A Breaker of Laws/Chapter 7

by W. Pett Ridge

 

CHAPTER VII

As a result of William Finnis's accident and of his temporary residence in the Miller Hospital, Alfred found himself visited by no one for the space of nearly a month. This time had specks of relief in weekly trips to Greenwich, but at Holloway days gray and monotonous went slowly, with food that in his case (for the sufficient reason that he had little money) received no embellishments from the dining-rooms outside the gates. Others of the 'remands' were able to exist comfortably in private rooms, which were also cells, with another 'remand' to do the cleaning. A City man detained on account of misappropriation of funds (this seemed to the rest in Holloway quite a gentlemanly sort of crime) lived in such excellent style that the envy of many was excited, until the news came that he had been sentenced at the Old Bailey to five years' exclusion from the world, whereupon opinion changed, and confirmed wrong-doers said to themselves that it were better to have an innocent heart and suet-pudding than appetizing food from the dining-rooms and a head full of ingenious wickedness.

Alfred felt relieved to find that Caroline neither visited him at Holloway, nor, so far as he could see, made one of the audience at the police-court; he feared to see in her eyes any suspicion of guilt, and this was the only thing that he did fear. In regard to William Finnis the case appeared different, and awake at night on the mattressed plank in his cell he told the whitewashed brick walls exactly what he thought of Finnis's conduct. For the rest he became slightly amused in observing the increased distress of Mr. Dowton and his colleagues at the failure of their endeavours to make a case for committal against him. On the last hearing Alfred had addressed an appeal to the magistrate, and the magistrate had replied that stronger evidence must certainly be forthcoming at the next appearance.

Glancing round on that occasion, he caught sight of one or two of his fellow-workmen, now wearing a more sympathetic look on their faces, and this gave him content; the occurrence that really gratified him was the first part of a brief interview presently with Dowton in the passage of the court.

'Well,' asked Mr. Dowton, with a clumsy assumption of good-fellowship, 'how are we getting on, eh?'

'I'm getting on all right,' replied Alfred; 'you seem to be getting yourself in a bit of a corner. Why don't you give up the force and go in for a milk walk? That don't require no intelligence.'

'I don't want any cheek,' said the detective, running his fingers through his red hair.

'You want some sense.'

'No one can say I'm prejudiced against you,' urged Dowton. 'It was a painful business for me to undertake, especially as I'd seen your missus before she married you. And if we can't prove this case against you, why, no one'll be more pleased than me.'

'You won't smile to any great extent,' said Alfred, 'when the beak has a word or two to say on the subject. Fact of the matter is, I was a bit dazed at first and I didn't rightly understand what you was charging me with.'

'Didn't know whether you were guilty or not, eh?'

'Once I grasped the idea,' Alfred went on, ignoring the suggestion; 'I could see that you'd bit off more than you could chew. You'll get promoted over this job.'

'Not much chance of that,' said Dowton gloomily.

'Oh, yes, you will—promoted back'ards.'

'I noticed one or two of your men in court this afternoon,' remarked the detective, persisting in amiability. 'I wonder they don't club together and get you a solicitor for the next hearing. Of course, I ought not to be the one to start the idea, but, after all, right's right and fair's fair and law's law.'

'When you can't manage to make 'em different.'

Another 'remand' came out of the court and stood in charge of the gaoler against the wall.

'I'll get a hint conveyed to 'em,' said Dowton generously. 'Unless any fresh information comes to hand during the week, it ought to be all serene with someone to speak for you. You don't want to go to the Sessions if it can be helped, do you now?'

'What d' I care?' said Alfred impudently.

'I s'pose,' remarked the detective, blowing dust from his bowler hat, 'Mrs. Bateson, your wife, hasn't been to see you?'

'No.'

'Ah!' said the detective, and shook his head mysteriously.

'What do you mean by "Ah"?' demanded Alfred with sudden fierceness. 'Explain yourself.'

'Pretty comfortable at Holloway?'

'You answer my question,' cried Alfred, 'or I'll jolly well knock——'

'Why, how could you expect it?' protested Dowton. 'You know what women are. Use your common-sense. Do you think she's coming to see you at a time when she's busy occupied with other matters?'

The gaoler said 'Kimalong' to Alfred, but he refused to move.

'You tell me what the devil you mean by throwin' out assertions about my wife,' he screamed. 'You explain——'

'I ain't made any assertions,' declared the detective amazedly. 'I was simply referring to a topic of general knowledge.'

