Crossword Mystery (36 page)

‘Now, guv'nor, Mr Owen, sir. If it had been like that, wouldn't there be the whole lot of 'em piling after me, like, like' – he said pathetically – ‘a 'orde of 'ungry dawgs persooing of the 'unted fawn? Now, wouldn't there?'

That this observation was as true as it was picturesque, Bobby was obliged to admit to himself. And though he remained convinced it was something very strange indeed that had driven Conway on at such desperate speed, that had made even the meeting with one of his natural enemies, a C.I.D. man, a blessed relief, yet there was no means of making him tell. A quarrel with some colleague in roguery on whose preserve he had been trespassing, perhaps. An offer of a bribe might possibly be effective, but would be more likely to produce only some new impudent invention.

‘Cut along, then, if you won't tell the truth,' Bobby said. ‘Only, remember, I've seen you here, and, if any report comes in, it'll be all the worse for you. We shall know, whatever happened, you were in it – and had your own reasons for keeping quiet, and then we shall know what to think.'

‘Guv'nor,' declared Conway earnestly, ‘if you do, you'll do me wrong. If any job was worked round this part tonight, I wasn't in it. I won't deny I had a turn, but there won't be nothing said; because for why? There wasn't nothing done; and for that I'll take my dying oath, straight I will, guv'nor.'

There was a certain accent of sincerity in this that did impress Bobby. But he made no comment, and then, in a different tone, Conway said again:

‘Guv'nor.'

‘Well?'

‘Luck's been dead out with me, gov'nor, ever since I come out of the big house. There's times I almost wish as I was back. I ain't got no more nor that one brown you seed, guv'nor. It was the Waterloo Bridge hotel for me last night, and crool cold them arches is, and hard as you never would believe if you hadn't never tried, and as for luck – why, the night afore I did 'ave the price of a doss, and, if you'll believe me, that was the very night the Mad Millionaire, what the papers call him and no one's ever seen, had been along that way plastering every bench almost with his one-pound notes.'

‘Is that yarn really true?' Bobby asked, for he had heard before of how some unknown, mysterious individual no one had ever seen would, at long, irregular intervals, deposit on the Embankment benches sealed envelopes, containing each a one-pound or ten-shilling note, and marked on the outside of the envelope: ‘For the finder.'

A similar story told how a shower of such notes had once descended on the heads of a queue of unemployed and homeless waiting for admission to a casual ward, thrown to them by some person no one had seen. Another variety was a tale of how, once or twice, in East-end streets the residents had wakened in the morning to find that during the night pound or ten-shilling notes had been thrust through the letter-boxes – unexpected but welcome manna from heaven. Bobby had been a little sceptical of the truth of these stories, but Conway assured him they were accurate enough, though he himself, such was the weight of the malignant forces for ever pressing him down, had never had the luck to be the recipient of this mysterious bounty.

‘Some say it's a millionaire what's being sorry for all he's done in the past,' Conway explained. ‘And some think it's a parson of some kind, doing good according to his lights, what no man can't 'elp, but what I say is, if it was that way, he would be along quick enough to rake in the souls what he'd been laying down the bait for. But some says it's a sportsman what's brought off something good, wanting to share his luck so as he shan't lose it.'

‘It's a queer yarn,' Bobby observed. ‘What do you think yourself?'

‘It's a looney what' – began Conway, and then stopped so abruptly that Bobby had the idea he had intended to say more and then had changed his mind – ‘a looney what his keepers don't look after proper,' Conway completed his sentence, differently, as Bobby felt more certain still, from the manner first intended. ‘Guv'nor,' he added, ‘what about the price of a doss, guv'nor, so as in your own bed to-night you won't have to think of no poor bloke keeping them stones warm under Waterloo Bridge?'

Bobby sighed, and produced a couple of shillings, but, before handing them over, felt himself called upon – it must be remembered he was still quite young – to improve the occasion by a short but earnest homily on the advantages of hard work and honesty, and the extreme ruggedness of the path chosen by the transgressor. Conway listened with an air of meek yet absorbed attention that Bobby found distinctly pleasing, so that he really did not mind very much the loss of his two shillings as he handed them over.

‘That'll do you bed and breakfast,' he said. ‘Though I believe you men think we are at the Yard only for you to touch between one job and the next.'

‘Well, guv'nor,' observed Conway thoughtfully, as he accepted the two shillings, ‘if it wasn't for the likes of us, where would the likes of you be? Unemployed, that's what,' declared Conway darkly, as he melted away into the night, and not until he had vanished did Bobby discover that his smart, brand-new, gold-mounted, silk umbrella he had been so proud of had vanished, too.

At the same moment the long-threatening rain began to fall – heavily.