"I suppose it wouldn"t do to go on board and carry off the lady?"
Racksole suggested doubtfully.
"Well," Hazell began, with equal doubtfulness, "as for that--"
"Where"s "e orf?" It was the man in the bows who interrupted Hazell.
Following the direction of the man"s finger, both Hazell and Racksole saw with more or less distinctness a dinghy slip away from the forefoot of the Norwegian vessel and disappear downstream into the mist.
"It"s Jules, I"ll swear," cried Racksole. "After him, men. Ten pounds apiece if we overtake him!"
"Lay down to it now, boys!" said Hazell, and the heavy Customs boat shot out in pursuit.
"This is going to be a lark," Racksole remarked.
"Depends on what you call a lark," said Hazell; "it"s not much of a lark tearing down midstream like this in a fog. You never know when you mayn"t be in kingdom come with all these barges knocking around. I expect that chap hid in the dinghy when he first caught sight of us, and then slipped his painter as soon as I"d gone."
The boat was moving at a rapid pace with the tide. Steering was a matter of luck and instinct more than anything else. Every now and then Hazell, who held the lines, was obliged to jerk the boat"s head sharply round to avoid a barge or an anch.o.r.ed vessel. It seemed to Racksole that vessels were anch.o.r.ed all over the stream. He looked about him anxiously, but for a long time he could see nothing but mist and vague nautical forms.
Then suddenly he said, quietly enough, "We"re on the right road; I can see him ahead.
We"re gaining on him." In another minute the dinghy was plainly visible, not twenty yards away, and the sculler--sculling frantically now--was unmistakably Jules--Jules in a light tweed suit and a bowler hat.
"You were right," Hazell said; "this is a lark. I believe I"m getting quite excited. It"s more exciting than playing the trombone in an orchestra. I"ll run him down, eh?--and then we can drag the chap in from the water."
Racksole nodded, but at that moment a barge, with her red sails set, stood out of the fog clean across the bows of the Customs boat, which narrowly escaped instant destruction. When they got clear, and the usual interchange of calm, nonchalant swearing was over, the dinghy was barely to be discerned in the mist, and the fat man was breathing in such a manner that his sighs might almost have been heard on the banks.
Racksole wanted violently to do something, but there was nothing to do; he could only sit supine by Hazell"s side in the stern-sheets. Gradually they began again to overtake the dinghy, whose one-man crew was evidently tiring. As they came up, hand over fist, the dinghy"s nose swerved aside, and the tiny craft pa.s.sed down a water-lane between two anch.o.r.ed mineral barges, which lay black and deserted about fifty yards from the Surrey sh.o.r.e. "To starboard," said Racksole. "No, man!"
Hazell replied; "we can"t get through there. He"s bound to come out below; it"s only a feint. I"ll keep our nose straight ahead."
And they went on, the fat man pounding away, with a face which glistened even in the thick gloom. It was an empty dinghy which emerged from between the two barges and went drifting and revolving down towards Greenwich.
The fat man gasped a word to his comrade, and the Customs boat stopped dead.
""E"s all right," said the man in the bows. "If it"s "im you want, "e"s on one o" them barges, so you"ve only got to step on and take "im orf."
"That"s all," said a voice out of the depths of the nearest barge, and it was the voice of Jules, otherwise known as Mr Tom Jackson.
""Ear "im?" said the fat man smiling. ""E"s a good "un, "e is. But if I was you, Mr Hazell, or you, sir, I shouldn"t step on to that barge so quick as all that."
They backed the boat under the stem of the nearest barge and gazed upwards.
"It"s all right," said Racksole to Hazell; "I"ve got a revolver. How can I clamber up there?"
"Yes, I dare say you"ve got a revolver all right," Hazell replied sharply.
"But you mustn"t use it. There mustn"t be any noise. We should have the river police down on us in a twinkling if there was a revolver shot, and it would be the ruin of me. If an inquiry was held the Commissioners wouldn"t take any official notice of the fact that my superior officer had put me on to this job, and I should be requested to leave the service."
"Have no fear on that score," said Racksole. "I shall, of course, take all responsibility."
"It wouldn"t matter how much responsibility you took," Hazell retorted; "you wouldn"t put me back into the service, and my career would be at an end."
"But there are other careers," said Racksole, who was really anxious to lame his ex-waiter by means of a judiciously-aimed bullet. "There are other careers."
"The Customs is my career," said Hazell, "so let"s have no shooting.
We"ll wait about a bit; he can"t escape. You can have my skewer if you like"--and he gave Racksole his searching instrument. "And you can do what you please, provided you do it neatly and don"t make a row over it."
For a few moments the four men were pa.s.sive in the boat, surrounded by swirling mist, with black water beneath them, and towering above them a half-loaded barge with a desperate and resourceful man on board.
Suddenly the mist parted and shrivelled away in patches, as though before the breath of some monster. The sky was visible; it was a clear sky, and the moon was shining. The transformation was just one of those meteorological quick-changes which happen most frequently on a great river.
