Nellie came in and took orders for drinks. Albert had a double whisky, the man Lloyd suspected of being Sali’s husband ordered a double brandy, everyone else had a pint of beer.
The drinks were brought and the game continued.
‘Too rich for me.’ Lloyd threw down his cards after the spiv set half a crown on the pile of money in the centre of the table. He had precisely one shilling and sixpence left of his two-pound stake and he wouldn’t have lost that much if he hadn’t needed to satisfy his suspicion that the short, squat man really was Owen Bull.
‘And me.’ One of the farmhands shuffled his cards together.
‘I’ll see your half a crown and put in a pound.’ Albert pulled a note from his pile and tossed it together with the silver into the centre of the table.
‘I’m out.’ The spiv who had put in half a crown set his cards face down.
‘And me.’ The second farmhand shuffled his cards together.
‘That leaves you and me, Owen.’ Albert toyed with a couple of the coins on top of his pile and looked to the man with the food-stained jersey.
Lloyd struggled to look impassive as he leaned back in his chair. He had been right. The man was Owen Bull. He had to be. He was sitting in the same room as Sali’s husband. What did he do next? Kill Owen where he sat, or ask him if he’d consider divorcing his wife because he had fallen in love with her?
The idea was preposterous even without Mr Richard’s revelations that Owen had convictions for disturbing the peace. Owen Bull did not look like a man who could be reasoned with.
Owen pushed his entire remaining pot into the centre of the table. ‘I’ll see you.’
‘I counted twelve shillings there, Owen, that’s not enough to see me,’ Albert said softly.
‘I’ll give you a note.’
‘I’m already holding two of yours. I’ll not take another.’
‘Do you expect me to sit here and let you walk away with that entire bloody pot?’ Owen slammed his fist down on the table sending the coins spinning. All the men with the exception of Owen, Lloyd and Albert pushed their chairs as far back from the table as the room would allow.
‘I expect you to put enough money down to see me.’
‘I’m good for it –’ Owen began heatedly.
‘Then why haven’t you paid off the notes I’m holding?’
‘Because unlike you, I work for a living. I haven’t had time to go down to the pawn shop.’
‘If you have goods worth anything, get them and set them down.’ Albert raised his eyes and stared at Owen.
‘And as soon as my back’s turned, you’ll change my bloody cards.’
‘Are you calling me a cheat, Owen?’ Albert had spoken softly, but Lloyd had never seen his cousin’s husband look so composed – or menacing.
‘I don’t have to get the goods. They’re here.’ Owen downed what was left of his brandy and thrust his hand beneath the waistband of his trousers. There was something disgusting at the sight of the fat man groping around in his underclothes but Lloyd watched intently until he pulled out a small red velvet bag. ‘This is worth ten times as much as the notes you are holding, Albert.’
‘Can I see?’
‘You can look inside, but no one else.’ Owen held out the bag and Albert took it. He opened the drawstring, glanced in, retied the string and set it on top of the notes and coins in the centre of the table.
‘Full House.’ Owen triumphantly slapped down three kings and a pair of jacks. He leaned towards the pot.
‘Straight Flush.’ Albert laid down a jack, ten, nine, eight, and seven of clubs.
‘You bloody thieving bastard!’
‘It was a fair game, Owen,’ the man sitting the other side of Albert said firmly. ‘We were all watching Albert and you.’
‘He’s a cheating, lying ...’ Owen grabbed Lloyd’s pint of beer and hurled it at Albert.
Albert moved, but not fast enough. The glass tankard caught him on the shoulder before shattering in a mess of splintered glass and spilt beer on the table. Cards, money and glasses flew everywhere, scattering over the table, chairs and floor as Owen slid across the table on his fat stomach. He tried to grab Albert but Lloyd was quicker. Gripping Owen’s wrists, he hauled his hands high behind his back.
‘Christ! He’s off again. I’ll get help.’ The spiv ran out the door.
‘You all right, Albert?’ Lloyd shouted.
‘I’ll tell you in five minutes.’ Albert slumped, ashen-faced to the floor.
