The Bravo of London

by Ernest Bramah

  ‘Well, you see, it’s like this,’ explained Mr Joolby. ‘The time’s come when we must have another place—it’s getting too risky for all of them to be in and out so often of my shop, to say nothings about coming direct here when at any time one might be followed. Then very soon there will be others—foreign gentlemen—that we may want to put up for a few nights at a time. Oh, I can tell you it won’t be altogether money wasted.’

  ‘No, I’m sure it won’t if you are doing it, Mr Joolby,’ agreed the lady. ‘Still, I don’t see—’

  ‘Well, as I’m telling you I’ve taken a private house in a different name—a furnished house right across the other side of London. It must be conducted quietly on highly respectable lines so that it would never occur to anyone outside that it wasn’t thoroughly dull and bourgeois. With the milkman and the baker calling every day that oughtn’t to be difficult. Nothing impresses the neighbourhood so favourably as two or three bottles of milk taken in regularly every morning and put out again at night. It must be that crooks aren’t supposed to drink it. And any account of yourself that you want to put about—we will make that up—you can safely pass on to the baker.’

  ‘Well?’ Mr Joolby seemed to think that everything necessary had been said, but Mrs Larch was still expectant.

  ‘Well; don’t you understand? You are to be as housekeeper, manage the place and arrange for whoever we send to stay there. All the bills will be paid—only don’t be extravagant of course. Deal at the multiple shops and there’s a nice street market—and you will have a pound a week for wages.’

  ‘H’m; it sounds promising,’ admitted Mrs Larch. The prospect of being able to cap it by giving notice when the insufferable landlord made his next caustic remark was not without an influence. Still, she had not quite completed the cautionary circle. ‘But is it part of the—the arrangement that you are going to take up your abode there, Mr Joolby?’

  ‘I?’ replied Joolby, with just the flicker of an instinctive glance in the ingenuous George’s direction. ‘What has that got to do with it? I live at my own place as usual, of course. I may have to come occasionally—’

  ‘Oh, all right. I only wanted to understand—and have it understood—from the start. Let me know when I’m to begin and I’ll take it on for you.’

  ‘Of course you will. It’s a holiday that you’re being paid for having, not a job. What do you say, eh, George?’

  ‘I say that if Cora wants to do it she will,’ contributed Mr Larch with tempered loyalty. ‘It’s her affair after all, Mr Joolby.’

  ‘Eh? Oh yes, of course; but that’s settled. Well, what about putting this paper out of the way now that Bronsky is satisfied; and you don’t leave any of the plates where they can be found at night I hope? We can’t be too careful.’

  ‘I’ll see to that you may be sure,’ undertook Larch and he proceeded to satisfy himself that no dangerous paper had been left about and then climbed up to his quarters. Meanwhile Cora lingered on in the cavernous gloom, waiting for Joolby to redeem his promise—a small detail that seemed to have escaped his memory.

  ‘What sort of a house is it that you’re taking, Mr Joolby?’ she said at last, finding the man’s eyes repeatedly upon her and speaking to break a silence that threatened to become awkward.

  ‘Oh, a very nice house in a first-class neighbourhood and quite the swell side of London. There’s a garden all round so we can’t be overlooked and a back way out into another street, which is always a convenience. It’s costing me a lot of money.’

  ‘Costing your Bolshie friends, I suppose you mean? What size is this house—it sounds rather a handful?’

  ‘Quite a good size. Ten or a dozen rooms, I daresay, and then there are cellars and attics besides. Oh, plenty of room for all that we require.’

  ‘Plenty of work for me more likely. I can’t do all that myself you know, Mr Joolby. I must have a maid of some sort if the place is to be kept at all decent.’

  ‘What? A servant to feed and pay wages into the bargain!’ cried Mr Joolby in dismay. ‘Well, well; you shall have one, Cora. I daresay we can find one of those devoted, hard-working little scrubs who are glad to come for nothing and live on the table leavings. And when there’s nothing else for her to do she can always put in some time working in the garden—I have to keep it in order.’

