Into the Storm (38 page)

M
r. Clemspool had spent an insufferable night. First he had been thrown out of the Shagwell house. Then he had been arrested by Mr. Tolliver as a common thief for
attempting to rob the mill owner. Next he had been booked at the police office, taken to jail, and locked in a cell that was not just dingy and dirty but rancid with the stench of all the common prisoners who had been kept there.

Even so, the cell was not the worst of it for Mr. Clemspool. Far worse was his belief that the bank key remained in the drawer of the bedside table — or with that boy from the street! Just the possibility that he had lost access to all that money was enough to drive him into a perfect frenzy.

When he interrogated his jailer about his rights as a free-born Englishman, he was told that he could be free in two days, not before. Mr. Clemspool hastened to point out that, for an earlier release, he would be able to offer the jail keeper a handsome bonus.

The jail keeper, a grizzled fellow with a bulky, sagging pear-shaped body, merely guffawed and walked away.

Swearing many a foul oath against the man, Mr. Clemspool took to the cell's wooden bench, which the jail keeper had insisted was the bed.

That night, the sole proprietor of Brother's Keeper, Ltd., tossed and turned so that he slept little. By breakfast time — breakfast consisting of boiled coffee, stale bread, and a sinewy pull of cold beef — Mr. Clemspool was reduced to muttering, “Bloody all Kirkles!” in a rage, desperately desiring to wring their collective aristocratic necks like so many chickens set for a stew.

Midmorning, Mr. Clemspool was pacing up and down his cell, fuming and focused principally on Laurence. As far as Matthew Clemspool was concerned, the boy was the cause of all his problems! Bad enough in England. Here he was in America, blighting him again….

A clanging on his cell door startled Mr. Clemspool. “You've got a visitor, mister,” the jail keeper announced through the bars. “Says he's a friend!”

“A friend!” Mr. Clemspool exclaimed, wondering who in the world might be coming to his aid. “Who is it?” he asked. “The British ambassador?”

“He wouldn't give his name. Want to see him or not?”

“I suppose I do.” Mr. Clemspool hastened to smooth down his few licks of hair and put on his jacket. But hardly had he the chance when who should walk in but Sir Albert Kirkle.

“I've left the door open,” said the jail keeper to Albert. “Just shut it when you leave.”

A disbelieving Mr. Clemspool stared at the young man. He even stretched his plump fingers into the air and made a feeble attempt to brush away the dream that he presumed Albert was.

“Didn't think it would be me, did you?” the young lord began, finding great amusement in Mr. Clemspool's astonishment. He smirked and squeezed his hands until his knuckles cracked.

“
Is
it you?” Mr. Clemspool returned nervously, wondering if he had, perhaps, lost his mind as so many did who suffered lengthy prison stays.

“It's me, all right.”

“But … but why — how — are you here?” Mr. Clemspool stammered.

“You wrote to me, didn't you?”

“From the ship … I suppose I did.”

“Asking blackmail money —”

“Sir! Blackmail? Heaven forfend! You wrong me! I was merely asking you for the money you — to make my point precisely — owed me.”

“Well, you can thank my father for this visit,” Sir Albert said. “He intercepted that letter and passed it on to me. You said you had my brother. Well, where is he? My lord father has said — in a most unseemly temper — that I'm not to come back unless I bring Laurence with me.”

“And do you,” Mr. Clemspool inquired carefully, “intend to … take him home?”

Albert snorted with disdain. “Take him home! Look here, Clemspool, I came to this awful place to make sure you did what you promised to do, get rid of him, for good. My father won't let the Kirkle name go to nothing. He can settle for me. I'm the real thing. Not Laurence.”

Mr. Clemspool, feeling a rush of his old confidence, flipped the tails of his jacket, sat down on the bench, and
leaned back against the wall. “All very well for you to talk, Sir Albert,” he replied in his best haughty tones. “Don't think I haven't devoted myself to your cause. Indeed, I wouldn't be here” — he waved his hands in a gesture that encompassed the jail cell — “if
you
had not managed to make a muddle of things.”

“Me?”

“No point in going into details,” Mr. Clemspool said airily. “In order to achieve your desired object, sir, you must deal with me. To begin, you must get me out of here.”

Albert shook his head. “I'm not interested in you, Clemspool. Just my bothersome brother.”