‘You bloody idiot, Owen, you could have killed Albert.’ One of the farmhands went to help Lloyd who was fighting to keep his grip on Owen.
The landlady waded in and slammed Owen soundly across the head with the flat of her hand. ‘I said one more time and you’re out. Well, you are bloody well out of this place this minute. Pack your traps and go.’
‘Where to?’ Owen demanded belligerently. The farmhand and Lloyd heaved him off the table and on to his feet.
‘I couldn’t give a damn so long as you’re out of here. Now! You all right, Mr George?’ She turned solicitously to Albert.
‘I will be when I get off this floor.’ Rubbing his shoulder Albert rose unsteadily to his feet and allowed the landlady to help him to a chair.
‘Leave quietly, or I’ll get Dai the Dead to give you a push.’ The landlady glared uncompromisingly at Owen. ‘What’s it to be?’
‘I’ll go,’ he growled sullenly.
She nodded to Lloyd. ‘Release him. Slowly mind, and thump him if he tries anything.’
‘You’ll not have that bloody bag.’ Owen tried to snatch it off the edge of the table where it had been pushed when he had slid across to attack Albert. The second farmhand grabbed it.
‘Albert won it fair and square.’
‘There’s nothing fair and bloody square about a professional gambler.’ Owen closed his hand around the man’s throat.
The landlady yelled, ‘Dai!’
A tall man with arms like tree trunks came in wielding a pickaxe handle. Lloyd dived out of the way, as he aimed it at Owen’s head.
Owen crumpled to the floor.
‘Carry him out,’ the landlady ordered. ‘Clear his room and throw his belongings after him.’
‘Into the street?’ Dai asked.
‘No, outside the workhouse. And warn whoever’s manning the gatehouse that he’s a headcase.’
Lloyd watched Dai bundle Owen out of the door like a sack of rubbish. He felt no sympathy for the man, only an immense irritation that he wasn’t in a fit state to discuss Sali’s future.
‘Why do they call him Dai the Dead?’ Lloyd helped Albert gather his winnings.
‘Because in the day he lays out people in the mortuary and in the evenings he does it here. You going back to Pandy tonight?’
‘Yes.’
‘Give me a hand to get to the station, there’s a good fellow. I feel as sick as a dog.’
‘I promise you that your shoulder isn’t broken,’ Lloyd snapped.
‘I don’t know how you can be sure. It hurts like hell.’ Albert’s wince turned into a grimace as he lowered himself gingerly on to a corner seat in the train.
‘I’ve checked it over twice and, working in the pit, I know a broken bone when I see one. All you have there is a bruise. A large one, but just a bruise.’ Lloyd took the seat opposite Albert’s.
‘I feel as though I’ve been run over by a tram load of coal.’
‘If you had, you wouldn’t be able to moan and I wouldn’t have to listen.’
Lloyd glanced out of the window and stared at his reflection superimposed over the station lights. A few seconds later the guard blew his whistle, a door slammed lower down the train, and the engine hissed steam as it moved slowly along the track. Because they had reached the station an hour before stop tap, the train was comparatively empty and he and Albert had managed to grab a whole compartment.
‘Why don’t you count your winnings? That should take your mind off the pain,’ Lloyd sugge
sted in an attempt to atone for his lack of sympathy. After all, it wasn’t Albert’s fault that the evening hadn’t brought him any closer to finding a solution to the monstrous problem of Sali’s marriage to Owen Bull.
‘The one thing that I have learned to do over the years is to keep a count as I go along. Give or take a few shillings, I’m ten quid richer than I was before I went into the Horse and Groom tonight and that’s without taking Owen’s pouch into consideration.’ Albert unbuttoned his overcoat.
‘That’s more than a collier earns in a month!’ Lloyd exclaimed indignantly, brushing smuts from his sleeve.
‘I use brains not brawn,’ Albert bragged.
‘Like when you went bankrupt and lost your house, business and Connie?’
‘I was younger then.’
‘And now you’re older, you’ve had the foresight to bank your winnings for your old age?’
‘“Enjoy today, for tomorrow may never come.” If you want to take up gambling, you have to learn to live by the gambler’s code.’ Albert dug into the inside pocket of his jacket and extracted the velvet bag Owen had staked.
