down from Whitefriars Stairs. It lay past London Bridge, past the Tower, past Wapping and Execution Dock, and down among a welter of shipping and a winter of masts.
It was all narrow docks and little wooden bridges, and row upon row of neat young cottages that looked, somehow, as if they meant to grow up into better houses than the gaunt old tenements of the town.
I couldn’t see a Hole anywhere; but suddenly one seemed to open up inside me when Mr Seed gripped my arm and said:
‘Here it is, Mr Jones. This is the street.’
It stretched alongside a quiet dock in which a ship seemed to have fallen asleep on its side. It was a bright little street of no more than a dozen whitewashed houses; and they seemed to have fallen asleep in the afternoon sun.
I never saw such a peaceful, retired-looking street; I never saw a street less likely to be hiding ten thousand pounds. I’d expected something dark and secret; I’d expected to be uneasy and frightened; I think I’d expected ghosts.
I felt bitterly, miserably disappointed; and all the hopes I’d built up vanished down Jones’s Hole, which was a good deal deeper than any that might have been in Limehouse.
Club Cottage was the house on the corner. It had two bay windows and looked as if nothing was further from its mind than having been inside my father’s watch.
I think I might have gone away without doing anything, if Mr Seed hadn’t been so inquisitive himself and pushed me forward to knock on the door.
A woman in a cap and apron came to answer it.
‘Well?’ said she, looking at me and Mr Seed in some surprise. ‘What do you want?’
I tried to look past her, to see if there was money coming out of the walls; but everything looked so clean and neat that I doubted if the morning’s dust was still there, let alone a secret that was twenty years old.
‘I can’t stand here all day,’ she said. ‘What do you want?’
I don’t know why, but I found her question impossible to answer. I suppose I’d expected Club Cottage to know me; and not the other way round.
The woman kept staring at Mr Seed.
‘I’m a dwarf, ma’am!’ he snapped angrily. ‘This is all I’ve growed. Name of Seed. Fell on stony ground, you know. He’s a boy. End up taller than you, most likely. Name of Jones. Mr Seed and Mr Jones, ma’am.’
She grew red in the face and went away. We waited. I heard her say something about, ‘Dwarf an’ a boy, sir,’ and then a voice murmuring in reply. She came back.
‘The master says for you to come in.’
We were shown into the parlour. There were two elderly gentlemen sitting at a table in front of the fire. They were playing at cards.
To my amazement, one of them was Mr K’Nee! The other was white-haired and long-faced, as if he’d been losing. For a moment I thought he looked faintly familiar; but it was the familiarity of resemblance, not of memory. He reminded me of somebody, but I couldn’t think who. I thought he looked at me in the same way.
Mr K’Nee stood up. He seemed to be irritated by having been discovered at his Sunday afternoon game of cards with his friend. A great many thoughts flashed through my mind to the effect that Mr K’Nee had found the ten thousand pounds and was sitting on it; literally, I mean, that it was stuffed under the cushion of his chair.
‘What brings you to Li
mehouse, Mr Seed?’
Mr Seed was irritated, too. I felt that he was angry with me for having got him into the embarrassment of being confronted by his employer.
‘Go on, Mr Jones!’ he muttered. ‘Give him that paper out of the watch!’
I gave it to Mr K’Nee. He glanced at it and handed it to his friend. The other gentleman shrugged his shoulders and murmured something about ‘a voice from the grave.’
Mr K’Nee folded the paper carefully and gave it back to me.
‘I see the prodigal returned,’ he said, looking at me but still speaking to Mr Seed, as if the dwarf was my keeper and I’d just been brought up from the cells.
‘Half dead,’ said Mr Seed. ‘On Friday night. Half dead, sir.’
‘Which half? The top, I imagine.’
I don’t think he was referring to the bruise on my head, but to the fact that he thought I was a fool.
The white-haired gentleman consulted the cards he was holding. I don’t think they could have been good ones as he looked rather mournful.
‘And where did you go, David Jones’s son?’ asked Mr K’Nee, speaking to me for the first time. ‘Where have you been all these days?’
What an ugly old man he was! And what a clever one. Although, by rights, I was the one who ought to have been asking the questions, he had turned it round completely. I felt like a criminal.
‘I—I—’
‘Yes. We know that. You. You. Come along. Answer the question.’
The white-haired gentleman made an odd noise. It was a chuckle. I hated both of them. I thought they were a pair of old demons, enjoying the destruction of my hopes.
Then Mr Seed came to my rescue. I suppose he felt he had to justify himself as well as me. He was, I always noticed, a very proud little man and disliked being put on a level with a boy.
‘Mr Jones here,’ said Mr Seed, ‘was nearly murdered.’ And he went on to tell the story I’d told him. He told about the way I’d been tricked and hunted down and my hiding on the roof in Whitefriars. He told about Shot-in-the-Head and the deep hatred of John Diamond.
John Diamond (Vintage Childrens Classics) Page 12
