King Dido

by Alexander Baron

  Weldon said, “A.C. Hayward. He scored three thousand, five hundred and thirteen runs in a season. Oh-six that was.”

  “I should have thought W.G. would have beaten that,” Merry said. “In ninety-five he knocked up a thousand in a month.”

  Weldon said, “Hayward holds the record.” A constable brought an enormous teapot of brown enamel. The two detectives pushed their mugs across the table for yet another fill of tea. Weldon sighed. “It’s all waiting, this game.”

  Merry felt no suspense, only the complacent calm of a man who plays the winning cards out as planned. He had been Albert’s source of information about the Dutchman. He was not concerned about the Dutchman’s smuggling. It was none of his business; and, since the Dutchman appeared to enjoy immunity, he must be paying a decent cut to someone in the Force.

  The house was already watched when Harry reconnoitred it. A discreet watch had been kept on Harry and his companions ever since and there were two men on duty tonight watching the house from a building opposite. The telephone bell rang. One of the two detectives on watch reported that Jem and Harry had gone into the house. Merry said, “Right!”

  He made a hand sign and Weldon led four uniformed men out. There was an old four-wheeler waiting outside. It would make less noise on arrival than a motor-taxi and would cover the short distance to their destination in a few minutes.

  Left alone with the desk sergeant, Merry said, “You know what to do, John.” The desk sergeant indicated his pocket-watch which was propped against a matchbox in front of him. He said, “On the dot.”

  “And then forget it. If the people in the house report it, we don’t know anything.”

  “You’re a dark one, Bill,” the desk sergeant said. “I never know what you’re up to.”

  Merry said, “What you don’t know won’t hurt you.” He went out. The desk sergeant heard the cab drive away. He waited until the hands on the watch reached a certain position. He picked up the telephone and asked for a number. It occurred to him that the night operator would be able to say who made the call. But then, Bill Merry would see that no-one enquired. Bill was a dark one. The bell began to ring at the other end. When it had rung twelve times the desk sergeant hung up. That was what Bill had said. Even if anyone answered before he hung up, he was to cut off in silence. A long-sighted patiently waiting cunning man was Bill. The desk sergeant was shrewd enough to make his own surmises. Evidently Bill did not want a quiet, neat arrest. He wanted to stir things up before he got there.

  This was exactly what Inspector Merry wanted. What followed was what he had planned. He meant to put Harry and his companions away for a very long time and the offence would be aggravated if to the charge of robbery could be added that of violence.

  It turned out better than he had hoped; for when the Dutchman’s brother-in-law was at last awakened by the jangling of the telephone bell and slipped out of bed, the first thing that he did after telling his mumbling wife to go back to sleep, was to don a dressing-gown, take a revolver from the bedside cabinet and put it in his pocket.

  His name was Moss de Groot and he belonged to a race-gang in Whitechapel. His brother-in-law had chosen a fitting custodian; Moss had no idea who might be telephoning at this hour but he would take no chances in the night. He was a predator more alert and dangerous than any of the Jaggs Place mob who, in fact, would never have attempted the job if they had known he was here; for in the hierarchy of slum crime the race-gangs were “flash”, aristocrats not to be angered by lesser beings. Inspector Merry had known of his presence in the house; but he had not told Albert.

  In the parlour a sack full of silverware lay by the door. Jem and Young Fred were holding a second sack open and Harry was quietly filling it when a telephone bell began to jangle somewhere at the back of the house. They all stood still and listened. Harry muttered, “It’s in the back ’all. Young Fred, go an’ stop it, quick.”

  Young Fred picked up the lantern, hurried to the door and went out into the hall.

  Moss de Groot was half-way down the stairs when he saw the bob of a lantern come into the hall and the indistinct slim shape of a man holding it. He stopped. The man with the lamp stopped and stared back at him then flitted back into the parlour.

  Moss was a man who had fought hand-to-hand with razors. He could hear muttering and hurried scuffling movements in the parlour. He uttered a buffalo grunt, went down the last few stairs and charged into the room. The three men with the blackness of the shutters behind them saw him come in from the paler gloom of the hall. He had a revolver in his hand.

