The Victorian Villains Megapack (32 page)

Dent’s clock marked twenty minutes to five, and Pringle reflected how much had been compressed into the last quarter of an hour. True, he had not prevented the sale of his country’s secrets; on the other hand—he pressed the packet which held the envelope of notes. Hailing a cab, he was about to step in, when, looking back, at the nook between the lions he saw a confused movement about the spot. The two men he had just left were struggling with a third, who, brandishing a handful of something white, was endeavouring, with varying success, to plant his fist on divers areas of their persons. He was the draughtsman. A small crowd, which momentarily increased, surrounded them, and as Pringle climbed into the hansom two policemen were seen to penetrate the ring and impartially lay hands upon the three combatants.

Romney Pringle in THE KIMBLERLEY FUGITIVE

“Westerly and southwesterly breezes, close, thunder locally.”

Twenty times that day had Mr. Pringle consulted the forecast and then had tapped the barometer without inducing the pointer to travel beyond “change”. Indeed, as evening drew near with no sign of the promised storm, the prospect was quite sufficient to abate the philosophic calm which was his usual mask to the outer world. A morning drizzle had been so greedily licked by the scorching pavement, or lost in the sand and grit that, inches deep, covered the roadway, that the plane trees on the Embankment, with a mottling where the rain had splashed their dusty leaves, were the sole evidence of a shower too fleeting to be remembered. The drought was of many weeks’ standing. The country lay roasting beneath a brazen sky, great fissures starred the earth, while a mat of peculiarly penetrating dust impartially floured the roads and hedges. London, with all its drawbacks, was more tolerable; at the least there was some shade to be found there, and Pringle had not yet been tempted from his chambers in Furnival’s Inn.

When sunset came and the daily traffic slackened. Pringle shouldered his cycle and carried it down the stone stairs from the second floor. His profession of the phantom literary agency, so gravely announced upon his door, allowed him to dress with a disregard of convention, and it was in a bluish flannel suit and straw hat that he pedalled along Holborn in the comparative coolness. By the bumpy slope of Saint Andrew’s Hill and the equally rough pavement of New Bridge Street, he reached Blackfriars and turned to the right along the Embankment; it ran in his mind to go as far West as possible, inhaling whatever ozone the breeze might carry, returning later with the wind behind him.

The seats, crowded with limp humanity, the silent children too tired even to play, the general listlessness and absence of stir—all witnessed to the consuming heat. The roadway was almost deserted, but just by the Temple Pringle was conscious of the disagreeable sensation, so full of meaning to a cyclist, of something striking his back wheel. From behind there came an exclamation, an oath from between close-ground teeth, and as he sprinted on and dismounted these were punctuated by a loud crash. Pringle knew the meaning of it all without turning. The shock had been too gentle and withal noiseless to be caused by anything but another cycle, ridden most likely by some ground-gazing scorcher, and knowing that with even the best of riders a collision with another machine in front means disaster, he was quite prepared for what he saw. A few yards back a dilapidated-looking cyclist was examining his mount. His dark hair and moustache had acquired the same grey tint as his clothing, so generously had he been coated with dust in what must have been a long ride; but the machine appeared to have suffered more from the fall than its rider, who dolefully handled a pedal which declined to revolve.

“Can I be of any help?” inquired Pringle with his usual suavity. “I hope there’s nothing serious the matter.”

“Pedal pin’s bent, and I’ve hurt my ankle,” returned the cyclist. He spoke shortly, as if inclined to blame Pringle for the accident due to his own folly.

“Is it a sprain?” asked Pringle sympathetically. “Do you think you can ride with it?”

“Nothing much, I think.” He walked round the machine with a slight limp, and added surlily, “But I can’t ride a thing like that—” He indicated the pedal with a pettish finger as he raised the machine from the ground.

“Oh. I think a few minutes’ work will put that right,” observed Pringle encouragingly.

“No! Really?” He brightened visibly, as if Pringle had rid him of a certain incubus.

“I don’t think we shall find a repairer open now—besides, I don’t know of one just about here. If you will allow me. I’ll see what I can do to put it right. As you say, you can’t ride it like that.”

The stranger was obviously not a practical cyclist, and Pringle, leaning his own machine against the kerb, had produced a spanner and was on his hands and knees beside the damaged cycle before the other had well got his pouch unstrapped. Pringle had put down his concern for the machine to the natural affection of an owner, but, with some of the dust and mud brushed off, it stood revealed as a hired crock with cheap Belgian fittings. The dull enamel, the roughly machined lugs, the general lack of finish showed the second-rate machine; and it was no drop-forging which yielded to the persuasion of a very moderately powerful wrench, the soft steel straightening under the leverage almost as readily as it had bent. Meanwhile, the owner vented an unamiable mood in dispersing the inevitable boys crowding like vultures round the fallen cycle; and when Pringle, his labour ended, struck his shoulder beneath the handle-bar and was peppered with a shower of dust and pellets from the mud guards, he had lost some of his former incivility and, producing a handkerchief, insisted on dusting his benefactor with quite a gracious air.