‘Tonight was a one-off experience.’
‘Just because you lost a couple of quid.’
‘Which I couldn’t afford to lose.’
‘You know what they say. “If you can’t live dangerously, climb into a coffin.”’
‘You’re just full of maxims today, aren’t you, Albert?’
‘I never realised you were a misery guts until tonight.’
‘Sorry, bad day,’ Lloyd apologised.
‘If you really couldn’t afford to lose the money...’ Albert put his hand in his pocket.
‘It’s not that.’
‘Then it’s a woman.’ Albert beamed. ‘Good God, wonders will never cease, Lloyd Evans is in love. As I’ve never seen you make eyes at a girl, I assumed your father had you neutered at birth.’
Stricken by guilt at the thought of his long affair with Connie, Lloyd muttered, ‘Drop it, Albert.’
Albert untied the string, opened the bag, delved into it and produced a wide gold bangle embossed with daffodils and leaves. ‘Very nice. I’d say quality goods, wouldn’t you?’
‘My opinion isn’t worth much when it comes to women’s trinkets, but I’ll grant you it looks expensive.’ Lloyd thought the bangle too wide and ornate. It was the sort of thing he’d seen middle-aged, middle-class women wearing when they wanted to advertise their husband’s wealth.
Albert laid the bangle on his lap and pushed his hand into the bag again. ‘Matching ring and earrings.’ He handed Lloyd a heavy gold wedding band and gold earrings fashioned into lover’s knots, all wrought to the same design as the bangle. ‘They’ll look beautiful on Connie, and,’ he made a face, ‘may make up for the time that I pawned her wedding ring and forgot to redeem it. She would never allow me to buy her another, but then, the ring I gave her was nowhere near as magnificent as this one.’
‘Do you think Connie will want to wear another woman’s jewellery?’
‘What woman?’ Albert asked, mystified.
‘These things must have belonged to someone before they landed up in Owen Bull’s trousers.’
‘Someone who didn’t have the means to hang on to them,’ Albert dismissed.
‘Someone whose husband staked the pieces to get him into a game, more like.’
‘And not just his wife’s pieces either.’ Albert tipped the bag upside down and a gentleman’s gold pocket watch, diamond studded cravat pin and cufflinks fell out.
Lloyd laughed in spite of his misery. ‘I’m not surprised Owen Bull kept those hidden. Show those off after stop tap on the streets of Ponty or Pandy on a Saturday night and you’ll never make it to your lodgings in one piece.’ He reached over and picked up the pocket watch.
‘You think I can’t play the gentleman?’ Albert demanded indignantly.
‘You can play him, Albert,’ Lloyd grinned, ‘so long as you don’t try to be one.’
Too happy with his winnings to take offence, Albert examined the cufflinks. ‘These will give me instant credit if I ever hit another losing streak.’
‘If?’ Lloyd’s grin broadened.
‘All right, when,’ Albert conceded philosophically. ‘Some people I can fool, but I know Connie has cried on your father’s shoulder about my failings. No doubt he has passed on all the sordid details.’
‘Not to me.’ Lloyd pressed the top of the watch and the back flew open. ‘It’s engraved.’
‘If it has sentimental value, it would explain why Owen was so reluctant to let it go.’
‘It had sentimental value all right,’ Lloyd said grimly ‘but not to Owen. Look.’ He handed over the watch.
Albert read the inscription. To my beloved nephew Mansel James on the occasion of his reaching his majority, Edyth James, 21 January 1903.
‘Can I see the rest of those things?’
‘Why?’ Albert asked suspiciously, gathering the jewellery and returning it to the bag.
‘Because Mansel James disappeared over four years ago on the night before his wedding and no one has seen him since.’
‘Was he wearing this watch?’ Albert’s eyes rounded in alarm. As a convicted gambler he was no friend of the police, but theft on this scale would warrant a heftier prison sentence than the occasional few days he had served from time to time for unlicensed gaming.
‘I’d say it’s a safe bet that he was carrying it. Please, may I look at that bracelet and wedding ring?’
