“I want to find Pondel, because he’s got some fellows working on my clothes, and I don’t propose to have anybody working for me on Sunday. Understand? It’s Sunday. I don’t intend to have folks working on my clothes when they ought to be in bed.”
He spoke brokenly, defiantly, catching his breath between words, almost ready to cry; then waited for his auditors to fall upon each other’s necks in derisive mirth. He forgot, however, that he was in London. The situation was one apposite to American humor, but evoked no sense of amusement in the policeman. He treated McAllister’s explanation with vast respect. Our hero gained confidence. The bobby regretted that the place seemed closed; ventured to express his approval of the clubman’s altruistic effort; dilated upon it to the cabby, who was correspondingly impressed. McAllister, immensely cheered, held forth on the wrongs of labor at some length, and, finding a sympathetic audience, produced cigars. The three proved, as it were, a little group of humanitarians united in a common purpose. Then, suddenly, inconsequently, inexcusably, a man coughed. The sound was muffled, but unmistakable. It came from a point directly beneath their feet. The bobby rapped sharply on the pavement several times.
“Hi there, you!” he called. “Hi there, you in Pondel’s. Come an’ open hup!”
They could hear a dull murmur of conversation, the cough was repeated, a bench dragged across a floor, some fastening was slowly loosed, and a yellow gleam of light shot up through the shadow as a scuttle opened in the sidewalk. A lean, scrawny figure thrust itself upward, sleepily rubbing its eyes, collarless, its shirt open at the breast, its hair tousled, coughing. McAllister, now confident that he had the support of his companions, addressed the ghost, in whom he recognized Pedler, the journeyman from behind the curtains. The clubman’s face, however, was concealed in shadow from the other.
“You’re working for Pondel, aren’t you?”
The ghost coughed again, and shivered, although the air was warm.
“Yes,” it answered huskily.
“Are you working on some clothes for a gentleman who’s sailing on Monday?”
“Yes,” it repeated.
“Then don’t, any more,” chirped McAllister encouragingly. “Those clothes are for me, and I don’t want you to work any longer. You ought to be in bed.”
“Wotcher givin’ us?” grumbled Pedler. “G’wan! Leave us alone!” He started to descend. But the bobby stepped forward.
“Look ’ere,” he said roughly. “Don’t you understand? It’s just as the gentleman s’ys. You don’t ’ave to work any more tonight. You can go ’ome.”
“I s’y, wotcher givin’ us?” repeated the other. “I cawn’t go ’ome. Mr. Pondel’s horders is to st’y ’ere until the clothes is finished. M’ybe it’s as you s’y, but I cawn’t go ’ome.”
At this juncture a child began to cry drowsily below, and a woman’s voice could be heard striving to comfort it.
“You don’t mean you’ve got a baby down there!” exclaimed McAllister.
“Only little Annie,” replied Pedler. “An’ the old woman.”
“Anyone else?”
“Aggam.”
“Let’s go down,” suggested the bobby. “I can make ’em understand.” The ghost descended, dazed, and McAllister, the bobby, and last of all, the cabman, followed down a creaking ladder into a sort of vault under the cellar. A small oil wick gave out a feeble fluctuating light. On one side, cross-legged, sat a shrivelled-up, little old man, his brown beard streaked with gray, stitching. He did not look up, but only worked the faster. A thin woman crouched on a broken chair, holding a little girl in her lap.
“There, there, Annie, don’t cry. The bobby’s not arter you. It’s all right, darlin’!”
Strewn about the cement floor lay the bolts of Lancaster which McAllister had selected, together with patterns, scissors, and unfinished garments.
“Excuse the child, sir,” apologized the woman. “She’s just a bit sleepy.”
“Well,” said McAllister, his indignation rising at the scene, and shame burning in his cheeks, “go right home. I won’t have you working on these clothes any more.” How he wished Pondel was there to get a piece of his mind!
Jim looked wearily at Aggam.
“Wot d’ye s’y, Aggam?”
The other kept on stitching.
“I gets my horders from Pondel,” he replied, shortly, “an’ I don’t tyke no horders from no one helse!”