“I see you’ve ridden far,” remarked Pringle as he finished.

“Yes, from—er—er—Colchester,” was the hesitating reply.

“Suppose we move on a bit from this crowd,” Pringle suggested. “I think we are both going westward.”

“I was on the lookout for a quiet hotel somewhere near here,” said the cyclist as they rode side by side.

“I think the ‘Embankment’ in Arundel Street would suit you; it’s moderate and quiet—round here to the right. By the bye, it’s some time since I was on the Colchester Road, but I remember what an awful hill there it at Hatfield Peverel. I don’t know which is the worst—to come up or go down.”

“Hatfield—Hatfield Peverel?” repeated the other musingly.

“Just this side of Witham, you know. Why, surely you must have noticed that hill!”

“Oh, yes. Witham—yes, a very nasty hill.”

“No, not Witham. You come to the hill at Hatfield Peverel.”

“Yes, yes—I know.” And then, as if anxious to change the subject, “Are we anywhere near the hotel?”

“Just the other side of that red-brick building. I see you’ve managed to pick up a little real estate on your way.”

The stranger started and glanced suspiciously at Pringle, who explained, “The mud, I mean.”

“Oh! The mud. Ha ha ha!” There was more of hysteria than hilarity in the laugh, and the man suddenly grew voluble.

“Yes, I came through a lot of mud. Fact is, I got caught in the thunderstorm.”

“Indeed! That’s good news. Whereabouts was it?”

“Near Tonbridge.”

“Tonbridge?”

“Tut! What am I talking about? I mean Colchester. But this is the place, isn’t it? Good-night—good night!”

He dragged the machine into the hotel, leaving Pringle to silently debate whether his boorishness was due to his confusion, or his confusion to his boorishness.

With his foot on the step, Pringle was just re-mounting when a muffled rumble sounded overhead. The stars were hidden by a huge ink-splash, and a pallid, ghostly light flickered in the south; then, with measured pat, huge blobs of rain began to fall, while a blast, as from all the furnaces across the stream, blew up from the Embankment. It was the long-deferred storm, and Pringle told himself his ride must be abandoned; he had wasted too much time over this ingrate. Resigned to another night of stuffy insomnia, he turned and pedalled up towards the Strand. Beside him ran a newsboy, shouting his alliterative bill: “Storm in the south! Rain in rivers!” Cramming a pink sheet into his pocket Pringle hurried on, and reached Furnival’s Inn as a blinding glare lit up the gateway, and the clouds exploded with a crackling volley.

Fagged and dusty, his head throbbing to the reverberation of the thunder, Pringle collapsed on his sofa and languidly unfolded the paper; but at the first glance he sat up again with a start, for in the place of honor beneath the alliterative headlines he read:

“The Central News reports that a violent thunderstorm, which did some damage to the hop-fields, burst over the Tonbridge district early this afternoon. For a time many of the roads were impassable, the drains and ditches being choked by the sudden rush of storm-water. So far as is known no loss of life occurred. Further storms may be expected in the home counties and will be anxiously awaited by agriculturists.”

“Tonbridge!”
thought Pringle. “Was there no storm in Essex?” He scanned the rest of the paper with an eagerness which dismissed his fatigue. The cyclist had positively named Colchester as the scene of the storm. Strange that the paper said nothing about it—and there was ample time for the news to have reached London, too. He flicked a crumb of dry mud out of his turned-up trousers and recalled what an avalanche had poured from the stranger’s machine. That was no passing shower it had sped through. Stay—why, of course! The man actually did say Tonbridge, and then made haste to correct himself. And how clumsily he made his escape afterwards! Supposing he had travelled up through Tonbridge he would probably cross Blackfriars Bridge, and thus his presence on the Embankment would be explained. But why had he told a lie about it? Pringle absently turned the rest of the mud out of his trousers and threw up the window. With widespread fingers he cast the handful abroad, when a sudden inspiration bid him pause, and rightly clasping the remnants of dust, he took a sheet of paper and carefully scraped his palm over it. The
Britannica
stood ever ready to his hand, and taking a volume from its shelf he studied it intently for a while, murmuring, as he replaced it. “Essex, Thanet sands, and London clay.”

Across the room stood his oak bureau—the bureau which indifferently supplied an actor’s make-up or a chemist’s laboratory, and opening it, he drew out a test-tube and a bottle of hydrochloric acid. Shaking the dust into the tube he poured the acid in and watched the turbid solution as it slowly clarified after a brisk effervescence; then with steady hand he added a few drops of sulphuric acid, and his impassive features relaxed in a grim smile as the resulting opalescence deepened to opacity, and this in turn condensed into a woolly cloud. The delicate test established
the presence of chalk and the entire absence of clay
. Thus, for all his clumsy lying, science, which cannot be deceived, declared that the cyclist had ridden into London over chalky roads—that is to say, not from Essex, but from the south.