Mr. Clemspool smiled blandly. “Sir, I appreciate your frankness. But without me, you can't get him, can you? Mind, your brother and I have become great friends. You should also know that I'm aware of the money he took.”

“How much of it is left?”

“Oh,” Mr. Clemspool said with his best shrug of indifference, “most of it.”

“Where is it?” asked Albert, suddenly alert.

Mr. Clemspool smiled shrewdly. “If I may be so bold, Sir Albert,” he said, “I should like to offer an arrangement. Help me get out of this place, and you and I — together — shall go to Laurence. Have no fear. I'll take care of him. As for the money, sir, why, you can have it all.”

“How do I know I can trust you?” Albert asked.

Mr. Clemspool drew himself up with dignity. “Sir, I consider myself an honest man, a moral man. Have you read your Bible, sir —”

Albert cut him off. “Cut the cant, Clemspool. Where's my brother?”

“No, sir,” Mr. Clemspool replied grandly, “you either help me or you can forget about the money. As for your brother, he will —”

“Will what?”

Mr. Clemspool reached into the air and snatched at it. “Why, sir, I will be forced — on strictly moral grounds, you understand — to aid your brother in his desired return to England … and, to make my point precisely,
encourage
him to go to your father.”

“All right,” Albert interjected quickly. “just tell me what I have to do.”

“I told you. Get me out of here.”

“How?”

“That oaf of a jail keeper left the cell door open. I shall walk out.”

“But —”

“Your task is to go find the blockhead. Detain him. Busy him for ten minutes. I shall bide my time, then take my leave.”

“I have a carriage waiting just outside.”

“Better and better. I'll just get in it. Follow at your leisure.”

“Look here, Clemspool —”

“Sir Albert, do you wish to have that boy taken care of? Do you desire the money? Or do you want him — and the money — to return to England?”

Albert gave a grunt and slipped out of the cell. Mr. Clemspool hovered by the door. After five minutes he walked out of the jail quite unnoticed.

M
r. Clemspool glared out the carriage window at the passing streets of Lowell.

“The world,” he snarled at Albert, who sat slouched across from him with a vacant look on his face, “the
entire
world would be better off without young people. Look at Adam! Look at Eve! And young, weren't they? Well then, consider the harm they did! How difficult for the rest of us! Yes, it's young people like that who cause most of the problems in the world. What a pity
I
wasn't there to advise them.”

“I'm young,” Albert drawled.

“You make my point precisely,” snapped Mr. Clemspool. “But no doubt I shall be happier when I return to my room, take a bath, shave, and find some clean clothing. I don't like jails. Never have.”

Albert leered. “Been in them before, eh?”

The top of Mr. Clemspool's bald head turned quite pink. “That, sir, is none of your business. I will only say, if governments insist upon putting citizens in such places, they might have the courtesy to make them comfortable. Hello!” he suddenly cried, and banged on the roof of the carriage. “Stop!”

“What's the matter?” demanded Albert, startled by the outburst and the lurching halt of the carriage.

“There! You see that boy!” Mr. Clemspool cried, pointing out the window at Jeb Grafton.

Jeb was walking down the sidewalk, shoe-shine box tucked under an arm, cap pulled low over his face.

“What about him? He looks dirty enough.”

“He must be detained!” cried Mr. Clemspool. “Money, Sir Albert, money….” He thrust open the door and, pulling Albert along with him, tumbled out of the carriage. “We'll be right back,” he cried to the carriage driver. “Don't move.” Then he ordered Albert, “You go ahead of the boy. I'll catch him up from the rear. Hurry!”

A reluctant Albert lumbered along the street, pushing his way by pedestrians until he had passed Jeb. Mr. Clemspool, simultaneously, crept up behind him.

“There you are!” he cried as he clamped his hand tightly upon the unsuspecting boy's right shoulder.

Startled, Jeb twisted about and saw who had apprehended him. He then tried to pull free and run only to have Albert block his way.

“What do you want from me?” Jeb cried.

“Come along quickly,” Mr. Clemspool insisted. Holding tightly to one of the boy's arms with both hands, he dragged him toward the carriage.

“I don't want to go,” Jeb cried, trying to resist.

“You'll come with me or go to the police, do you hear!”
Mr. Clemspool hissed into the boy's ear. Albert helped by shoving the boy from behind.