  A shot deafened Harry. His head rang not only with the noise but with astonishment and rage because the shot had come from next to him. In the moment that furious understanding came to him the room was filled with the din of a fusillade, a war of red stabbing flashes and the bitter firework tang of powder.

  The dark broad bulk of their adversary filled the doorway and the gun in his hand stabbed fire but Harry seized a silver coffee-pot, charged with no other weapon, smashed it down on the man’s head and thrust past as the man fell. He heard Jem and Young Fred behind him. But as he pulled at the bolts of the front door his heart sank for through the small leaded panes of stained glass he saw dark figures waiting and he could hear footsteps behind him coming through from the kitchen entrance.

  Resigned, he opened the door. Mr Merry stood in the porch. Mr Merry said, “You’ve dropped a bollock this time, Harry.”

  He came in followed by two uniformed constables. From the rear of the passage Weldon advanced with two more men. Mr Merry lit the gas light in the hall. The man on the floor was gathering himself up. Moss de Groot lurched to his feet. There was a patch of bloody matted hair on his head and a thread of blood crawled down his face. He pointed to Harry. “Hit me. That one. Spoiled a nice coffee-pot.”

  Mr Merry picked up a Webley revolver. “This yours?”

  “No.” De Groot glanced round and pointed to the floor. “There’s mine.”

  “Well,” Mr Merry said. “It’s lucky you’re all rotten shots Five rounds fired out of this one. Ah!”

  The two detectives who had been on watch came in with Fred Gates between them. Mr Merry said, “Our amateur cabbie. Who fired the gun?”

  De Groot pointed at Jem. “Him.”

  Harry was glaring hatred at Jem. He muttered, “You fool!”

  Young Fred burst out, “We never knew ’e ’ad a barker, Mr Merry. Thinks ’e’s Peter the Painter, ’e does!”

  Harry spoke again to Jem, his voice low and intense. “I could fuckin’ kill you for this.”

  Mr Merry said mildly, “I don’t blame you, Harry. Carrying a gun! Dear, dear, I don’t know what the Judge’ll say.”

  Chapter Twelve

  At midday on Saturday Dido came into the kitchen. He hesitated, then spoke roughly. “Mother — I’m bringin’ a young lady home tomorrow. For tea.”

  Staring at him, his mother knew what an effort the words had cost him. She had to swallow spittle to speak. “Oh— Oh, that’s very nice. That’s very nice, Dido.”

  She busied herself putting his dinner out. He sat down. From now on he looked only at his plate. “Want everything look nice.”

  Her chest felt as if the breath in it had become a block of ice. “Well, of course.”

  “Extra nice.” She saw his face clenching with another effort. “She’s a good class young lady.”

  “No more than I would expect. I am pleased, dear.”

  “Put on a bit of a show.” He was chewing food already. “No harm in that. Buy a few things.” He fished a sovereign from his pocket and put it on the table. “This do? More if you want.”

  “It’s too much —”

  “Spend it.”

  “You won’t be ashamed, dear. I promise. Oh — My best cloth. The lady of the house gave it to me when I wed your father. I’ve never had it out since. Oh dear —”

  He ate as if he could no longer hear her. She said, “How did you meet your — your young lady?” />
  He ignored her. The sight of him sitting there looking grimly at his plate unnerved her. “I must look for it — it’s upstairs —”

  She was at the door to the passage when he said, “Get everything scrubbed. Not you. Get the boys. Tell ’em I said.”

  She fled.

  Emma Peach had dreamed for years of this moment. Now she was stunned. She waited upstairs until she heard Dido go out. Then, to smother the whirl of confusion in her head she set to work like a madwoman. She raked out the fire, black-leaded the range and left it unlit until tomorrow, although the day was cold. She polished the brass fender and changed the back curtains.

  Shonny came in at twelve o’clock. Mrs Peach had been to the chapel and the minister had promised that he would let her know when he heard of a suitable opening, but Shonny was still pushing the family barrow. His mother gave him his dinner, then set him to clearing up the yard and sprinkling the mounds of rags in the shop with carbolic. Chas would hang new curtains at the back for her when he came in. In the meantime she laid fresh coloured paper with scalloped edges on the shelves and set out her best crockery.