The vagueness of this last sentence goaded Alfred to fury. He made a rush for Dowton, but that wary man stepped aside sharply. In a moment a detachment of uniformed men were around Alfred; by their united efforts he was hurried along the passage to the yard, where he found himself partly pulled and partly shoved into a cell to wait for the van from Woolwich.

The unfortunate phrasing of Dowton's well-meant remarks gave to Alfred more distress than anything had done in the course of his life. Confident of his approaching release, assured that the detectives had no further charges beyond this ill-grounded one to bring against him, he was able to gauge in the silences of Holloway the reality and the intensity of his affection for Caroline. Although unused to introspection, he could see that this was the one positive trait that he possessed, matching so little with the rest of his character that he felt sometimes it belonged to someone else. Now, afire with this attack of jealousy, he began to understand how Caroline had made up the best part of his life and of himself. Because he feared the loss of this, and because he knew that without it he would again become a mere wastrel, he boiled with apprehension.

He tried not to think of his knowledge and experience in the old years at Deptford Green. He struck his forehead when the memory came of a certain Horn Fair held by amused inhabitants to call attention to some very flagrant case of erratic living. (Afterwards he laughed at all this outburst of feeling and chaffed himself for having misunderstood the innocent Dowton, but at the time the case seemed grim and serious enough.) For the first time in his grown-up life he prayed.

'Visit?' said the warder curtly one morning.

Alfred found himself conducted to the top of a spiral staircase, where a detachment was being made up. The number completed, the twelve were all taken down into the basement, and each entered the doorway of a box-like compartment with sloping canvas top, where an open space between latticed protectors enabled one to see the visitor in the compartment opposite, but permitted one to see no other visitor. The clatter and bang of loud conversation between the other residents and their visitors began at once, and did not moderate until the fifteen minutes were completed. A warder walked up and down the narrow slightly-raised division between the two rows of boxes.

'Well, Jimes, you're in trouble again then. Lot you think of me and the poor children! Wonder you can look me in the face.' 'Yer sister Sarer sent her kind regards, and told me to tell you that she's always prophesied to herself that some'ing of the sort would 'appen.' 'Mind you don't go gettin' that same bloomin' mouthpiece what you got for me before, ole man. I could make a better 'ead than what he's got out of a lump of pudding.' 'Two 'tecs come round makin' inquiries last night, but I never told 'em nothin'; pretended I didn't know, see?' 'Don't you go walkin' out with anyone else mind, 'r else I'll——' 'Tell mother not to worry, and give her a kiss for me.' The clamour of talk went on.

'’Ello!'

'Who are you s'posed to be?' asked Alfred, peering curiously across at the bandaged man.

'A question that's puzzled me a good bit the last three weeks.'

'It is good old William, then, arrived at last!'

'If you call this arriving,' remarked Finnis, from the opposite compartment, guardedly.

'Been in the wars, ain't you? Look like a bloomin' diver about to descend into the vasty deep.'

'It was divin' without previous practice that got me like this. What I called for was to tell you we'd got a lawyer.'

'You've took your time.'

'I was sorry,' said Finnis, in the manner of one repeating words that he had already decided to use, 'I was sorry. Elf, to see that you'd got yourself into trouble at last.'

'Trouble?' Alfred laughed, and the perambulating warder glanced at him. 'This ain't what I call trouble, bless you! Why, I'm coming out of this with flying colours.'

'Think so?' asked Finnis.

'Know so,' replied Alfred definitely.

'I only 'ope you're right, for your sake, and for the sake of everyone else.'

Alfred waited a moment, half afraid to ask after Caroline. William Finnis looked with curiosity at the brim of his bowler hat, as though brims were a new invention which had not been previously brought to his notice. The noise increased.

'Did you come by train?' shouted Alfred inconsequently.

'Train and tram,' answered Finnis. 'Good way it is, too.'

'Who've you got to speak for me?'

Finnis mentioned the name.

'Tell him to see me to-morrow before I'm called. They'll let him.'

'The others at Barraclough's had clubbed together to find the money, but I told 'em I'd prefer to see it through now I was well.'

'You always were a juggins,' remarked Alfred. 'I s'pose some of 'em thought I was fairly in for it.'

'They might 'ave had that impression,' admitted Finnis. 'To tell the truth, I thought so meself, being a bit dazed over that tumble of mine.'

'It's a fine thing to have the confidence of your friends,' remarked Alfred sarcastically. A burst of tears on the part of a woman visitor distracted him for a moment. 'Keroline all right?' he asked nervously.

'Believe she's as well as can be expected,' said Finnis. 'Ain't seen her since that night at the dancing gardens.'

'I s'pose—I s'pose she knows all about this business.'

