Miracle Gold: A Novel (Vol. 2 of 3)
"It may be, or it may be an alligator, or a bird-show, or anything else you like to call it," said Timmons in exasperation. "But you were saying you had a message from Birmingham since I saw you."
"I had not only a message, but several messages. I went straight from your emporium to King's Cross, so as to be near Birmingham and save delay in wiring. I know where I can usually get a clear wire there-a great thing when one is in a hurry-the mere signalling of the message is, as you know, instantaneous."
"Ay," said Timmons scornfully, with an impatient serpentine movement running up his body and almost shaking his head off its long, stalk-like neck. "Well, is the fool off the job?" asked he coarsely, savagely, in slang, with a view to showing how cheap he held such unprincipled circumlocution.
The dwarf stopped and looked up with blank amazement on his face and an ugly flash in his eyes. "Is what fool off the job, Mr. Timmons? Am I to understand that you are tired of these delays?"
Timmons snorted in disdainful rage. The implication that he was the only fool connected with the matter lay in the tone rather than the words, but it was unmistakable. The dwarf meant to insult him grossly, and he could not strike him, for it would be unmanly to hit such a creature, and he could not strangle him, for there were people about the street. By a prodigious effort he swallowed down his rage, spread his long thin legs out wide, as if to prevent the flight of Leigh, and said in a hoarse, threatening, sepulchral voice: "Look here, Mr. Leigh. I've come on business. What have you to say to me? I have twenty-six ounces that will average fifteen carats. Are you going to act square and stump up?"
"Hah! I see," said Leigh, smiling blandly, as though rejoicing on dismissing the injurious suspicion that Timmons wanted to back out of the bargain. "I own I am relieved. The fact, my dear sir, is, that on leaving you I telegraphed to my correspondent in Birmingham for-"
"No more gammon," said the other, menacingly. They were in front of a church, of the church whose clock they had heard strike midnight before they left Leigh's doorstep. Here there was a quiet space suited to their talk. The church and churchyard interrupted the line of houses, and fewer people passed on that side of the way than on the other. There were no shops in this street. Still it was lightsome, and never quite free from the sound of footsteps or the presence of some one at a distance. Stamer had hinted that Leigh might try to murder Timmons for plunder, and now Timmons was almost in the humour to murder Leigh for rage.
Leigh made a gesture of gracious deprecation with his left hand and bowed. "This, Mr. Timmons, is a matter of business, and I never allow anything so odious as fiction to touch even the robe of sacred business." He lifted his hat, raised his eyes to the top of the spire of the church and then bowed low his uncovered head. "For, Mr. Timmons, business is the deity every one of our fellow-countrymen worship."
"What are you going to do; that's what I want to know?" said the other fiercely.
"Precisely. Well, sir, I shall tell you my position in two words. I suspect my Birmingham correspondent." Leigh threw back his head and smiled engagingly, as though he had ended an amusing anecdote.
"By – , you don't say that?" cried Timmons, fairly startled and drawing back a pace.
"I do."
"What does he know?"
"About what, my dear sir? What does he know about what? Are you curious to learn his educational equipments? Surely you cannot be curious on such a point?" He looked troubled because of Timmons's idle curiosity.
"Don't let us have any more rot. You say you suspect this man?"
"I do."
"What does he know of the stuff?"
"Of the stuff, as you call it, he knows from me absolutely nothing."
"How can you suspect him if he doesn't know? How can he peach if you haven't let him into the secret?"
"I didn't say I suspected him of betraying the secret of my manufacture."
"Then what do you suspect him of-speak plain?" Timmons's voice and manner were heavy with threat.
"Of something much worse than treachery."
"There is nothing worse than treachery in our business."
"I suspect this man of something that is worse than treachery in any business."
"It has no name?"
"It has a name. I suspect this man of not having much money."
"Ah!"
"Is not that bad? Is not that worse than treachery?"
Timmons did not heed these questions. They were too abstract for his mind.
"And you think this villain might cheat, might swindle us after all our trouble?"
"I think this villain capable of trying to get the best of us, in the way of not paying promptly or the full price agreed upon, or perhaps not being able to pay at all."
"And, Mr. Leigh, when did you begin to suspect this unprincipled scoundrel?" Timmons's language was losing the horrible element of slang as the virtuous side of his nature began to assert itself.