  ‘She shall, Mr Joolby; you can have my word on that. Now what about the rent for me to take back? You said you would, you know—’

  ‘So I did, my dear,’ amorously breathed Mr Joolby, coming nearer as he took out his wallet to comply and dropping his voice almost to a whisper, ‘and I’m not going back on it or anything else I promise you … You think me a bit—careful I dare say, now don’t you, Cora? But if only you’ll be sensible and meet me half way you’ll have no reason to complain that you’re short of money. There’s the two pounds, and I’ll make it five more—well, say three more for a start; that’s five altogether—if you’re reasonable—’ Amid all this tender eloquence, in which Mr Joolby’s never very dulcet voice assumed an oddly croaking tone as the combined outcome of the exigencies of caution and his own emotional strain, Mrs Larch realised that her hand was being held and increasingly caressed under the cloak of passing her the money.

  ‘Oh, you beastly old toad!’ she impulsively let out, and tore herself away from those fumbling paws, though, characteristically enough, her fingers tightened on the two notes that were already in her possession. ‘So it was that, after all!’

  Whatever had been Joolby’s delusion a moment before, that one word Cora had used brought him crashing back to earth as effectually as if it had been a bullet. For a short minute his contorted face and swelling form grew more repellent still, his hands beat the air for help, and swaying then, with his props laid by, it seemed as though he must have fallen. The effect was sufficiently alarming to blur Mrs Larch’s disgust, while fearful of lending any physical aid she began to babble, lamely enough, to turn the edge of her incautious outburst.

  ‘Oh, well; of course I didn’t mean anything personal, Mr Joolby. You quite understand that I hope, but you ought to be more careful—steadying yourself by clutching hold of one in this dark hole like that. I declare I thought it was a bogie. Now I’d better be getting on I think. You’ll let me know when I’m to start housekeeping, won’t you?’

  ‘Go; go; get out! Clear off, you harpy. Never show your ugly face again. I’ve done with you, do you hear?’ spat out the stricken creature, hurling the words like missiles. ‘Go before I have you thrown out—’ Gasping for breath he continued to gesticulate and threaten.

  Cora Larch was not particularly long-suffering herself; she had tendered her olive branch and if the beast took it like that he could bloody well go and—A little crude, perhaps, but twenty-five years of her sort of life are apt to take the bloom off even the most peach-like natures.

  ‘Oh, all right, all right,’ she threw back, almost as vigorously. ‘Keep your hair—well’—with a significant glance at his skull—‘keep your skin moist anyway. You know jolly well there’s no one else you can trust to put in that house and I’m quite willing to come still as a housekeeper, Mr Joolby. Send word by George when you’re cool. Ta-ta.’ And with an emphatic nod to give point to her self-possession Mrs Larch vanished.

  ‘Cow! Bitch! Camel!’ Mr Joolby continued to spit and swell while the distracted Ikey drew near and sheered off again, quaveringly helpless among such violent emotions. ‘George—Larch—come here at once—I’ll let you know—’

  Evidently George was to become the whipping-boy for his wife’s transgressions.

  Fortunately, perhaps, George was just then too remote to hear, but Mr Bronsky heard and it was that dignified gentleman who, emerging from the den and surveying his friend’s condition with grave disfavour, brought him at once to recognise the very unfraternal figure he was cutting.

  ‘What is this, Joolby?’ he demanded with authority, planting himself resolutely in front so as to pen his irresponsible associate between th
e mixed rags and the bottles. ‘Are you crazy? Have you become madman? How is this that has possess you? Do you not understand that the row you is kicking up may bring in police? Or have you taken leaves of your senses?’

  ‘You are right—I must have been off my head, but something happened very much to upset me,’ admitted Mr Joolby, realising at last how fatuously he must have been behaving. ‘No, nothing to do with our affairs, I assure you, Bronsky, but—well, it is of no matter. I must not talk of it—not think of such things—or it may bring on an attack of my old trouble. Now we will go back straight at once and I’ll take you in a bus. Or no, I think perhaps it had better even run to a taxi.’