  The afternoon passed and Chas did not come in. She hung the curtains with Shonny’s help, covered the windows of the shop door with a bright flowered curtain so that a visitor could not see into the shop, moved the furniture back and — she must work, she was unable to think — began scrubbing the floor.

  Chas had a secret hoard. He kept it in a knotted handkerchief in the bottom drawer, which was his, of the bedrooom chest-of-drawers. He had taken it out and gloated over it dozens of times when he was alone in the room. He had watched the little pile of gold coins grow steadily higher. Today he could no longer contain himself.

  He was walking in the Mile End Road, which is in layout the grandest thoroughfare in London. It is treelined and as wide as any Paris boulevard. Each pavement alone is as wide as a fair-sized street. On Saturday afternoons it became the great promenade and fair of the East End of London.

  Chas had set out meaning to do no more than carry the money in his pocket. All he wanted to do was to chink the coins in his trouser pocket, to permit himself to enjoy the weight of his wealth, perhaps to spend just a little of it.

  But somehow the joy, the madness had taken entire possession of him and he had found himself as in a dream inside a gent’s outfitters’ shop. Sleek and swarthy young men had taken hold of him and advised him volubly, and there had been no escape. But in the warm smell of cloth his intoxication had grown and there had been no wish to escape. When he came out he had left his old clothes inside and he was wearing a chocolate-brown suit with a white pin-stripe. The waisted jacket came almost down to his knees, fastened high with four buttons and piped all round with brown braid. With a braided lapelled waistcoat, drainpipe trousers, yellow pin-stripe shirt, large red and white polka-dot tie, new check cloth cap and black boots with elastic sides, he felt splendid and defiant; splendid because he at last wore the uniform of a man; defiant of Dido.

  Like Shonny he revered Dido but chafed at Dido’s iron rule. He, too, wanted to be himself. His ideals were not those of his elder brother but of an East End boy of eighteen. He saw himself in the shop windows, and felt the extreme of bliss. He was at last his own ideal realised, a proper knut.

  He had money in his pocket and this marvellous day would not end for an infinity of hours. At last he had broken free and become a man. Playing the part, man of the world, he passed an hour knocking the balls about in a billiard saloon. He strolled along the boulevard within a dense human tide, amid the warring music of steam organs. There was a street fair on the broad pavement at Mile End Waste. A travelling roundabout whirled its cargo of screaming children. Swing boats soared and fell. Boys bought penny ticklers from hawkers and darted among the crowd puffing the rolled tubes which they shot out to strike happy shrieks from the faces of girls. A strong man performed amid a ring of onlookers. Within another circle girls skipped with hired ropes while the proprietor shouted, “Skip as long as yer like for a penny.”

  Chas had a go at the shooting-booth and tried his strength with a mighty hammer. He bought hot sarsaparilla, jellied eels, a dish of pigs’ trotters, and plates of vinegary whelks. Outside a public house in a side street a row of shawled women and men in caps and chokers leaned against the wall drinking pints while a barrel-organ jangled. Onlookers blocked the road, and in the space around the barrel-organ a dozen girls danced like furies, whooping to and from each other with skirts uplifted, whirling each other tight-clasped, joining and breaking to prance in lines and rings.

  Dusk closed in. Lights pricked the deepening gloom. A whole population poured from thousands of narrow streets to drown their troubles and forget the cold everlasting fear of destitution. They bought joy by the pennyworth — drink, a sideshow, a song, a dance, a plate of winkles; and it cost nothing to walk in the noise and the pageant of stalls whose naphtha flares hung in milelong carnival festoons in the dusk.

  It grew colder. Snowflakes began to whirl. The sting of the cold on his face and the friendly heat and jostle of the crowd added to Chas’s exultation.