'I think I'm right in stating she has no idea whatever that you're in 'Olloway.'

'Not 'eard of it? 'Ave they kept it from her, then? How did they manage that? What excuse did they give her?'

He looked forward, asking these questions loudly and with hot excitement.

'They managed it somehow.'

'And that's why she hasn't been to see me, then.' He took a long breath of satisfaction. 'I wondered what it all meant. And you 'aven't seen her once, then? She's been lonely, I lay.'

'Been well looked after, I believe,' said William Finnis. 'And of course the boy's company for her.'

'What boy?' he asked sharply. 'Speak up.'

'Why, hang it all! you don't mean to say you ain't 'eard?'

'How can I 'ear anything,' cried Alfred, 'when no one don't come and tell me? What boy are you talkin' about?'

'Why, your boy.'

'Finnis, old pal, you don't mean to say that since I've been in——'

'You're a father,' said William Finnis triumphantly. 'That's what you are, a happy father. Thought you knew.'

Alfred gripped the latticed shutter near to him, and looked down for a few moments. When he lifted his eyes he glanced at the sloping roof, ashamed at having lost control of his usual buoyancy.

'And I reckon,' bawled Finnis, 'that by this time he's growed out of all knowledge. It was a month ago that I catched sight of him, and then he was a bit fresh-complexioned, and he didn't seem to have got his features properly formed, as you may say.'

'I—I want to see him,' confessed Alfred awkwardly; 'and I want to see her. Tell her so, will you? When I get off to-morrer——'

'’Ope you will.'

'I shall come straight to her.'

'To say that, I shall 'ave to tell her you've been locked up all this time.'

Alfred swallowed something in his throat.

'Break it to her gently, old chap,' he begged.

'Wish someone else had got the job,' remarked William Finnis. 'S'pose you don't get off to-morrow! Why, she'll go out of her mind.'

'You've got more tack than you give yourself credit for,' said Alfred reassuringly. 'You go back there if you can manage it——'

'I'm still on the sick list.'

'And you do what I ask you to, and give her my love, and tell her I'm all right and the 'tecs are all wrong, and tell the little kid I shall see him soon. And thank ye,' he added clumsily—'thank ye for coming to see me.'

'Right you are,' said Finnis. He turned to go. 'How do I get out of this place?'

'Anyone,' said Alfred, 'can get out of Holloway who's behaved themselves. So you're all right, William.'

It was characteristic of Alfred that, with this unexpected receipt of good news, he should instantly adopt a perfectly optimistic mood. One less inclined by nature to cheerfulness would have feared that at the last moment some other charge might be brought against him, which he would have had difficulty in answering; but Alfred, his head full of anticipation, rejected this as an impossibility, with a confidence and an assurance that proved to be well founded. When, the next day, after an interview at Greenwich with a large white-faced solicitor, he had taken his place in court between the two parallel bars of iron, Dowton stepped into the witness-box and told the magistrate and the magistrate's clerk that the police were unable to carry the matter further; they begged, therefore, to leave it in the hands of the magistrate. Dowton, backing out of the box with an apologetic air, was stopped by Alfred's solicitor, who shot up from his seat in front of the dock.

'One moment, if you please. With your permission, sir'—this to the magistrate—'I should like to ask a question or two.'

'You appear for the prisoner, Mr.——'

'I do, sir. I should like to ask the witness whether we are to understand that the case is entirely withdrawn against my sorely-tried and long-suffering client?'

Dowton looked appealingly at Inspector MacDonogh, who had a pew of his own in the court.

'The police,' said Inspector MacDonogh, 'desire to leave the affair in the hands of the magistrate entirely.'

'I am not speaking to you,' snapped the large-faced solicitor; 'I am addressing the witness in the box. When I wish for information from you, sir, I will have you called.' The Inspector smiled good-temperedly. 'Now, Sergeant Dowton!'

'Yessir!'

'Attend to me! I ask you this question: On whose information was it that this serious and most damnatory charge was brought against my client?'

'You must understand, sir——' began Dowton.

'No, no, no, no! I don't want to be lectured by members of the police force. I only want a simple answer to a simple question.'

'I can't answer it, sir. Once we began to give the names of those what give us information, we should never get any more of it.'

'Very well, very well. That's your answer, is it?'

'It's the best I can give, sir.'

'One more question, please. Have you any doubts in your own mind now as to the perfect innocence of the prisoner?'

The magistrate suggested gently that this came within his province. The large-faced solicitor stood looking out of the window for a few seconds, keeping Dowton in a state of damp-faced suspense.

