Elk 04 White Face Page 4

  The doctor’s tired eyes surveyed him thoughtfully.

  “I suppose so. They’re all mysteries to me. I can’t remember their names. God, what names they’ve got! Like the patterns of a dull wallpaper—one running into the other. Jackson, Johnson, Thompson, Beckett, Dockett, Duckett, Roon, Doon, Boon…eh? And some without any names at all. I attended a young woman for three months—she was just ‘the young woman upstairs,’ or ‘Miss What’s-her-name.’ Her landlady didn’t know it. She was a waitress working nobody knew where. If she had died I couldn’t have certified her. I called her Miss Smith—had to put some sort of name on the books. What does Mrs. Weston do for a living?”

  Mr. Elk made a little grimace.

  “Well, you know, she’s…well, she goes West every night all dolled up.”

  The doctor nodded.

  “There are lots of ‘em—a whole colony. Why do they live in this hell shoot? I suppose it’s cheap. And their earnings are not what they were. One girl told me—but you can’t believe ‘em.”

  He sighed heavily and sighed again.

  “You can’t believe anybody.”

  Elk got up, drained his glass and reached for his hat.

  “She wanted to know if you were an easy man to get on with. I got an idea she’s a dope-getter. I don’t know why, but I’ve just got that idea. There was a doctor in Silvertown who made a fortune out of it: he spent over a thousand on his defence when I got him to the Old Bailey…”

  The doctor went out with him, and they arrived at the street door at an opportune moment.

  The earlier sound of the battle had come to them in a confused hubbub of sound as they passed through the disinfected passage. As Marford opened the door he saw two men fighting, surrounded by a crowd. It was a fair fight, both men being well matched in point of physique and equally drunk. But they were too close to the granite kerb of the sidewalk. One of the combatants went down suddenly, and the grey, dusty kerbstone went red.

  “Here—you!”

  Elk made a grab at the victor and swung him round. The policemen came running and plunged through the crowd.

  “Take this man.”

  Elk handed over his dazed prisoner and shouldered his way through the tightly packed knot of people that surrounded the man on the kerb.

  “Get him inside the doctor’s shop. Lift him…”

  They carried the limp thing into the surgery and Dr. Marford made a brief examination whilst Mr. Elk bustled the bearers into the street.

  “Well?” he asked when he came back. “Hospital case, isn’t it?”

  Marford was fixing an enormous pad of gauze and cottonwool to the head of the white-faced man.

  “Yes. Do you mind ringing the ambulance? Two shillings’ worth of surgical dressings and I don’t get a cent for it. You can’t sue their relations—they need the money for a swell funeral. Everybody has to go into black, and that costs money.”

  Elk screwed up his lips painfully.

  “Is he booked?” he asked, looking at the figure with the awed curiosity which the living have for the dead.

  “I should think so: compound fracture of the occiput. Get him to the London and they may do something. It costs me ten shillings a week just for surgical dressings. I’ll tell you something, and you can arrest me. If I get ‘em alone, I go through their pockets and take the cost of the dressing. But usually they’ve got some howling women with ‘em who won’t leave ‘em. ‘When pain and anguish wring the brow,’ eh?”

  The ambulance came noisily and the patient was taken away.

  It was an incident not worth remembering—except for two shillings’ worth of dressing that would never be liquidated.

  The doctor closed the door upon Mr. Elk, and went back to his books and his thoughts. Two inconvenient new lives were coming to Tidal Basin. The district nurses would call him in good time. Inconvenient…the children of an unemployable labourer and a father who was resting in one of His Majesty’s prisons.

  As to this Lorna Weston…

  He knew her, of course. She often passed the surgery on her way to the provisions store next door, and once or twice she had come in to see him. A pretty woman, though her mouth was a trifle hard and straight. He never confessed to Elk that he knew anybody. Elk was a detective and respected no confidences.

  There was a phone call from Elk. The fighter had died on admission to hospital. The doctor was not surprised. An inquest, of course.

  “We shall want you as a witness,” said Elk’s voice. “He’s a dock labourer from Poplar—a man named Stephens.”