Jeb, seeing that there was no one to rescue him, gave in to the pressure.

“In you go!” cried Mr. Clemspool as he pushed Jeb into the carriage. Then he too climbed in and took a place directly across from the boy to make sure he stayed. Albert squeezed in next to Jeb.

“What do you want with me?” Jeb, feeling overwhelmed, sniffled.

“What do I
want
with you?” bellowed Mr. Clemspool. “What do you think I want? I want what's mine. You got into that room in Shagwell's house. Where is my key?”

“Don't know what you're talking about,” Jeb said.

Mr. Clemspool leaned forward and shook a fat fist before the boy's nose. “Wretched youth! Of course you know what I'm talking about. The
key
, you dunce, the one I sent you into the room for. Where is it?”

“I don't have it,” Jeb said tearfully. “I don't! You can search all my pockets. I don't have it!”

Albert looked across at Mr. Clemspool. “What's all this about a key?”

“Never mind,” the man snapped. “He knows what I'm talking about. You say you don't have it.
Did
you have it?” he demanded of the boy.

After a moment Jeb nodded.

“You contemptible swindler! I knew you did. You probably called in the police too, didn't you?”

“I didn't, mister! I swear I didn't!”

“
Then what happened to that key?
” Mr. Clemspool roared.

Jeb, wilting before the onslaught, sniffled, smeared his nose with the back of his hand, took a breath, and said, “A boy took it from me.”

“
A boy?
” cried an exasperated Mr. Clemspool. “What boy?”

Jeb squeezed himself farther into the corner. “The same one as you wanted me to watch.”

“
Laurence?
” Mr. Clemspool screeched.

Jeb nodded.

“Look here,” Albert said, finally interested, “is he talking about my brother?”

Jeb glanced at Albert, realized it was the man Laurence was running away from, and grew even more frightened.

Ignoring Albert's question, Mr. Clemspool leaned forward so that his hot face was close to Jeb's. “Are you telling the truth, boy?” he demanded with loathing.

“Yes, sir…. He and another boy took it,” Jeb said.

“What other boy?”

“I don't know his name. But he's Irish.”

“Irish? What difference does that make?” Mr. Clemspool shouted. With a spasm of anger, he heaved himself back into his seat. Then, full of rage, he snatched at the air as if it were Laurence himself. “Now answer this,” he cried at Jeb. “Is Laurence
aware
of what that key is for?”

“You just said it was for some precious property. And I didn't even tell him that.”

“Where is he now?”

“He ran away.”

Mr. Clemspool flung his head back. “I hate that boy!” he screamed.

“I say,” interjected Albert, “what
is
this all about?”

Mr. Clemspool leaned forward again and pressed an accusatory finger on Jeb's nose. “Get out, and don't ever let me see you again. If the police catch you — and I have a good friend in the police — you'll spend the rest of your contemptible life in prison. Do you understand? The rest of your life! Now get out and go away!”

Jeb stared at Mr. Clemspool, trying to decide if he should believe the man or not. Cautiously, he sat up, wiggled toward the carriage door, threw it open, and leaped out.

Albert pulled the door shut.

“Clemspool,” he said again, “what
is
all this?”

The man cast a withering look at the young lord. “Your brother, sir, is about to recover all that money.”

Albert sat up. “My
father's
— Lord Kirkle's — money?”

“And if he does, sir, I have not the slightest doubt he will gallop home to Belgrave Square, and that, sir, will be the end of
you
.”

Albert's face reddened and grew blotchy with alarm. “But you said you knew where Laurence was,” he gasped.

“I do.”

“Then … then,” the young man stammered, “don't you think we should seize him?”

Instead of answering, Mr. Clemspool leaned out of the carriage window and instructed the driver to take them directly to the Spindle City Hotel.

Once there, however, Mr. Clemspool was at some perplexity as to how to proceed. Though he longed to find Laurence, he had no desire to confront Mr. Grout. He decided, therefore, that it would be much more prudent to wait and watch.

“Remember, sir,” he said to Albert, “it's your brother we're seeking. Keep an eye out for him.”

By way of a reply Albert gave a grunt.

“As we have the time,” said Mr. Clemspool, “I shall tell you what happened in Liverpool. And you will see, sir, that no fault can be attached to me. Indeed, on your behalf — to make my point precisely — I have suffered much.”