Albert didn’t hesitate. Scooping everything into the bag, he handed it over.
Billy Evans carried three pints of beer to a secluded table in a corner of the County Club. He set two in front of Albert and Lloyd, and taking the third, he sat on the window seat. ‘Have you decided what you are going to do?’ He was looking at Albert but Lloyd knew the question was directed at him.
‘The police have to be shown these things,’ Lloyd said decisively. ‘I’m no detective but I’d say that Mr Owen Bull has to explain how he acquired that watch and the jewellery. If I didn’t know he was unconscious and safely locked up in the workhouse, I’d go back down to Pontypridd tonight.’
‘You show the police those things and I’ll lose the lot,’ Albert grumbled.
Lloyd gave Albert a contemptuous look. ‘How much are those notes you’re holding against Owen Bull?’
‘Fiver apiece.’
‘And how much from tonight?’
‘Eight shillings.’
‘Leave the bag of jewellery with me and I’ll drop ten pounds eight shillings into your lodgings as soon as I have a chance to go to the bank. But I have a condition.’
‘What?’ Albert enquired warily.
‘You tell the police exactly how you came by this bag.’
‘They’ll arrest me for gambling,’ Albert remonstrated.
‘Once they see this little lot, they’ll have a lot more to worry about than your illegal activities, Albert,’ Billy said smoothly.
‘Is it a deal?’ Lloyd held out his hand.
‘It’s a deal.’ Albert shook it.
‘You going to show Sali the jewellery?’ Billy asked Lloyd on the walk home from the Club.
‘As soon as we get in.’
‘If I were you I’d wait until morning. Neither of you will be able to do anything about it until then anyway.’
‘I have no right to keep something like this from her.’
‘You’re hardly keeping anything from her. Just allowing her to get a night’s sleep.’ When Lloyd didn’t say anything, his father added, ‘She may take it hard.’
‘She’s bound to be upset,’ Lloyd commented tersely.
‘She may be even more upset at the thought of being married to a murderer.’
‘All we can say for certain is that her husband was in possession of Mansel James’s personal property. He’s been arrested twice outside her aunt’s house. He could have broken in there and stolen the watch and jewellery.’
‘You be
lieve that?’ Billy gave Lloyd a cynical look.
‘It’s a possibility.’ Lloyd stopped outside their front door. ‘But there’s no point in indulging in pointless speculation. Let the police investigate the matter. That’s what they’re paid to do.’
‘Do you want me around when you tell her?’
‘No.’
‘Well, if the boys are in the kitchen I’ll chase them to bed. You’ll need somewhere warm to sit if you are going to tell her tonight.’
‘Thank you.’
Billy hung up his coat and cap. ‘I hope this doesn’t change anything between you two.’
‘You’re not the only one,’ Lloyd muttered fervently and followed him into the kitchen.
Lloyd waited until Victor and Joey were in bed before knocking on Sali’s door. ‘It’s Lloyd, Sali, I have to talk to you,’ he whispered.
‘Now?’ Her voice was thick with sleep and he realised he’d woken her. His father was right, nothing could be done about the jewellery before morning, but now she was awake it was too late to change his mind.
‘I’ll be downstairs in the kitchen.’ He walked down the stairs, filled the kettle, opened the hob and set it on the stove to boil, before deciding that tea might not be enough. Opening the cupboard at the bottom of the dresser he lifted out the brandy and sherry his father had bought at Christmas. Both bottles were half full. He was setting glasses on the table when Sali appeared in a long woollen dressing gown and one of the ankle-length, red flannel nightgowns she had bought to replace the flimsy lingerie her aunt had given her.
‘What is it?’ She looked anxiously at him. ‘Did your union meeting go badly?’
‘I wasn’t at a union meeting. Sit down.’ He pulled his father’s chair out from the head of the table. ‘Do you want sherry or brandy?’
‘You’re frightening me.’
‘I don’t mean to.’ He poured himself a generous measure of brandy, glanced at her, and poured another into a second tumbler. Setting a glass at her elbow, he sat beside her, took the bag from his pocket and emptied it on the table.
Beggars and Choosers Page 41