  There was a good bill at the Paragon Music Hall and he went in. He treated himself to a couple of whiskies — blow Dido! — and he left after an hour. He could have stayed all the evening, but a man of the world just popped in and out of the halls. The odd bob meant nothing to him. In the same dandiacal spirit he dropped in at the Wonderland where there was boxing on Saturday night. Inside the great hall he was jammed in a dense mob of men, most of them in their working-clothes. Lifting on his toes he could just see, beyond a sea of heads, the fighters prowling and darting to and fro like white mannikins beneath the lights, and hear the thud of punches.

  He looked around him. All the faces were lifted, were staring in one direction; all grim, ruthless, hypnotised. Every hard case in the East End seemed to be here. They were men who fought to survive. This was their cathedral.

  His glance, taking in the faces, passed a face and came suddenly back to it. Fear shrivelled his stomach. It was Keogh.

  A few days ago the news had gone round that Harry Murchison and three of his lot were in chokey. They had been committed for trial at the Old Bailey but everyone was already sure that on a charge of armed robbery they would all go down for a good few years. That left Keogh the guvnor in Jaggs Place. He was the nearest relation left apart from youngsters. He was a bad one. Chas might swagger and boast that Dido was cock of the walk. He might brag truly that he was afraid of no-one his own size. But he had always been secretly frightened — ever since that night when Dido smashed old Ginger Murchison — that one day on his own he might come face to face with one of the grown ones, the bad ones. And Keogh was a bad one, pure trampling bully.

  Keogh’s eyes were fixed on the ring. He watched the boxers as if only they existed; as if he were a beast of prey waiting in the dark outside the clearing to pounce when one of them had fallen. Chas told himself that he was safe. He forced himself to look at the ring again. His heart went on beating hard. He could not keep his eyes on the ring. The thud of gloves made twinges of sickness inside him. He glanced to his right again. Keogh was pushing towards him. For a moment he could not believe that he had really been detected; until his eyes met Keogh’s; flaming yellow at him like a tiger’s.

  He thrust towards the exit. He was in an anguish of terror. Men resisted him and shouted at him. He risked glances back and each time it seemed that Keogh was gaining.

  He was at a door and out into the street. Blue night had descended, filled with a whirl of snowflakes that vanished before they reached the pavement. Not looking back he raced through the crowd and across the wide road, grateful for the pell-mell of buses and wagons that came charging at him out of the snow-whirl, hooting and clanging bells at him as he ducked among them at risk of his life.

  He was on the far pavement, past the line of stalls, past the endless chain of naphtha lamps, and into a crowd more dense than ever. He hurried on, towards Whitechapel. Af
ter five minutes he slowed down to a walk. He was out of breath, but he was sure that Keogh could not have kept after him among this multitude, even in the unlikely event that he had wanted to.

  It was late evening. The snow was a white confetti but the crowds did not diminish. As long as they surged up and down these pavements the traders would remain, trying for the last penny of livelihood; some shouting gaily at their stalls some standing silent and dejected behind wretched little displays of junk set out on the flagstones, or wearing trays of matches, bootlaces and other trifles. There were stalls hung with clusters of poultry, stalls hung with immense cleft carcasses and decorated with pigs’ heads that stared as if alive between joints of beef. Other stalls were carpeted with the glitter of cheap trinkets, piled with second-hand boots or a theatrical variety of hats. Others were hung with dense racks of clothing which customers were trying on in the snowstorm.

  Every kind of hot food and drink was on sale. There were cripples, entertainers, beggars, the “Guess-Your-Weight” man with his shining brass jockey scales; and in the crowds, people in workclothes, people in their best, families clustered round perambulators, Jews and their women togged up to the nines, women in black bonnets; soldiers in grand red uniforms strutting with their girls, Chinamen in funny clothes, lascar seamen, and drunks — more and more drunks as the evening went on, reeling among the mob, singing or muttering in their private worlds of misery or alcoholic happiness, or offering fight to those around them.

  Chas felt happy again. The snow whirled in curtains through which the endless faces came. It darted and disappeared around the wild naphtha flares like millions of white insects speckling the night. The flakes flew into Chas’s face, lightly stinging before they melted, reviving his exhilaration.