The storm had passed. Clear moonlight succeeded the lambent spasms of the lightning, and a cool breeze sang past the upper windows of the Inn. Physical weariness would not be denied, and with the novel prospect of an unbroken night’s rest before him. Pringle abandoned any present attempt to learn the motive of the stranger’s deception.

The sun was shining brightly between the green blind-slats when he awoke. Tired out, he had slept long past his usual hour. Lighting the spirit-lamp to prepare his simple breakfast he glanced over the paper he found beneath his outer door. As he was accustomed to explain, he read the
Chronicle
not from any sympathy with its opinions, but as being the most really informing journal published in London. The water boiled and boiled in the little kettle, the flame sputtered and died as the spirit burnt out; but Pringle, intent on the newspaper, took no heed of his meal. There was barely a third of a column; but as he read and re-read the paragraphs, the personality of the cyclist was ever before him, and remembering the chemical analysis, his suspicions all crowded back again—suspicions which he had laid aside with the headache of last night.

A TALE OF THE DIAMOND FIELD

About a month ago, according to the South African papers just to hand, some sensation was caused in Kimberley by the disappearance of an outside broker named Thomas, who for some time past had been under the surveillance of the Diamond Fields police for suspected infractions of the Illicit Diamond Buying Act, colloquially known as I.D.B. Under this local Act, arrest is lawful on much slighter evidence than would justify such a course elsewhere, but the police had little to work upon until some purloined stones were actually traced to Thomas just after he disappeared; the ordinary law was thereupon invoked by the police and a warrant was granted for his apprehension. The fugitive had a good start, and although traced to Cape Town, he never lost the advantage he had gained, but managed to escape on the out-going liner
Grantully Castle
, and the police, feeling certain of his arrest at Southampton, telegraphed full particulars to England. Thomas would appear to be well served by confederates for, when the
Grantully Castle
arrived at Madeira, a telegram awaited him and he suddenly left the ship, alleging urgent business at Funchal, and stating his intention of coming on by the next boat. When the next liner duly arrived at Southampton it brought an inspector of the Diamond Fields Police armed with the warrant for Thomas’ arrest, but no one on whom to execute it. As usual, Thomas was a day ahead of his pursuers, and for a time no trace of him could be found. At length, through the Castle agent at Funchal, it was discovered that Thomas had remained but a day or two there, having taken passage for London in the
Bittern
, a cargo steamer trading to the Gold Coast. The scene now changes to the Downs, where the inspector, in company with a London detective, awaited the
Bittern
. A slow sailer, she was believed to have encountered bad weather in the Bay of Biscay, and it was not until yesterday morning that she made her number off Deal, and was promptly boarded by the police in a pilot boat; but once again they were just too late. Off the South Foreland a “hoveller” had tried to sell the
Bittern
some vegetables, but instead secured a passenger in the person of Thomas, who struck a bargain with him, and was rowed ashore near Kingsdown. From there he appears to have walked to Walmer, taking the train to Dover, where for the present he has been lost. Thomas is stated to be a native of Colchester, for many years in Africa, and is described as a strongly-built man of about forty, wearing a dark beard and moustache, and with a scar over the right brow caused by a dynamite explosion which blinded the eye.

Here was matter for reflection with a vengeance. As Pringle re-filled his lamp and kindled the charred wick, his one thought was the possible identity of the cyclist with the man Thomas. The description as given in the
Chronicle
was inconclusive, but the cyclist had a very effective mask of dust and mud. True, he was beardless, but would not a shave be the first act of Thomas on arriving at Dover? To Pringle it seemed such an obvious precaution that he dismissed the fact as irrelevant. The time, too, was sufficient for even an inexperienced rider to have cycled the distance. It was certainly a clever idea, and very characteristic of the man, to come by road rather than by the train with its scheduled times and its frequent stoppages, to say nothing of the telegraph wires running alongside. As Pringle had almost conclusively proved, he had travelled up from the south by way of Tonbridge, yet he had shown an extreme desire to conceal the fact. Then, again, he talked of coming by the Colchester road, and Thomas was said to be a native of Colchester. It was a small matter, no doubt; but the fugitive, anxious to hide his tracks, would be sure to speak of a neighbourhood he knew—or rather, which he thought he knew, for it was clear that Thomas, if it were he, had forgotten the main features of the route. But supposing Thomas to have been the cyclist, where were the diamonds? Surely, thought Pringle, he must have some with him. And at the thought of the treasure to which he had been so near his pulse quickened. Could Thomas have concealed it about his person? Hardly, in view of his possible capture. But what of the cycle? He had shown considerable solicitude for the machine—in fact, he had scarcely loosened his hold on it. And had not he, Romney Pringle, tested the possibilities of a cycle for concealing jewellery? Smiling at the recollection he sat down to his breakfast.