  “How thrilling!” said the doctor, hung up the receiver and went back to his book—the intrigues of Louis’s court, the scheming Polignacs and the profitable machinations of Madame de Lamballe.

  He heard the shrill call of the door-bell, looked plaintively round, finally rose and went to the door. The night had come down blackly; the pavement outside was glistening: you do not hear the rain falling in the East End.

  “Are you Dr. Marford?”

  The woman who stood in the doorway exhaled the faint fragrance of some peculiarly delicate perfume. Her voice, thin for the moment with anxiety, had the quality of culture. She was a stranger; he had never heard that voice before.

  “Yes. Will you come in?”

  The surgery had no other light than the reading-lamp on the desk. He felt that she would have had it this way.

  She wore a leather motoring coat and a little tight-fitting hat. She unfastened the coat hurriedly as though she were hot or had some difficulty in breathing. Under the coat she wore a neat blue costume. From some vague clue, he thought she was American. A lady undoubtedly, having no association with Tidal Basin, unless she was a passenger on the Moroccan boat which sailed with the tide from Shrimp Wharf.

  “Is he—is he dead?” she asked jerkily, and in her dark eyes he read an unconquerable fear.

  “Is who dead?”

  He was puzzled; searched his mind rapidly for patients in extremis and could find none but old Sully, the marine store dealer, who had been dying for eighteen months.

  “The man—he was brought here…after the fight. A policeman told me.. they were fighting in the street and he was brought here.”

  She stood, her hands clasped, her thin body bent forward towards him, breathless.

  “A man?…Oh, yes; he’s dead, I’m afraid.”

  Dr. Marford was for the moment bewildered. How could she be interested in the fate of one Stephens, dock labourer, of Poplar?

  “Oh, my God!”

  She whispered the words, dropped for a second. Dr. Marford’s arm went round her and assisted her to a chair.

  “Oh, my God!” she said again and began to cry.

  He looked at her helplessly, not knowing for whom he could frame a defence—for the dead or the living.

  “It was a fair fight as far as one could see,” he said awkwardly. “The man fell…hit his head on the sharp edge of the kerb…”

  “I begged him not to go near him,” she said a little wildly. “I begged him! When he telephoned to say he was on his track and had traced him here…I came by cab…I implored him to come back.”

  All this and more came incoherently. Dr. Marford had to guess what she said. Some of the words were drowned in sobs. He went to his medicine shelf and took down a bottle labelled “Ap. Am. Arm.,” poured a little into a medicine glass and added water.

  “You drink this and tell me all about it,” he said authoritatively.

  She told him more than she would have told her confessor. Sorrow, remorse, the crushing tragedy of fear removed all inhibitions. The doctor listened, looking down at her, twiddling the stem of the medicine glass in his fingers.

  Presently he spoke.

  “This man Stephens was a dock labourer—a heavy fellow, six feet tall at least. A fair-haired man. The other man was a young fellow of twenty something. I only saw him for a second when he was in the hands of the police. He had a light, almost a white, moustache—”

  She
stared up at him.

  “Fair…a young man…”

  Dr. Marford held the glass out to her.

  “Drink this; you’re hysterical. I hate telling you so.”

  But she pushed the glass aside.

  “Stephens—are you sure? Two, well, two ordinary men?…”

  “Two labourers—both drunk. It’s not unusual in this neighbourhood. We have an average of two fights a night. On Saturday nights—six. It’s a dull place and they have to do something.”

  The colour was coming back to her face. She hesitated, reached for the glass, swallowed its contents and made a wry face.

  “Sal volatile…beastly!”

  She wiped her lips with a handkerchief she took from her bag and rose unsteadily to her feet.

  “I’m sorry, Doctor. I’ve been a nuisance. I suppose if I offered to pay you for your time you’d be offended.”

  “I charge ten cents for a consultation,” he said gravely, and she smiled.

  “How accommodating you are! You think I am American? I am, of course, though I’ve lived in England since—oh, for a long time. Thank you, Doctor. Have I talked a lot of nonsense, and, if I have, will you forget it?”

