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Four Stragglers

<h3> —II— </h3> <h4> AN IRON IN THE FIRE </h4> It was a neighbourhood of alleyways and lanes of ferocious darkness; of ill-lighted, baleful streets, of shadows; and of doorways where no doors existed, black, cavernous and sinister openings to inner chambers of misery, of squalid want, of God-knows-what. It was the following evening, and still early—barely eight o'clock. Captain Francis Newcombe turned the corner of one of these gloomily lighted streets, and drew instantly back to crouch, as an animal crouches before it springs, in the deep shadows of a wretched tenement building. Light footfalls sounded; came nearer. Two forms, skulking, yet moving swiftly, came into sight around the corner. Captain Francis Newcombe sprang. His fist crashed with terrific force to the point of an opposing jaw. A queer grunt—and one of the two men sprawled his length on the pavement and lay quite still. Captain Francis Newcombe's movements were incredibly swift. His left hand was at the second man's throat now, and a revolver was shoved into the other's face. The tableau held for a second. "A bit of a 'cushing' expedition, was it?" said the ex-captain of territorials calmly. "I looked a likely victim, didn't I? Just the usual bash on the head with a neddy, and then the usual stripping even down to the boots if they were good enough—and mine were good enough, eh? And I might get over that bash on the head, or my skull might be cracked; I might wake up in one of your filthy passageways here, or I might never wake up! What would it matter? It's done every night. You make your living that way. And who's to know who did it?" His grip tightened suddenly on the other's throat. "Your kind are better dead," said Captain Francis Newcombe, and there was something of horrible callousness in his conversational tones. "You lack art; you have no single redeeming feature." It was as though now he were debating in cold precision with himself. "Yes, you are much better dead!" "Gor' blimy, guv'nor, let me go," half choked, half whined the other. "We wasn't goin' to touch you. No fear! Me an' me mate was just goin' round to the pub for an 'arf-pint—" "It would make a noise," said Captain Francis Newcombe unemotionally. "That is the trouble. I should have to clear out of here, and be put to the annoyance of waiting a half hour or so before I could come back and attend to my own affairs. That's the only reason I haven't fired this thing off in your face, and I'm not sure that reason's good enough. But it's a bit of a fag to argue it out, so—don't move, you swine, or that'll settle it quicker still!" His fingers, from the other's throat, searched his own waistcoat pocket, and produced a silver coin. "Heads or tails?" he inquired casually. "You call it." "My Gawd, guv'nor," whimpered the man, "yer don't mean that! Yer wouldn't shoot a cove down like that, would yer? My Gawd, yer wouldn't do that!" "Heads or tails?" The ex-captain of territorial's voice was bored. "I shan't ask you again." The light was poor. The man's features, save that they were dirty and unshaven, were almost indistinguishable; but the eyes roved everywhere in hunted fear, and he lumped the fingers of one hand together and plucked with them in an unhinged way at his lips. "I—no!" gurgled the man. "My Gawd!" His words were thick. His fingers, plucking, clogged his lips. "I carn't—I—" The mechanism of the revolver intruded itself—as unemotional as its owner—an unemotional click. The man screamed out. "No, no—wait, guv'nor! Wait!" he screamed. "'Eads! Gawd! 'Eads!" Captain Francis Newcombe examined the coin; the sense of touch, as he rubbed his fingers over it, helping out the bad light. "Right, you are!" he said indifferently. "Heads it is! You're in luck!" He tossed the coin on the pavement. "I'd keep that, if I were you." His voice was still level, still bored. "You haven't got anything, of course, to do any sniping with, for anything as valuable as that would never remain in the possession of your kind for more than five minutes before you would have pawned it." He glanced at the prostrate form of the thug's companion, who was now beginning to show signs of returning consciousness. "I fancy you'll find his jaw's broken. Better give him a leg up," he said, and, turning on his heel, walked on down the street. Captain Francis Newcombe did not look back. He traversed the murky