The Twelve African Novels (A Collection). Edgar WallaceЧитать онлайн книгу.
allowance from an uncle who died before I passed through. What was I fit for when I came down? It seemed jolly easy the first week in London, because I had a tenner to carry on with.
But in a month I was starving. So I worked the Spanish prisoner fraud, played on the cupidity of people who thought they were going to make an immense fortune with a little outlay — it was easy money for me.”
The Governor shook his head again.
“I’ve done all sorts of stunts since then,” 75 went on unveraciously. “I’ve worked every kind of trick,” he smiled as at some pleasant recollection. “There isn’t a move in the game that I don’t know; there isn’t a bad man in London I couldn’t write the biography of, if I was so inclined. I’ve no friends, no relations, nobody in the world I care two penn’oth of gin about, and I’m quite happy: and when you say I have been in prison ten times, you should say fourteen.”
“You’re a fool,” said the Governor, and pressed a bell.
“I’m an adventuring philosopher,” said 75 complacently, as the warder came in to march him back to his cell….
Just before the prison bell clanged the order for bed, a warder brought him a neat bundle of clothing.
“Look over these, 75, and check them,” said the officer pleasantly. He handed a printed list to the prisoner.
“Can’t be bothered,” said Amber, taking the list. “I’ll trust to your honesty.”
“Check ‘em.”
Amber unfastened the bundle, unfolded his clothing, shook them out and laid them over the bed.
“You keep a man’s kit better than they do in Walton,” he said approvingly, “no creases in the coat, trousers nicely pressed — hullo, where’s my eyeglass?”
He found it in the waistcoat pocket, carefully wrapped in tissue paper, and was warm in his praise of the prison authorities.
“I’ll send a man in to shave you in the morning,” said the warder and lingered at the door.
“75,” he said, after a pause, “don’t you come back here.”
“Why not?”
Amber looked up with his eyebrows raised.
“Because this is a mug’s game,” said the warder. “A gentleman like you! Surely you can keep away from a place like this!”
Amber regarded the other with the glint of a smile in his eyes.
“You’re ungrateful, my warder,” he said gently. “Men like myself give this place a tone, besides which, we serve as an example to the more depraved and lawless of the boarders.”
(It was an eccentricity of Amber’s that he invariably employed the possessive pronoun in his address.)
Still the warder lingered.
“There’s lots of jobs a chap like you could take up,” he said, almost resentfully,” if you only applied your ability in the right direction—”
75 raised his hand in dignified protest.
“My warder,” he said gravely, “you are quotin’ the Sunday papers, and that I will not tolerate, even from you.”
Later, in the Warders’ Mess, Mr. Scrutton said that as far as he was concerned he gave 75 up as a bad job.”
“As nice a fellow as you could wish to meet,” he confessed.
“How did he come down?” asked an assistant warder.
“He was a curate in the West End of London, got into debt and pawned the church plate — he told me so himself!”
There were several officers in the messroom. One of these, an elderly man, removed his pipe before he spoke.
“I saw him in Lewes two years ago; as far as my recollection serves me, he was thrown out of the Navy for running a destroyer ashore.”
Amber was the subject of discussion in the little diningroom of the Governor’s quarters, where Major Bliss dined with the deputy governor.
“Try as I can,” said the Governor in perplexity, I cannot remember that man Amber at Sandhurst — he says he remembers me, but I really cannot place him….”
Unconscious of the interest he was exciting, Amber slumbered peacefully on his thin mattress, smiling in his sleep.
*
Outside the prison gates on the following morning was a small knot of people, mainly composed of shabbily dressed men and women, waiting for the discharge of their relatives.
One by one they came through the little wicket-gate, grinning sheepishly at their friends, submitting with some evidence of discomfort to the embraces of tearful women, receiving with greater aplomb the rude jests of their male admirers.
Amber came forth briskly. With his neat tweed suit, his soft Homburg hat and his eyeglass, those who waited mistook him for an officer of the prison and drew aside respectfully. Even the released prisoners, such as were there, did not recognize him, for he was cleanshaven and spruce; but a black-coated young man, pale and very earnest, had been watching for him, and stepped forward with outstretched hand.
“Amber?” he asked hesitatingly.
“Mr. Amber, “corrected the other, his head perked on one side like a curious hen.
“Mr. Amber.” The missioner accepted the correction gravely. “My name is Dowles. I am a helper of the Prisoners’ Regeneration League.”
“Very interestin’ — very interestin’ indeed,” murmured Amber, and shook the young man’s hand vigorously. “Good work, and all that sort of thing, but uphill work, sir, uphill work.”
He shook his head despairingly, and with a nod made as if to go.
“One moment, Mr. Amber.” The young man’s hand was on his arm. “I know about you and your misfortune — won’t you let us help you?”
Amber looked down at him kindly, his hand rested on the other’s shoulder.
“My chap,” he said gently, “I’m the wrong kind of man: can’t put me choppin’ wood for a living, or find me a position of trust at 18s. a week. Honest toil has only the same attraction for me as the earth has for the moon; I circle round it once in twentyfour hours without getting any nearer to it — here!”
He dived his hand into his trousers pocket and brought out some money. There were a few sovereigns — these had been in his possession when he was arrested — and some loose silver. He selected half a crown.
“For the good cause,” he said magnificently, and slipping the coin into the missioner’s hand, he strode off.
II. At the Whistlers
No. 46, Curefax Street, West Central, is an establishment which is known to a select few as “The Whistlers.” Its official title is Pinnock’s Club. It was founded in the early days of the nineteenth century by one Charles Pinnock, and in its day was a famous rendezvous.
That it should suffer the vicissitudes peculiar to institutions of the kind was inevitable, and its reputation rose and fell with the changing times. In 1889,1901, and again in 1903, it fell under suspicion, for in these years the club was raided by the police; though without any result satisfactory to the raiders.
It is indisputable that the habitués of the Whistlers were a curious collection of people, that it had few, if any, names upon the list of members of any standing in the social world; yet the club was popular in a shamefaced way. The golden youth of London delighted