"Only to-day; only since I saw you in Tunbridge Street."
"Mr. Leigh, I hope, sir, you'll forgive my hot words of a while ago. I know I have a bad temper. I humbly ask your pardon, Mr. Leigh." Timmons was quite humble now.
"Certainly, freely. We are to work, as you suggested, on the co-operative principle. If through my haste or inefficiency the money had been lost, we should all be the poorer."
"I have advanced about twenty pounds of my own money on the bit I have on me. My own money, without allowing anything for work and labour done in the way of melting down, or for anxiety of mind, or for profit. If that little bit of yellow stuff could keep me awake of nights, I often wonder how the people that own the Bank of England can sleep at all."
"They hire a guard of soldiers to sleep for them in the Bank every night."
"Eh, sir?"
"Hah! Nothing. Now you understand why I did not ask you into my place and take the alloy. We must wait a little yet. We must wait until I can light upon an honest man to work up the result of our great chemical discovery. I hope by this day week to be able to give you good and final news. In the meantime the ore is safe with you."
"I'm sure I'm truly grateful to you, sir."
"What greater delight can a person have than helping an honest man to protect himself against business wretches who are little better than thieves?"
"Eh?"
"Hah! Nothing. Give me a week. This day week at the same hour and at the same place."
"Very good. I shall be there."
An empty hansom was passing. Leigh whistled and held up his hand to the driver.
Suddenly both he and Timmons started, a long clang came from the other side of the railings.
"'Tisn't the last Trumpet for the tenants of these holdings," said Leigh, pointing his long, skinny, yellow, hairy hand at the graves. "It's the clock striking the quarter-past twelve. Good-night."
"Good-night," said Timmons, in a tone of reserve and suspicion. He was far from clear as to what he thought of the little man now bowling along down the road in the hansom.
Yes, this man was quite beyond him. Whether the whole thing was a solemn farce or not he could not determine. This man talked fifty to the dozen, at least fifty to the dozen.
Timmons touched his belt. Ay, the gold was there sure enough. That was a consolation anyway, but-
He shook his head, and set out to walk the whole way back to the dim, dingy street off the Borough Road, where he had a bed-room in which he spent no part of his time but the hours of sleep.
CHAPTER XXIII
AN EARLY VISITOR TO TIMMONS
Men in Mr. Timmons's business never look fresher at one period of the day than another. They seem no brighter for sleep, and, to judge by their appearance, either soap and water has no effect on them, or they seek no effect of soap and water. Lawyers put aside their wigs and gowns, and professors their gowns and mortar-boards, and butchers their aprons, and cooks their caps, before they leave the scene of their labours, but dealers in marine-stores never lay aside their grime. They cannot. The signs and tokens of their calling are ground into their flesh, and would resist any attempt at removal. Mr. Timmons was no exception to his class. On Thursday morning he was in every outward seeming the same as on Wednesday night. He was the same as on all other mornings, except that he came a little earlier than usual to his place in Tunbridge Street. He had private business to transact before throwing open the front of his store to the eyes of the few stragglers who passed through that gloomy haunt of discarded and disabled vehicles of the humbler kind.
He went in through the wicket, locked the wicket after him, and without loss of time dug up the old canvas-bag from under the sand, rolled up the chamois belt, and, having placed the belt in the bag, re-buried the latter in its old hiding place. Then he rose and stretched himself and yawned, more like a man whose day's work was over than about to begin.
He sat down on the old fire-grate where Mrs. Stamer had rested the night before, yawned again, leaned his head against the wall and fell fast asleep. The fact is he had slept little or nothing the night before. Oscar Leigh's strange conduct had set him thinking and fearing, and the knowledge that for the first time his chamois-belt was away from its home made him restless and kept him awake.
John Timmons had no regular time for throwing his bazaar open to the public. The shutters were never taken down before eight o'clock and never remained up after ten. He had come that morning at seven, and sat down to rest and doze before eight. At a little after nine he jumped up with a start and looked round with terror. A knock on the outside of the shutters had aroused him. He had often been at the store as early as seven, but never until now had he heard a demand for admittance at so early an hour. Could it be he had slept long into the day, or were the police after him?