block, turned a corner, turned still another, and presently made his way through an entrance, long since doorless, into the hallway of a tenement house. It was little better than a pit of blackness here, but his movements were without hesitation, as one long and intimately familiar with his surroundings. He mounted a rickety flight of stairs, and, without ceremony, opened the door of a room on the first landing, entered, and closed the door behind him. The room had no light in it. "Who's there?" demanded a weak, querulous, female voice. The visitor made no immediate reply. The place reeked with the odour of salt fish; the air was stale, and an offence that assaulted the nostrils. Captain Francis Newcombe crossed to the window, wrenched at it, and flung it viciously open. A protracted fit of coughing came from a corner behind him. "Didn't I tell you never to send for me?" he snapped out in abrupt menace. "'Ow, it's you, is it?" said the woman's voice. "Well, I ain't never done it afore, 'ave I? Not in three years I ain't." "You've done it now; you've done it to-night—and that's once too often!" returned Captain Francis Newcombe savagely. "And before I'm through with you, I'll promise you you'll never do it again!" "No," she answered out of the darkness, "I won't never do it again, an' that's why I done it to-night—'cause I won't never 'ave another chance. The doctor 'e says I ain't goin' to be 'ere in the mornin'." Captain Francis Newcombe lit a match. It disclosed a tallow dip and a piece of salt fish on a battered chair—and, beyond, the shadowy outline of a bed. He swept the piece of fish to the floor out of his way, lighted the candle, and, leaning forward, held it over the bed. A woman's face stared back at him in the flickering light; a curiously blotched face, and one that was emaciated until the cheek bones seemed the dominant feature. Her dull, almost glazed, grey eyes blinked painfully in even the candle rays; a dirty woollen wrap was fastened loosely around a scrawny neck, and over this there straggled strands of tangled and unkempt grey hair. "Well, I fancy the diagnosis isn't far wrong," said the ex-captain of territorials critically. "I've been too good to you—and prosperity's let you down. For three years you haven't lifted a finger except to carry a glass of gin to your lips. And now this is the end, is it?" The woman did not answer. She breathed heavily. The hectic spots on her cheeks burned a little wider. Captain Francis Newcombe set the candle back on the chair, and, with his hands in his pockets, stood looking at her. His face exhibited no emotion. "I haven't heard yet why you sent for me," he said sharply. "Polly," she said thickly. "I wanter know wot abaht Polly?" Captain Francis Newcombe smiled without mirth. "My dear Mrs. Wickes," he said evenly, "you know all about Polly. I distinctly remember bringing you the letter she enclosed for you in mine ten days ago, because I distinctly remember that after you had read it I watched you tear it up. And as your education is such that you cannot write in return, I also distinctly remember that you gave me messages for her which I was to incorporate in my own reply. Since then I have not heard from Polly." The woman raised herself suddenly on her elbow, and, her face contorted, shook her fist. "My dear Mrs. Wickes!" she mimicked furiously through a burst of coughing. "Yer a cool 'un, yer are. That's wot yer says, yer stands there an' smiles like a bloomin' hangel, an' yer says, my dear Mrs. Wickes! Curse yer, I knows more abaht yer than yer thinks for. Three years I've watched yer, an' hif I've kept my tongue to meself that don't say I don't know wot I knows." "Indeed!" Captain Francis Newcombe shrugged his shoulders. He smiled slightly. "Then I should say, if it were true, that it is sometimes dangerous, Mrs. Wickes—to know even a little about some things." The woman rocked in the bed, and hugged her thin bosom against a spasm of coughing that came near to strangulation. "Bah!" she shouted, when she could get her breath. "I ain't afraid of yer any more. Damn yer, I'm dyin' anyhow! It's nothin' to you wiv yer smug smile, except yer glad I'll be out of the wye—an'—an', Gawd, it ain't nothin' to me either. I'm sick, of it all, an' I'm glad, I am; but afore I goes I wanter know wot abaht Polly. Wot'd yer tyke her awye for three years ago?" "For the price of two quid paid weekly to a certain Mrs. Wickes, who is