  CHAPTER V

  THE MEETING AT ELEVEN

  WITH the distaste for being subject to promiscuous observation that ordered the routine of his movements, Mr Joolby stopped the taxi-cab before Padgett Street was reached and they arrived at the back yard after a complicated but relatively short process of burrowing. Won Chou was patiently on watch and discharged himself of a faithful account of all that had happened in the interval:

  ‘She-Larch come and do plenty talkee. Say he is? Say not is. Make go.’ The subject not calling for any particular elaboration Joolby merely nodded.

  He had recovered his equilibrium now and Cora’s ungrateful flout, and the jibe that had been its barb, were dismissed into the category of Chilly Fank’s reference once to an aquarium and a thousand kindred insults—contributory drops to an ocean of insensate hatred that took little account of individual scores in its unrelenting vendetta against the entire race that was human.

  ‘So far so well,’ remarked Mr Bronsky with some complacency when they were again seated in the dealer’s private den (though he may have had a still more private one somewhere into which nobody but himself ever penetrated) with cigars and coffee of a very especial flavour before them—waiting, as the comrade vaguely understood, for the arrival of some others. ‘The workmanship of itself,’ he continued, ‘leave no shadow of doubts that Larch will be able to satisfy us. Then Nickle—no, I cannot like that young man—is to say how the paper may be acquired. But the others of that you speak—where do they, as it goes, “come in”?’

  ‘Nickle will tell us all about the mill but after that we shall have to decide on the most suitable lines for getting to work there. There must be no hitch anywhere when once we make a move in that direction, Bronsky.’

  ‘I think so also,’ agreed his guest; ‘and that is why I ask it.’ Mr Bronsky thought intently for a moment, tapping his intellectual brow with a persuasive forefinger until he triumphantly got the happy instance that he was tracking: ‘Too many cooks upset an apple cart.’

  ‘Nickle will be able to tell us exactly what we need to know but it will take more than one to put the thing through when it comes to the real business,’ replied Joolby, reflecting that as the time had to be passed there was no point in becoming impatient. ‘No cause to get anxious on that score, let me tell you, my friend; to all except ourselves this is simply going to be an unusually big and well-arranged plant and their only idea will be to do their share to make it a success so that they can have their pickings. So. But once the paper and the plates are safe with us we can arrange matters according to our own programme.’

  ‘I feel sure you may be right,’ assented Bronsky, with his usual pliant acquiescence. ‘Now as regards these others who are to come in the swim; it is just as good that I should first be told about them in order to be in a position to judge their ability.’

  There were moments when Mr Bronsky’s consequential little airs of authority made Joolby realise what a satisfaction it would be to pick up the nearest heavy object and bring it wholeheartedly down on this shallow-witted comrade’s lamentable cranium. It was never more than a passing fancy, for he had long since realised that with the barest modicum of tact the formidable deputy was as plastic as a stick of putty, and with such contemptuous success had he kept this end in view that Bronsky firmly believed in Joolby’s high regard and dependence on his judgment.

  ‘That’s chiefly why they’re coming; I want you to meet them here and then tell me frankly what you think of their fitness for whatever we decide on doing. Dodger and Klantz you’ve seen, but another—Vallett—I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of. Then of course there will be Nickle himself and George was to be here in case anything comes up that touches what he is doing.’

  ‘Dodger who was call—?’ Bronsky’s snapping fingers failed to induce the expression. ‘It was a word for skoliskiey.’

  ‘“Slippery”?—no, “Soapy Solomon”, you mean—yes, that is the chap, and Klantz was the man we pulled out of Hamburg when he got into trouble over the Vulkan Works shindy.’

  ‘They should be good men—I would approve them both. But who is this Vallett of what you speak. Is he trustworthy comrade?’

  ‘George Larch picked up with him when he was doing his last stretch, and when Vallett was on his beam ends George sent him round here on the chance that I might find something for him. The fact is, Vallett slipped out of Dartmoor before his time was up and consequently he can’t go about much in the day looking for suitable employment.’

  ‘I do not like that very well,’ objected Bronsky, feeling that perhaps he had been compliant long enough; ‘there is too much of the “Known by the Police” about so many of your people. If there is a description of this fellow put about and he is recognise, they follow him to here and then where is we, to say nothings of our project?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so, Bronsky,’ said Joolby in his most amiable mood; ‘I see your point and I’m all for being careful but even if they did nab Vallett here, what about it? I’d be much obliged to the police for opening my eyes about the chap and there would be absolutely nothing to connect him up with us or what we’re doing.’