He looked round hastily, wildly, out of his pale blue eyes. He threw up his arms on high, and shook them, indicating that all was lost. Then he composed himself, pulled his hat straight over his forehead, drew down his waistcoat and coat-sleeves, arranged his blue tie, and clearing his throat with a deep loud sound, stepped quickly to the wicket, where for a moment he moved his feet rapidly about to give the newly-levelled sand an appearance of ordinary use.
With great noise and indications of effort he unlocked the door and opened it.
A low-sized man, with grizzled hair and mutton-chop whiskers and blue spectacles, dressed in seedy black, and looking like a schoolmaster broken in health and purse, stood in the doorway.
Timmons stared at the man in amazement first, anger next, and lastly rage.
"Well?" he bellowed fiercely; "who are you? What do you want?"
The man did not speak. He coolly stepped over the bar of the wicket and stood close to Timmons in the dimly-lighted store.
The dealer was staggered. Was this a policeman come to arrest him? If he was, and if he had come alone, so much the worse for him!
Timmons put his hand on the man's shoulder, drew the man quickly clear of the wicket, shut the door and locked it. Then turning menacingly on the intruder, who had taken a couple of paces into the store, he said ferociously, "Now, sir! What is it?"
Quick as lightning the man drew a revolver from his waist-band under his coat and presented it at Timmons's head.
The latter fell back against the shutters with an oath and a shout of dismay.
Swift as thought the man dropped the weapon and thrust it back into its place in his waist-band under his coat, saying as he did so:
"You always said you should know me if I was boiled. What do you say now?"
"Stamer!" yelled Timmons, with another oath.
The other laughed. "And not even boiled either."
"By – , I'll have it out of you for this trick yet," said Timmons in a whisper. "What a fright you gave me! and what a shout I made! Someone may have heard me. You should not play such tricks as that, Stamer. It's no joke. I thought you were a copper." And he began walking up and down rapidly to calm himself.
"If you'll excuse me, Mr. Timmons," said the man, humbly and with an apologetic cough, "but I think your nerves want looking after."
"You scoundrel!"
"They do indeed, sir; you ought to get your doctor to put them right."
"You cursed blackguard!" hissed Timmons as he strode up and down the dark store, wiping the sweat off his streaked forehead with the ball of his hand.
"In an anxious business like ours, sir, a man can't be too careful. That's my reason again' the drink. Attendin' them temperance meetin's has done me a deal of good. I never get flustered now, Mr. Timmons, since I gave up the drink. I know, sir, you're next door to a teetotaller. It may be too much studyin', sir, with you. I have heard, sir, that too much studyin' on the brain and such like is worse than gin. If you could get away to the sea-side for a bit, sir, I'm certain 'twould do you a deal of good. You know I speak for your good, Mr. Timmons."
"You fool, hold your tongue! First I took you for a policeman-"
"I haven't come to that yet, sir," said the man in a tone of injury, and raising his shoulders to his ears as if to protect them from the pollution of hearing the word.
"And then I took you for a thief."
"Mr. Timmons!" cried the man pathetically. "Couldn't you see who I was? I never came here on business, sir. I came for the pleasure of seeing you, and to try if you would do a favour for me."
"Hold your tongue!" cried Timmons. "Hold your tongue, you fool."
The man said no more, but leaning his back against the wall, looked up blankly at the unceiled rafters and boards of the floor above.
The manner of Mr. John Timmons gradually became less volcanic. He arranged his necktie and thrust his hands deep into his trousers' pockets instead of swinging them round him, or running his fingers through his grizzled hair and whiskers. Suddenly he stopped before his visitor, and said grimly in a low voice, "Stamer, aren't you surprised you are alive?"
Stamer stood up on his feet away from the wall and said in a tone of expostulation, "Now, Mr. Timmons, it isn't so bad as that with me yet. I may have let one or two people see the barrel, you know, just to help business; but I never pulled trigger yet, sir. Indeed, I didn't."
"I mean, you fool, aren't you surprised I didn't kill you?" he asked heavily.
"You kill me, sir! For what?" cried the man in astonishment.
"For coming here at this time of the morning in the disgraceful state you are now in," he said, pointing scornfully at the other.
"Disgraceful state, Mr. Timmons, sir! You don't mean to say you think I'm in liquor?" said Stamer in an injured tone.