“But look here,” cried McAllister, “the clothes are mine, ain’t they? Pondel hasn’t anything to do with it! And I tell you to go home.”
“Yes,” grunted Aggam. “An’ then you loses your job, does yer? I don’t want no toff mixin’ into my affairs. I minds my business, they can mind theirs!”
“I s’y, that’s no w’y to speak to the gentleman!” exclaimed the bobby in disgust. “’E’s only tryin’ to do yer a fyvor! ’Aven’t yer got no manners?”
“I minds my business, let ’im mind ’is’n!” repeated Aggam stolidly.
“Well, I must s’y,” ejaculated the cabby, “they’re a bloomin’ grateful lot!”
The tall man seemed to resent this last from one of his own station.
“I appreciates wot the gent wants,” he said weakly, “but it’s just like Aggam s’ys. Wot can we do? The gent cawn’t tell us to go ’ome!”
The child began to cry again. McAllister was exasperated almost to the point of profanity.
“Don’t you want to go home?” he exclaimed.
The woman laughed a hollow, mirthless laugh.
“Annie an’ me ’ave st’y’d ’ere all the evenin’ just to be with Jim. ’E’s awful sick. An’ ’e’ll ’ave to st’y ’ere all d’y to-morrer. Do we want to go ’ome!”
Her husband dashed his shirt-sleeve across his eyes.
“Don’t Nell,” he muttered. “I ain’t sick. I can work. You go ’ome with the kid.”
McAllister thrust a handful of bank-notes toward her.
“Where does old Pondel live?” he inquired of the bobby.
“Out in Kew somewheres,” replied the officer.
The woman was staring blankly at the money. Suddenly she dropped the little girl and began to sob. Jim broke into a fit of harsh coughing. The cabman climbed up the ladder. The temperature of the vault seemed insufferable to McAllister.
“I suppose you’ll go home if Pondel says so?” he suggested.
“Just watch us!” growled Aggam.
“Take that child home, anyhow, and put it to bed,” ordered the clubman. “I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
As he climbed up through the scuttle into the sweet, soft moonlight, and started to enter the hansom, the bobby held out his hand.
“Excuse me, sir. I ’ope you’ll pardon the liberty, but, would you mind, I’ve got a brother in America—Smith’s the naime—’e lives in a plaice called Manitoba. Do you ’appen to know ’im?”
“I’m sorry,” replied our friend, grasping the other’s hand. “I never ran across him.”
“Where to now?” asked the cabby.
“To Kew,” replied McAllister.
They swung out of the square, leaving the bobby standing in the shadow of Pondel’s.
“I’ll look out for ’em while you’re gone,” called the latter encouragingly.
They crossed Bond Street, followed Grosvenor Street into Park Lane, and plunging round Hyde Park corner, past the statue to England’s greatest soldier, they entered Kingsbridge. McAllister, all awake from his recent experience, saw things that he had never observed before—bedraggled flower-girls in gaudy hats, with heart-rending faces; drunken laborers staggering along upon the arms of sad-featured women; young girls, slender, painted, strolling with an affectation of light-heartedness along the glittering sidewalks. On they jogged, past narrow streets where, amid the flare of torches, the entire population of t
he neighborhood swarmed, bargained, swore, and quarrelled; where little children rolled under the costers’ carts, fighting for scraps and decaying vegetables; and where their passage was obstructed by the throngs of miserable humanity for whom this was their only park, their only club. It being Saturday night, the butchers were selling off their remnants of meat, and their shrill cries could be heard for blocks. Several times the horse shied to avoid trampling upon some old hag who, clutching her wretched purchase to her breast, hurried homeward before a drunken lout should snatch it from her. McAllister had never imagined the like. It was with a sigh of relief that they left the Hammersmith Road behind and at last reached the residential districts. In about an hour they found themselves in Kew. A cool breeze from the country fanned his cheek. On either hand trim little villas, with smooth lawns, lined the road, and the moonlit air was fragrant with the smell of damp grass, violets, and heliotrope. Here and there could be heard the tinkle of a cottage piano, and the laughter of belated merry-makers on the verandas.