  ‘So far, perhaps—’

  ‘And that’s all that concerns us yet—afterwards we may or may not use him. Besides they won’t; Vallett can make up very well indeed—before he got tired of work he was on the stage and if he goes about by day his own mother wouldn’t know him.’

  ‘That puts a different complexion on him, I admit’—unfortunately Mr Bronsky did not recognise his own witticism. ‘Yes, I begin to think Vallett is all right. What is it that we want him for—what is his way of business?’

  ‘Well, he’s tried his hand at several things—from calling to test the gas-meter to posing as a co-respondent. Anything lightly adventurous would suit his book and he has a very gentlemanly manner. That’s what I had in mind—we have plenty of heavyweights but we may need to put someone there who can walk plausibly up to the front door. As to his being on the “wanted” list—well, after all, you can’t run a knocking-shop with a bevy of virgins.’

  This refined adage was entirely to Bronsky’s taste and put him in a better humour. ‘Good, good!’ he exclaimed, showing his splendid teeth; ‘I must remember that one. Is it English saying?’

  Before Mr Joolby could explain that it was more probably early Egyptian a little bell conveyed its message, and waving aside such trivialities he briefly informed his guest that this indicated the arrival of one of the expected callers.

  ‘I told the boy to send any of them straight through,’ he added, ‘so he needn’t come off the door. Ah—our resourceful friend Nickle! Now this is luck. You are a bit early, Nick, and we can find out where we are before the others cut in.’

  It was Nickle safely back indeed, looking extremely brown and fit, but in contrast to the pair who were all interest and affable expectation his manner was decidedly offhand and his expression—possibly a defensive pose—one of seasoned boredom. He greeted Joolby with a careless nod and held up—not out—an admonitory hand as Bronsky rose, whatever may have been the comrade’s intention.

  ‘I give you fair warning, Bronsky,’ he remarked, ‘that if you try any of your filthy brotherly love on me I shall stab you. It’s much too hot to be embraced. I wonder you haven’t gone back to hell, Joolby; you’d fi
nd it a damn sight cooler there than it seems to be in Stepney.’

  ‘Kindly put off trying to be funny, Nickle,’ said Joolby, beginning to glower. ‘Coffee?’ Already he guessed that the awaited report was not going to be any too encouraging, while this, if it came to the pinch, was certainly not the way to smooth down the already prejudiced Bronsky. Nickle’s failing.

  ‘I prefer any other form of poison, since you are so kind,’ was the reply. ‘Truth to tell, I’m rather sate of coffee and finger sponge biscuits.’

  Not troubling to speak, but with a very ill grace at this further lapse, Joolby produced his bottles. Meanwhile, having sat down again, Mr Bronsky confided a succession of ‘psss’s’ and ‘tsss’s’ into his beard and blew out his cheeks between them.

  ‘Now let’s get on to things,’ said their host, when amid this rather strained atmosphere Nickle had indicated and received his mixture. ‘Our comrade is here specially to hear your report and, since it lies chiefly with us three, there is no particular object at this stage in waiting for the others. You’ve had all the time you’ve asked for, Nickle, and with the information you must have got no doubt you’ve worked out the scheme. Never mind the considerations now—just the bare facts. In a word, how is it to be done?’

  ‘I can tell you that very simply,’ replied Nickle, shifting his glass about with trivial deliberation. ‘Not in a word perhaps but certainly in five at the outside. It isn’t to be done.’

  This was worse than Joolby’s worst. At the most he had expected a formidable list of the difficulties to be met but he had never doubted that Nickle—of whose nerve and finesse he had proof—would at least have a feasible plan that would be capable of adaption. At this set-back all the familiar symptoms of anger and resentment began to possess the being, but his first words were moderately composed—merely because he refused as yet to credit Nickle’s conclusions.

  ‘What do you mean—“It isn’t to be done”?’ he snarled. ‘It must be done. We’ve got to have that paper.’