"In liquor, no. But worse. You are in masquerade, sir. In masquerade."
"Indeed, I'm not, sir. Why, I couldn't be! I don't even as much as know what it is."
"I mean, sir (and you know very well what I mean), that you are not here in your own clothes. What do you mean in coming here with your tomfoolery?" said Timmons severely. He was now quite recovered from his fright, and wanted to say nothing of his recent abject condition. The best way of taking a man's mind off you is to make an attack on him.
"Not in my own clothes! I hope you don't think I'm such a born loony as to walk about the streets in togs that I came by in the course of business. If you think that of me, sir, you put me down very low. I'm a general hand, as you ought to know, sir, and when there isn't anything to be done in the crib line, I'm not above turning my hand to anything that may be handy, such as tickers in a crowd. I use the duds I have on when I go to hear about the African Blacks. I change about, asking questions for information, and writin' down all the gentlemen tell me in my note-book, and I wind up my questions by asking not what o'clock it is, which would be suspicious, but how long the meeting will last, and no man, sir, that I ever saw can answer that question without hauling out his ticker, and then I can see whether it is all right, or pewter, or a Waterbury. Mr. Timmons, Waterburys is growing that common that men who have to make a living are starving. It's a downright shame and imposition for respectable English gentlemen to give their time to tryin' to improve the condition of the African Black, and do nothing to encourage the English watch-maker. What's to become of the English watch-maker, Mr. Timmons? I feel for him, sir!"
"You have a great deal too much talk for a man in your position. Why did you come here at this hour and in this outlandish get-up?"
"Well, sir," said Stamer, answering the latter question first, "you see I was here yesterday in fustian, and I didn't like to come here to-day in the same rags. It might look suspicious, for a man in my line can't be too careful. Of course, Mr. Timmons, you and I know, sir, that I come here on the square; but bad-minded people are horrid suspicious, and sometimes them new hands in the coppers make the cruellest and most unjust mistakes, sir. So I hope you'll forgive me coming here as an honest man. It won't occur again, sir. Indeed it won't."
"You have a great deal too much talk for a man in your position," repeated Timmons, who by this time had regained his ordinary composure. "You know I treat you as men in your position are never treated by men in mine. I not only give you a fair price for your goods, but now, when the chance comes, I am going to admit you to the advantages of the co-operative system."
"It's very, very kind of you, sir, and I'm truly thankful, sir; and I need only say that, barring thick and thin uns, I bring you everything, notes included, that come my way. The thick and thin uns, sir, are the only perquisites of the business I look for."
"Stamer, hold your tongue. Tell me in two words, what brought you here?"
"Well, sir, I was anxious to know how you got on last night? You know how anxious I was about you, because of your carrying so much stuff with you down a bad locality like Chelsea. I know you got there safe. I hope you'll excuse me, Mr. Timmons, for the liberty I took, but I thought two of us would be safer than one."
"You know I got there! Two of us safer than one! What do you mean? You are full of talk and can't talk straight. Out with it, man! Out with it!" cried Timmons, shaking his fist in Stamer's face.
"I took the liberty of followin' you, sir, at a respectful distance and I saw you safe to Mr. Leigh's door-"
"You infernal, prying ruffian-"
"No, sir. I was not curious. I was only uneasy about you, and I only saw you at his door all right; then I knew I could be of no more use, for, of course, you'd leave the stuff with him, and if anyone got wind of it there would be no use in followin' you after, and I could do nothing while you was in the house."
"Ah!" cried Timmons sharply, as though Stamer had convicted himself of lying. "If you came away when you saw me go into the house how did you find out the man's name? I never told you. That's one question I want to ask you; now here's another. What o'clock was it when you saw me go into the house?"
"Twelve to the minute."
"How do you know? Had you a red herring in your pocket? Eh?" asked Timmons derisively, shaking his forefinger in Stamer's face.
"I heard the clock, a church clock strike."
Timmons paused and drew back. He recollected his holding up his hand to Leigh, as the latter opened the door, and drawing attention to his own punctuality.
"But then what did you mean by going peeping and prying about there. Did you think I was deceiving you?" The dealer scowled at his visitor as he put the question.