  Dr. Marford’s thin face was in the shadow: he was standing between her and the lamp.

  “I won’t promise that; but I will not repeat it,” he said.

  She did not give him her name: he was wholly incurious. When he offered to walk with her until she found a cab, she declined his escort. He stood in the drizzling rain and watched her out of sight.

  Police-Constable Hartford came from the direction she had taken and stopped to speak.

  “They say that Stephens is dead. Well, if they will drink, they must expect trouble. I’ve never regretted taking the pledge myself—I’ll be Chief Templar in our lodge this summer if Gawd spares me. I sent a young lady; she was makin’ inquiries about Stephens. I didn’t know he was gone or I’d have told her.”

  “Thank you, for not telling her,” said Marford.

  He was shy of P.C. Hartford, who was notoriously loquacious and charged with strange long words.

  He locked the door and went back to his book, but the corruptions and permutations of Madame de Lamballe interested him no more.

  Pulling up the surgery blind, he looked out into the deserted street. There was some sort of movement in progress under the shadow of the wall which encircles the premises of the Eastern Trading Company.

  He saw a man and a woman talking. There was light enough from the street standard to reveal this much. The man was in evening dress, which was curious. The white splash of his shirt front was plainly visible. Even waiters do not wear their uniform in Tidal Basin.

  Dr. Marford went out and opened the street door as the man and the woman walked in opposite directions. Then he saw the third of the trio. He was moving towards the man in evening dress, following him quickly. The doctor saw the first man stop and turn. There was an exchange of words and a scuffle. The man in dress clothes went down like a log, the second bent over him and went on quickly and disappeared under the railway arch which crosses Endley Street, opposite the Eastern Company’s main gateway.

  Dr. Marford watched, fascinated, was on the point of crossing to see what had happened to the inanimate heap on the pavement, when the man got up and lit a cigarette.

  The clock struck ten.

  CHAPTER VI

  Louis Landor looked down at the hateful thing he had struck to the earth. He lay very still and the hate in Landor’s heart was replaced by a sudden horror. He glanced across the road. Immediately opposite was a doctor’s surgery—a red light burned dimly from a bracket-lamp before the house to advertise the profession of its occupant. He saw the door was open and somebody was standing there. Should he go for help? The idea came and went. His own safety was in question. He hurried along in the shadow of the high wall and had reached the railway arch, when right ahead of him appeared the shadowy figure of a policeman, and the policeman was coming his way. He looked round for some way of escape. There were two great gates on his right and in one a small wicket door. In his panic he pushed the door and it yielded. By some miracle it had been left unfastened. In a second he was inside, felt for the bolt and pushed it home. The policeman passed without being conscious of his presence. P.C. Hartford was at that moment composing a little speech which he intended to deliver at the next lodge meeting, where matters of very considerable interest were to be discussed. His thoughts being so centred, it was not unlikely that he should miss seeing the fugitive.

  A certain Harry Lamborn, who was by trade a general larcenist, and who at that moment was standing in the shelter of a deeply-recessed door on the opposite side of the road, had less excuse, except that his eye was on the approaching copper and that he had little interest in ordinary civilians. That night he had certain plans connected with No. 7 warehouse of the Eastern Trading Company, and he was waiting for P.C. Hartford to reach the end of his beat and return before he put them into operation.

  He watched the constable’s leisurely stride, drew back still farther into the recess which afforded him freedom from observation and protection from the falling rain, and transferred a collapsible jemmy from one pocket to another for greater comfort.

  Hartford could not help seeing the man in evening dress. He stood squarely in the middle of the sidewalk, wiping the mud from his black overcoat. Instantly Hartford descended from the dais of Vice-Templar and became a human police constable.

  “Had a fall, sir?” he asked cheerfully.

  The man turned a good-looking face to the officer and smiled. Yet he was not wholly amused, for his hands were trembling violently and the whiteness of his lips was in odd contrast to his sunburnt face. And when he spoke he was so breathless that the words came in gasps. Rain had been falling; there was a brown, muddy patch on his overcoat. He looked backward, the way he had come, and seemed relieved when he saw nobody.