They located Mr. Pondel’s villa without difficulty. Standing back some thirty yards from the street, its well-kept garden full of flowering shrubs and carefully tended beds of geraniums, it was a residence typical of the London suburb, with fretwork along the piazza roof, a stone dog guarding each side of the steps, and salmon-pink curtains at the parlor windows. The door stood open, a Japanese lamp burned in the hallway, and the murmur of voices floated out from the door leading into the parlor. McAllister once again felt the overwhelming absurdity of his position. Over his shoulder, as he stood by the hyacinths at the door, floated the same big moon in the same soft heaven. Damp and fragrant, the wind blew in from the lawn and swayed the portières in the narrow hall, behind which, doubtless, sat the lordly Pondel, friend of noblemen, adviser of royalty, entrenched in his castle, a unit in an impregnable system. The whinny of the cab-horse beyond the hedge recalled to McAllister the necessity for action. He realized that he was losing moral ground every instant.
The bell jangled harshly somewhere in the back of the house. A man’s voice—Pondel’s—muttered indistinctly; there was a feminine whisper in response; someone placed a glass on a table and pushed back a chair. A clock in the neighborhood struck two, and Pondel emerged through the portières—Pondel in a wadded claret-colored dressing-gown embroidered with birds of Paradise, in carpet slippers, with a meerschaum pipe, watery eyes, and slightly disarranged hair. It was rather dim in the hallway, and he did not recognize his visitor.
“What is it? What do you want?” The inquiry was abrupt and a little thick.
“Good evening, Mr. Pondel,” stammered McAllister. “I hope you’ll excuse me for disturbing you at this hour. It’s about the clothes.”
“W’o is it?” Pondel peered into his guest’s flushed face. “W’y Mr. McAllister, what are you doin’ way out ’ere? Excuse my appearance—a little pardonable neglishay of a Saturday evenin’. Come right in, won’t you? Great honor, I’m sure. Though, if you’ll believe it, I once ’ad the honor of a call from his Grace the Duke of Bashton right in this very ’all. Excuse me w’ile I announce your presence to Mrs. Pondel.”
McAllister said something about having to go at once, but Pondel shuffled through the curtains, almost immediately sweeping them back with a lordly gesture of welcome.
“This way, Mr. McAllister.” Our miserable friend entered the parlor. “Elizabeth, hallow me to present Mr. McAllister—one of my oldest customers.”
Elizabeth—a fat vision of fifty-five, with peroxide hair, and a soft pink of unchanging hue mantling her elsewhere mottled cheeks—arose graciously from the table where she and her husband had been playing double-dummy bridge, and courtesied.
“Chawmed, I’m sure. What a beautiful evenin’! Won’t you si’ down?” murmured the enchantress.
McAllister took a chair, and Pondel pressed whiskey and water upon him. Oh, Mr. McAllister, needn’t be afraid of it; it was the real old thing; Lord Langollen had sent him a dozen. Lizzie would take a nip with ’em—eh, Lizzie? A gen’elman didn’t take that long trip every evenin’, and a little refreshment would not only do him good, but, as the Yankees said, would show there was no ’ard feelin’, eh? He must really take just a drop. Say when!
Lizzie poured out a glass for the much-embarrassed guest. She was in a flowered kimona, even more “neglishay” than her husband, but the bower in which the goddess reclined was a perfect pearl of the decorator’s art. Cupids, also “neglishay,” toyed with one another around a cluster of electric burners in the ceiling, gay streamers of painted blossoms dangling from their hands and floating down the walls. Gilt chairs, a white and gilt sofa, and a brown etching in a Florentine frame on each wall, were the most conspicuous articles of furniture. At the windows the brilliant salmon-pink curtains bellied softly in the breeze that stole into the chamber and diluted the gentle odor of Parma violets which exuded from the dame in the kimona. To Pondel, McAllister’s presence was an evidence of his power; and his pride, tickled mightily, put him in an exquisite good humor. Certainly the occasion required from him, the host, a proper felicitation.
“’Ere’s to our better acquaintance,” said the tailor, raising his glass sententiously. “Lizzie, drink to Mr. McAllister!”