Stamer made a gesture of humility and protest:
"Oh, no, sir! It was this way. When I saw you safe into the house-"
"Oh-ha-ha-ha! So you saw me safe into the house, did you? Ha-ha-ha-ho-ho-ho!" laughed Timmons in an appallingly deep voice.
"Well, no," answered Stamer in mild protest. "I didn't exactly see you go into the house. You know, for the moment I forgot I had these duds on, and I thought you might turn round and look back and see me and be wild with me for followin' you, so the minute you stopped at the door and knocked I slipped into a public that's at the corner, to be out of sight in case you should turn around, as most people do, to have a good look before going into a strange house-anyway I always do-"
"Very likely. Very likely you do have a good look round both before and after too. Well, and when you got into the public-house-although you're not on the drink-you began making your inquiries, I dare say?" said Timmons in withering reproach. "Or, may be you didn't bother to ask questions, but told all you knew right off to the potman or the barmaid. Eh?"
"Mr. Timmons, you're too hard," said Stamer in an injured tone, and with a touch of outraged dignity. "If you don't want to hear what happened, or won't believe what I say, I'll stop."
"Well, go on, but don't take all day."
"There isn't much to tell. I got into the private bar at the end of a passage and, just as I got in, the landlord was sayin' how Mr. Leigh, the little gentleman over the way, with the hump on him, had been in that day, and had told him wonderful things he was going to do with the skeleton of Moses, or somethin' of that kind, which had been found at the bottom of the Nile, or somewhere. This mention of a little man with a hump made me take an interest, for I remembered what you told me last evenin'. And, as the landlord was talking quite free and open for all to hear, I asked for a tuppenny smoke and a small lemon-for I'm off the drink-"
"Go on, or you'll drive me to it," said Timmons impatiently.
"I couldn't understand what the landlord was sayin' about the Prince being as dry as snuff, but anyway, after a minute he said: 'There he is, winding up his wonderful clock,' and all the men in the bar looked up, and I did too, and there was the little man with the hump on his back pulling at something back and forward like the rods in a railway signal-box."
"You saw him?"
"Yes, and all the men in the bar saw him."
"How many men were there in the private bar?"
"Half-a-dozen or eight."
"You were drunk last night, Stamer."
"I was as sober as I am now."
"What o'clock was it then?"
"Well, I cannot say exactly, between twelve and half-past."
"How long did you stay in that public-house?"
"Until closing time."
"And how soon after you went in did you see the little man working the handle, or whatever it was?"
"A minute after I went in. As I went in the landlord was speakin', and before he finished what he had to say he pointed, and I looked up and saw Mr. Leigh."
"The next time you dog me, and tell a lie to get out of blame, tell a good lie."
"Mr. Timmons, what I tell you is as true as that there's daylight at noon."
"Tell a better lie next time, Stamer," said Timmons, shaking his minatory finger at the other.
"Strike me dead if it isn't true."
"Why, the man, Mr. Leigh, did not go back into the house at all last night. He and I went for a walk, and were more than half-a-mile away when a quarter past twelve struck."
"Has your Mr. Leigh a twin brother?"
"Pooh! as though a twin brother would have a hump! Stamer, I don't know what your object is, but you are lying to me."
"Then the man's neighbours does not know him. All the men in the bar, except two or three, knew the hump-backed Leigh, and they saw the man's face plain enough, for at twenty minutes past twelve by the clock in the bar he stopped working at the handle and turned round and nodded to the landlord, who nodded back and waved his hand and said, 'There he his a noddin' at me now.' The publican is a chatty man. And then Mr. Leigh nodded back again, and after that turned round and went on working at the handle again."
"I tell you, at a quarter past twelve last night, I was standing under the church clock you heard, talking to Mr. Leigh, and as they keep all public-house clocks five minutes fast, that's the time you say you saw him. I never found you out in a lie to me, Stamer. I'll tell you what happened. You got beastly drunk and dreamed the whole thing."
"What, got drunk in half-an-hour? 'Tain't in the power of liquor to do it. Mr. Timmons, I swear to you I had nothing to drink all yesterday but that small lemon. I swear it to you, so help me-, and I swear to you, so help me, that all I say is true, and that all I say I saw I saw with my eyes, as I see you now, with my wakin' eyes and in my sober senses. If you won't take my word for it, go down to Chelsea and ask the landlord of the Hanover-that's the name of the house I was in."