  “Have I had a fall?” he repeated. “Well, I think I have.”

  He looked past the constable. “Did you see the man?”

  Police-Constable Hartford looked back along the deserted stretch of pavement.

  “Which man?” he asked, and the other seemed surprised.

  “He went your way; he must have passed you.”

  Hartford shook his head.

  “No, sir, nobody’s passed me.”

  The white-lipped man was sceptical.

  “Did he do anything?” asked Hartford.

  “Did he do anything?” The stranger had a trick of repeating questions and tinging them with contempt. “He punched me in the jaw, if that’s anything. I played possum.” His face twisted in a smile. “Scared him—I hope.”

  He gave a certain emphasis to the last words. Police-Constable Hartford surveyed him with greater interest.

  “Would you like to charge the man?” he asked.

  The other was fixing his white silk neck-cloth and shook his head.

  “Do you think you could find him if I charged him?” he asked sarcastically. “No; let him go.”

  “A stranger to you, sir?”

  P.C. Hartford had not handled a case for a month and was loath to let his fingers slide off the smooth edge of this.

  “No; I know him.”

  “There’s a bad crowd about here,” began Hartford. “A drunken, dissipated—”

  “I know him, I tell you.” The stranger was impatient.

  He dived his hand into an inside pocket, took out a silver case and opened it. P.C. Hartford stood by while the man lit his cigarette, and noticed that the hand which held the patent lighter was shaking.

  “Here’s a drink for you.”

  Hartford bridled, and waved aside the proffered coin.

  “I neither touch, taste nor ‘andle,” he said virtuously, and stood ready to pass on his majestic way.

  The stranger unbuttoned his coat and felt in his waistcoat pocket.

  “Lost anything?”

  “Nothing,” said the other with
satisfaction.

  He blew a cloud of smoke, nodded, and they separated.

  The man in evening dress came slowly to where a granite-paved roadway bisected the path before the gates of the Eastern Trading Company. The thief in the covered doorway saw him take his cigarette from his mouth, drop it on the pavement and put his foot upon it. And then, suddenly and without warning, he saw the white-faced man stagger; his knees gave from under him and he went down with a crash to the sidewalk.

  Lamborn was an opportunist—saw here a gift from heaven in the shape of a drunken swell; looked left and right, and crossed the road with stealthy footsteps. He did not see Hartford moving towards him in the shadow of the wall. Lamborn flicked open the coat of the stricken man, dived in his hand and found a note-case. His fingers hooked to a watchguard; he pulled both out with a simultaneous jerk and then saw the running policeman. To be arrested on suspicion is one thing; to be found in possession of stolen property is another. Lamborn’s hand jerked up to the high wall which surrounded the company’s yard, and he turned to fly. Half a dozen paces he took, and then the hand of the law fell on him, and the familiar “Here, you!” came hatefully to his ears. He struggled impotently. Mr. Lamborn had never learned the first lesson of criminality, which is to go quietly.

  Hartford thrust him against the wall, and then saw somebody crossing the road, and remembered the man lying under the lamp-post as he recognised the figure.

  “Doctor—that gentleman’s hurt. Will you have a look at him?”

  Dr. Marford had seen the stranger fall and stooped gingerly by his side.

  “Keep quiet, will yer?” said Hartford indignantly to his struggling prisoner.

  His whistle sounded shrilly in the night. There were moments when even Lamborn grew intelligent.

  “All right, it’s a cop.” he said sullenly, and ceased to struggle.

  It was at that moment that the policeman heard an exclamation from the stooping, peering doctor.

  “Constable—this man is dead—stabbed!”

  He held up his hands for the policeman’s inspection. In the light of the standard Hartford saw they were red with blood.

  Elk, who was at the end of the street keeping a spieling house under observation, heard the whistle and came flying towards the sound. Every kennel in Tidal Basin heard it and was drawn. Men and women forfeited their night’s rest rather than lose the thrill of experience; when they heard it was no less than murder they purred gratefully that their enterprise was rewarded. They came trickling out like rats from their burrows. There was a crowd almost before the uniformed police arrived to control it.