Polly's mother," said Captain Francis Newcombe composedly; "and with which the said Mrs. Wickes has swum in gin ever since." Mrs. Wickes fell back exhausted on her pillow. "Wot for?" she whispered in fierce insistence. "I wanter know wot for?" "Well," said Captain Francis Newcombe, "even at fifteen Polly was an amazingly pretty little girl—and she showed amazing promise. I'm wondering how she has developed. Extremely clever youngster! Don't see, in fact, Mrs. Wickes, where she got it from! Not even the local desecration of the king's English—in spite of the board schools! Amazing! We couldn't let a flower like that bloom uncultivated, could we?" The woman was up in the bed again. "A gutter brat!" she cried out. "An' you says send 'er to school wiv the toffs in America, 'cause there wouldn't be no chance of doin' that 'ere at 'ome; an' I says the toffs don't tyke 'er kind there neither. An' you says she goes as yer ward, an' yer can get 'er in, only she 'as to forget abaht these 'ere London slums. An' she ain't to write no letters to me except through you, 'cause hif any was found down 'ere they'd turn their noses up over there an' give Polly the bounce." "Quite right, Mrs. Wickes!" said Captain Francis Newcombe imperturbably. "And for three years Polly has been in one of the most exclusive girls' seminaries in America—and incidentally I might say I am arranging to go over there shortly for a little visit. If her photographs are to be relied upon, she has more than fulfilled her early promise. A very beautiful young woman, educated, and now, Mrs. Wickes—a lady. She has made a circle of friends among the best and the wealthiest. Why, even now, with the summer holidays coming on, you know, I understand she is to be the guest of a school friend in a millionaire's home. Think of that, Mrs. Wickes! What more could any woman ask for her daughter? And why should you, for instance, ask more to-night? Why this eleventh hour curiosity? You agreed to it all three years ago, Mrs. Wickes—for two quid a week." "Yes," said the woman passionately, "an' I'm probably goin' to 'ell for it now! I knowed then yer wasn't doin' this for Polly's sake, an' in the three years I kept on knowin' yer more an' more for the devil you are. But I says to meself that I'm 'ere to see Polly don't come to no harm, but—but I ain't goin' to be 'ere no more, an' that's wot I wants to know to-night. An' I asks yer, wot's yer game?" "Really!" Captain Francis Newcombe shrugged his shoulders again. "This isn't very interesting, Mrs. Wickes. And in any case, I fail to see what you are going to do about it, or what lever you could possibly bring to bear to make me divulge what you are pleased to imagine is some base and ulterior motive in what I have done. It is quite well known among Captain Newcombe's circle that he is educating a ward in America. It is—er—rather to his credit, is it not?" "Gawd curse yer wiv yer smooth tongue!" said Mrs. Wickes wildly. "I knows! I knows yer got a game—some dirty game wiv Polly in it. Yer clever, yer are—an' yer ain't human. But yer won't win, an' all along 'o Polly. She won't do nothin' that ain't straight, she won't. Polly ain't that kind." "Oh, as to that, and granting my wickedness," said Captain Francis Newcombe indifferently, "I shouldn't worry. Having you in mind, Mrs. Wickes, I fancy even that would be quite all right—blood always tells, you know." "Blood! Blood'll tell, will it?" The woman was rocking in the bed again. She burst into harsh laughter. It brought on another, and even more severe, strangling fit of coughing. "Blood'll tell, will it?" she choked, as she gasped for breath. "Well, so it will! So it will!" Captain Francis Newcombe stared at her from narrowed eyes. "What do you mean by that?" he demanded sharply. But Mrs. Wickes had fallen back upon her pillow in utter exhaustion. She lay fighting painfully, pitifully now for every breath. "What do you mean by that?" repeated Captain Francis Newcombe still more sharply. And then suddenly, as though some strange premonition were at work, all fight gone from her, the woman threw out her arms in a broken gesture of supplication. "I'm a wicked woman, a bloody wicked 'un I've been. Gawd forgive me for it!" she whispered. "Polly ain't no blood of mine." Captain Francis Newcombe rested his elbows on the back of the chair, and smiled coolly. "I think," he said evenly, "it's my turn now to ask what the game is? That's a bit