"That"s a sight better," said the fat man. At the same moment a head appeared over the edge of the barge. It was Jules" face--dark, sinister and leering.
"Is it Mr Racksole in that boat?" he inquired calmly; "because if so, let Mr Racksole step up. Mr Racksole has caught me, and he can have me for the asking. Here I am." He stood up to his full height on the barge, tall against the night sky, and all the occupants of the boat could see that he held firmly clasped in his right hand a short dagger. "Now, Mr Racksole, you"ve been after me for a long time," he continued; "here I am. Why don"t you step up? If you haven"t got the pluck yourself, persuade someone else to step up in your place ... the same fair treatment will be accorded to all." And Jules laughed a low, penetrating laugh.
He was in the midst of this laugh when he lurched suddenly forward.
"What"r" you doing of aboard my barge? Off you goes!" It was a boy"s small shrill voice that sounded in the night. A ragged boy"s small form had appeared silently behind Jules, and two small arms with a vicious shove precipitated him into the water. He fell with a fine gurgling splash. It was at once obvious that swimming was not among Jules"
accomplishments. He floundered wildly and sank. When he reappeared he was dragged into the Customs boat. Rope was produced, and in a minute or two the man lay ignominiously bound in the bottom of the boat. With the aid of a mudlark--a mere barge boy, who probably had no more right on the barge than Jules himself--Racksole had won his game. For the first time for several weeks the millionaire experienced a sensation of equanimity and satisfaction. He leaned over the prostrate form of Jules, Hazell"s professional skewer in his hand.
"What are you going to do with him now?" asked Hazell.
"We"ll row up to the landing steps in front of the Grand Babylon. He shall be well lodged at my hotel, I promise him."
Jules spoke no word.
Before Racksole parted company with the Customs man that night Jules had been safely transported into the Grand Babylon Hotel and the two watermen had received their 10 apiece.
"You will sleep here?" said the millionaire to Mr George Hazell. "It is late."
"With pleasure," said Hazell. The next morning he found a sumptuous breakfast awaiting him, and in his table-napkin was a Bank of England note for a hundred pounds. But, though he did not hear of them till much later, many things had happened before Hazell consumed that sumptuous breakfast.
Chapter Twenty-Seven THE CONFESSION OF MR TOM JACKSON
IT happened that the small bedroom occupied by Jules during the years he was head-waiter at the Grand Babylon had remained empty since his sudden dismissal by Theodore Racksole. No other head-waiter had been formally appointed in his place; and, indeed, the absence of one man--even the unique Jules--could scarcely have been noticed in the enormous staff of a place like the Grand Babylon. The functions of a head-waiter are generally more ornamental, spectacular, and morally impressive than useful, and it was so at the great hotel on the Embankment. Racksole accordingly had the excellent idea of transporting his prisoner, with as much secrecy as possible, to this empty bedroom. There proved to be no difficulty in doing so; Jules showed himself perfectly amenable to a show of superior force.
Racksole took upstairs with him an old commissionaire who had been attached to the outdoor service of the hotel for many years--a grey- haired man, wiry as a terrier and strong as a mastiff. Entering the bedroom with Jules, whose hands were bound, he told the commissionaire to remain outside the door.
Jules" bedroom was quite an ordinary apartment, though perhaps slightly superior to the usual accommodation provided for servants in the caravanserais of the West End. It was about fourteen by twelve. It was furnished with a bedstead, a small wardrobe, a--mall washstand and dressing-table, and two chairs. There were two hooks behind the door, a strip of carpet by the bed, and some cheap ornaments on the iron mantelpiece. There was also one electric light. The window was a little square one, high up from the floor, and it looked on the inner quadrangle.
The room was on the top storey--the eighth--and from it you had a view sheer to the ground. Twenty feet below ran a narrow cornice about a foot wide; three feet or so above the window another and wider cornice jutted out, and above that was the high steep roof of the hotel, though you could not see it from the window. As Racksole examined the window and the outlook, he said to himself that Jules could not escape by that exit, at any rate. He gave a glance up the chimney, and saw that the flue was far too small to admit a man"s body.
Then he called in the commissionaire, and together they bound Jules firmly to the bedstead, allowing him, however, to lie down. All the while the captive never opened his mouth--merely smiled a smile of disdain. Finally Racksole removed the ornaments, the carpet, the chairs and the hooks, and wrenched away the switch of the electric light. Then he and the commissionaire left the room, and Racksole locked the door on the outside and put the key in his pocket.
"You will keep watch here," he said to the commissionaire, "through the night. You can sit on this chair. Don"t go to sleep. If you hear the slightest noise in the room blow your cab-whistle; I will arrange to answer the signal. If there is no noise do nothing whatever. I don"t want this talked about, you understand. I shall trust you; you can trust me."
"But the servants will see me here when they get up to-morrow," said the commissionaire, with a faint smile, "and they will be pretty certain to ask what I"m doing of up here. What shall I say to "em?"