'I take it, then, that not only have you found that my client is an honest workman in a highly respectable firm of the neighbourhood, but that he has never been the associate of bad characters—never been the companion of——'

'Don't you,' muttered Alfred warningly over the iron bar, 'go making a 'ash of it!'

'As to that,' said Dowton, bridling, 'if you particularly wish it, I can tell you '

'Very well, very well,' interrupted the large-faced solicitor, sitting down as suddenly as he had risen; 'that's all I wanted to know.'

Dowton went at a sign from the clerk, and the solicitor shot up again.

'I presume you will dismiss the case, sir; but before you do so I should like to make a few remarks.'

The magistrate, sighing, nodded consent.

'In the first place, sir, I should like to point out to your worship that my client has, in consequence of a blunder on the part of the police, been deprived for fully one month of that liberty dear, sir, to every citizen of a nation which treasures its freedom high above everything else. My client, sir——'

The large-faced solicitor spoke for ten minutes, swaying from side to side, so that his speech was offered partly to the magistrate and partly to William Finnis, who had fee'd him, and had promised an extra half-guinea if the duties should be performed satisfactorily. Alfred, glancing around now and again at the back doorway of the court near to the pen in which members of the public were herded, wished that he would stop, and whispered, 'Sit down'; but Mr. Finnis's enjoyment of the performance was genuine; he stood with bandaged head, listening to every word as a man who has paid and is glad to receive his money's worth. When the large-faced solicitor had fired off two lines of poetry, one at the magistrate and one at William Finnis, and had dropped to his seat, the magistrate said courteously that Alfred would be discharged. The magistrate regretted that no friends had come forward in the first instance to offer bail, with the result that the time had had to be spent in prison. If he were allowed to offer a word of advice, it would be that Alfred should be more careful of his companions; that he should in future avoid the society of those who broke laws, and in this way evade the suspicion that in the present case had fallen upon him.

'You may go,' said the magistrate. 'Sergeant, call the next case.'

Alfred turned, and nodding cheerfully to the men and women packed in the rear of the court, and giving a special wink to Finnis, went out of the doorway at the back, free. The day had been dull, but just then the sun, as though remembering forgotten duties, blazed down and made him blink. For an instant he staggered confusedly. He walked through the passage, sending a word of chaff to the driver of the big black van, but he did not feel at liberty until he was in the street. There, standing on the pavement with her back to him, stood Caroline. He stepped up quietly, and bystanders who looked to see what he was about to do were diverted to see her start when he placed his hands over her eyes.

'Guess who!' growled Alfred in a deep voice.

'Elf!' cried Caroline, disengaging herself. 'Oh, Elf, Elf!'

He kissed her, glanced at the little white bundle in her arms, and walked along silently by her side in the direction of the park. Women who had been in court raised a shrill cheer of congratulation far behind them, but neither looked round. They walked along the pavement to the gates of the park, and went gently halfway up the hill.

'Well, little woman,' said Alfred, looking down, 'how's the world been using you?'

'Never mind about me, Elf. It's you that's had to put up with 'ardship. I do think somebody ought to be well punished for it.'

'All's well that ends well,' he said magnanimously. 'It's been a rough time for both of us, but—well, here we are now.'

'All three of us,' suggested Caroline softly.

'What's he like?' asked Alfred, turning round, relieved to change the subject of conversation. 'It never struck me that he was coming to town so soon.'

'That's like a man!' She took a white woollen veil from one end of the small bundle with infinite tenderness and stood it in an upright position with one hand at its back 'There! Say "'Ello, daddy."'

The small baby blinked with his large eyes and stared very hard and rather critically at his father's bowler hat. Slowly his gaze descended, and he looked at Alfred's face with something of astonishment. Alfred placed the hat crossways on the bald little head, and the baby relaxing his air of wonder allowed his little face to become creased, whereupon Caroline declared with great delight that he was roaring with laughter, and that Alfred was the first person who had succeeded in effecting this.

'Is he a good kid?' asked Alfred.

'Oh, a splendid boy, Elf, you've no idea—has his little tantrums sometimes, of course, about meal times, but I've only got to speak a bit sharp to him and he's as good as gold.' The exultant young mother nodded her head at the staring infant. 'He's the doodest lil boy there ever was ever since 'ittle babies was begun to be.'

Master Bateson resented this excess of compliment by jerking his father's hat off, bending his small back and screaming aloud to the skies.

'Let me take him, Kerry.'