thick, isn't it—after three years?" The hectic spots had faded from the woman's face, and an ominous greyness was taking their place. She was crying now. "It's Gawd's truth," she said. "I was afraid yer wouldn't 'ave give me the two quid a week hif yer'd known I 'adn't no 'old on 'er. Polly don't know. No one knows but me, an'—" Her voice trailed off through weakness. Captain Francis Newcombe, save that his eyes had narrowed a little more, made no movement. He watched her without comment as she struggled for her breath again. "I didn't mean to 'ave no fight wiv yer, Gawd knows I didn't. Gawd knows I didn't send for yer for that. I only wanted to ask yer wot abaht Polly, an' to ask yer to be good to 'er, an'—an' tell yer wot I'm tellin' yer now afore it's too late. An'—an'—" She raised herself with a sudden convulsive effort to her elbow. "Gawd, I—I'm goin' now." With a swift movement Captain Francis Newcombe whipped a flask from his pocket, and held it to the woman's lips. She swallowed a few drops with difficulty, and lay still. Presently Mrs. Wickes' lips moved. Captain Francis Newcombe, close beside the bed now, leaned over her. "A lydy 'er mother was, an' 'er father 'e was a gentleman born 'e was. I—I don't know nothin' abaht 'em except she was a guverness an' 'e 'adn't much money. Neither of 'em 'adn't no family accordin' to 'er, an' countin' wot 'appened she told the truth, poor soul." Again Mrs. Wickes lay silent. Her lips continued to move, but they were soundless. She seemed suddenly to become conscious of this, and motioned weakly for the flask. And again with difficulty she swallowed a few drops. "Years ago this was." Mrs. Wickes forced the words with long pauses between. "'Ard times came on 'em. 'E got killed in a haccident. An' she took sick after Polly came, an' the money went, an' she wouldn't 'ave charity, an' she got down to this, like us 'uns 'ere, tryin' to keep body an' soul together on the bit she 'ad left. An' she died, an' I took Polly. Two years old Polly was then. There wasn't no good of tellin' Polly an' 'ave 'er give 'erself airs when she 'ad to go out an' do 'er bit an' earn something. An', wot's more, if she'd known I wasn't 'er mother she might 'ave stopped workin' for me—an' I couldn't 'ave made 'er, 'avin' lost my hold on 'er—an' I wasn't goin' to 'ave anything like that. Polly Wickes—Polly Wickes—the flower girl. Flowers—posies—pretty posies—that's where yer saw 'er—" The woman's voice had thickened; her words, in snatches, were incoherent: "Polly Wickes—Polly Wickes—Polly Gray—Polly Gray 'er name is—Polly Gray. I got the lines an' the birth paper. I kept 'em all these years. 'Ere! I got 'em 'ere." "Where?" said Captain Francis Newcombe tersely. "'Ere!" Mrs. Wickes plucked feebly at the edge of the bed clothing. "'Ere!" Captain Francis Newcombe thrust his hand quickly in under the mattress. After a moment's search he brought out a soiled envelope. It bore a faded superscription in a scrawling hand. He picked up the candle from the chair and read it: "Polly's papers which is God's truth, Mrs. Wickes X her mark." He tore the envelope open rather carefully at the end. It contained two papers that were turned a little yellow with age. Yes, it was quite true! His eyes travelled swiftly over the names: "Harold Morton Gray.... Elizabeth Pauline Forbes. Pauline Gray...." There was a sudden sound from the bed—like a long, fluttering sigh. Captain Francis Newcombe swung sharply about. The woman's arm was stretched out toward him; dulled eyes seemed to be striving desperately in their fading vision to search his face. "Polly!" Mrs. Wickes whispered. "For—for for Christ's sake—be—be good to Polly—be good to—" The outstretched arm fell to the bed covering—and Mrs. Wickes lay still. Captain Francis Newcombe leaned forward, holding the candle, searching the form on the bed critically with his eyes. After a moment he straightened up. Mrs. Wickes was dead. Captain Francis Newcombe replaced the papers in the envelope, and placed the envelope in his pocket. He set the candle back on the chair, blew it out, and walked across the room to the door. "Gray, eh?" said Captain Francis Newcombe under his breath, as he closed the door behind him. "Polly Gray, eh? Well, it doesn't matter, does it? It's just as good an iron in the fire whether it's—Wickes or Gray!" <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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