The three drank solemnly. Then the voluble tailor addressed himself to the task of entertaining his distinguished guest. McAllister could catch at no opening to explain his visit. Pondel chatted gayly of Paris, the Continent, and familiarly of the races and the beau monde. Apparently he knew (by their first names) half the nobility of England, and he endeavored to place his customer equally at his ease with them. He ventured that he knew how most young Americans spent their time in London and Paris; dropped with a wink, that in spite of his present uxoriousness he had been a bit of a dog himself, and ended by suggesting another toast to “A short life and a merry one.” The lady of the kimona, grammatically not so strong as her husband, contented herself with expansive smiles and frequent recurrence to the tumbler.
“I must explain my visit,” finally broke in McAllister. “It’s about the clothes.”
Pondel smiled condescendingly.
“My dear Mr. McAllister, you don’t need to worry in the slightest. They’ll be done promptly tomorrow evenin’, take my word for it.”
McAllister flushed. How in Heaven’s name could he ever make the tailor understand?
“I’ve decided I don’t want ’em!” he stammered.
Pondel’s glass went to the table with a bang, and he gazed blankly at his customer. The clubman, not realizing the implication, did not proceed.
“That’s all right,” finally responded Pondel a trifle coldly. “There’s no hurry about settlement. You can take a year, if necessary.”
Mrs. Pondel slipped unobtrusively out of the room, leaving a trail of perfume behind her.
“Oh!” exclaimed our friend, catching his breath: “It isn’t that. But you see I can’t have those men working over night and tomorrow on my account. It’s—it’s against my principles.”
Pondel brightened. A load had been taken from his heart. So long as McAllister’s bank account was good, any idiosyncrasy the American might exhibit did not matter. He had always regarded McAllister, however, as a man of the world, and had esteemed him accordingly. He perceived that he had been mistaken. His customer was merely a religious crank. He had had experience with them before.
“Pooh! That’s all right,” said he resuming his former cordiality. “Why, they like to earn the extra money. They’re all devoted to my interests, you know.”
“Well, I don’t want them to work any longer on my clothes,” repeated McAllister helplessly.
“I understand,” replied Mr. Pondel, rather loftily. “I’m afraid, however, it’s too late to stop them now. The cloth ’as been cut, and they would not stop contrary to my direction.”
“That’s the point,” returned McAllister, “I want you to change you
r orders.”
“But, my dear sir,” expostulated the tailor, “you can’t expect me to go to London this time of night! Besides, they’re nearly done by this time. It’s impossible!”
“I’ll manage that,” exclaimed McAllister. “I’ve been down to the shop already, and they’re waiting for me now to come back with your permission to go home; they wouldn’t go without it.”
“Dear, dear!” replied the tailor, changing his tactics. “How much interest you have taken in their welfare! How kind and thoughtful of you! No, they’re faithful men; they wouldn’t think of disobeying orders. But what a shame I didn’t know of it before! Why, they might ’ave been at ’ome and in their beds. However, I sha’n’t forget ’em at the end of the month. Mr. McAllister, I respect you. I have never known of a more unselfish act. Permit me to say it, sir, you are a Christian—a true Christian. I wish there were more like you, sir!”
McAllister arose to his feet. His one thought now was to escape as quickly as possible. The sight of Pondel’s smiling countenance filled him with unutterable disgust. Suppose the fellows at the club could see him sitting in this pursy tailor’s parlor, with his scented wife, and gilded chairs—
The tailor, however, was anxious to restore the cordiality of their relations, and slopped over in his eagerness to show how kind he was to his men, and how considerate of their well-being. He took McAllister’s arm familiarly as he showed him to the door.
“Yes,” he added confidentially, “this is a very good locality. Only the best people live in this neighborhood. Rather a neat little property.” He proffered McAllister a cigar. The clubman wanted to kick him for a miserable, dirty cad.
“Right back!” he said to the cabby, hardly replying to the tailor’s good-night.
London was asleep. Even the streets through which he had driven to Kew were hushed in preparation for the sodden Sunday to come. The moon had lowered over the housetops, and St. Timothy’s was in the shadow as once again he drew up in front of Pondel’s.
The Victorian Villains Megapack Page 51