This it seemed in no way suited the mite's desires, and he screamed more loudly, wriggling in his father's arms, so that Alfred, unused to the management of families, had to return him to his mother. Caroline talked to the boy soothingly, pointing out (in the language that is assumed to be the only one understood by babies) that such noisy conduct was opposed to all rules of life, and if persisted in could but result in the appearance of a bogey man, armed with drastic powers and invincible to argument. Master Bateson, watching his young mother very intently, appeared convinced by this argument, and being now slightly exhausted after the struggle, nestled his small head on her arm, allowed the woollen veil to be drawn across the upper half of his tiny face, and went to sleep.

'I think we'd better call him Elfred, don't you, dear?'

'No,' said Alfred, 'cert'ny not.'

'Why, what's the matter with the name?'

'There's nothing the matter with the name,' he said, stroking his young wife's sleeve, 'but its owner don't seem to be over-prosperous.'

'That's only a bit of ill-luck. Elf, that might have 'appened to anyone.'

'I want him,' he said definitely, 'to grow up a better man than his father, and I ain't going to 'andicap him at the outset by giving him my name. So there, now!'

'I'd rather built on him being called Elf,' mentioned Caroline wistfully. 'But, of course, if you wish it——'

'Look 'ere,' interrupted Alfred, glancing down at the buildings below. 'We'll call him by some new name that'll give him a good start.' He looked around. 'How about Trafalgar?'

'Trafalgar Bateson!'

'Esquire,' said Alfred.

Caroline bent her head to the dormant baby and put the question to him: 'Woozoo like to be talled Trafalgar Bateson, Esquire, or woozoo like to be talled any other namey pamey?' Master Bateson opened one eye and closed it again sleepily, as who should say, 'Settle it amongst yourselves, and don't bother a man when he's trying to snatch a few moments of rest.' The name being thus decided upon, and Caroline and Alfred having exchanged reminiscences of the past month, they set off home to Exmouth Terrace, where, the faithful William Finnis being on sentry-go, they took him in to tea, and one word from Caroline thanked that excellent but bandaged friend more effectively than all of Alfred's attempts.

'I have now to perduce,' said William Finnis, when tea was over, and speaking as one addressing a formal meeting, 'a letter, or communication, or what not, from Mr. Barraclough.'

Opened, this proved to be a genial note of congratulation, coupled with a request that Alfred would return to his old berth at the earliest possible moment.

'I'll begin to-morrer,' said Alfred.

'And go straight on,' suggested Finnis.

'And go straight on,' he agreed firmly.

'I shall have to write to tell my sisters all about it,' remarked Caroline. 'It'll sound to them like a bit out of a book.'

'I'd rather forget all about it,' said Alfred, 'and let bygones be bygones.'

'That's what I say,' remarked Finnis. 'Less fuss the better.'

The wife of the cornet looked in and welcomed Alfred, conversing also with William Finnis on the subject of Her Majesty's last Drawing-room. The cornet had been away from home for two days, but the lady seemed in no way perturbed at this, and declared pessimistically that he would doubtless find his way back before the end of the week.

'Trust him!' said the cornet's wife, pinning a rent in her blue blouse.

Another knock, and Alfred went downstairs to answer it. Caroline, dancing the small boy in her arms out on the landing, looked over the banisters. At first she could not distinguish the caller. Obviously, however, Alfred was speaking in brusque, decided tones.

'I'd rather you didn't call,' he was saying. 'I've no grudge against you or against Ladd, but I want to break off the acquaintance, and you can guess why.'

'You want to break it off, Alf?' said the caller.

'In future, yes.'

'And do I understand, then'—it was the voice of Miss Ladd, quavering now with passion—'that I'm not good enough to talk to your young wife, or to nurse that dear little kiddie?'

'I don't want to enter into any argument,' said Alfred determinedly. 'All I want is that you shan't come 'ere. That's all!'

'But, Elf,' cried Caroline from the top of the stairs, 'you've no idea how kind she was to me all the time you were away. Do let her——'

'Be quiet!' he said sharply. 'You leave this to me.'

'Means, then,' said Miss Ladd, trembling, 'that I'm treated with disdain, does it?'

'It means,' declared Alfred, 'that you're to jolly well clear off, and to jolly well keep off!'

'And never see that little baby again?'

'Not if I can 'elp it.'

'But, Elf dear——' from the top of the stairs,

'Shut up!' he cried.

Miss Ladd, white of face, wrapped the paper around a child's rattle which she had brought, and backed out on to the steps, Alfred preparing to close the door upon her as she retreated.

'You'll be sorry for doing this, Alfred Bateson!'

'I should be sorrier if I didn't,' he answered. '’Ook it!'