The wind carried away the striking of the great multitude of city church clocks, for those lay to leeward of them; but there were bells to windward that told them of its being One – Two – Three. Without that aid they would have known how the night wore, by the falling of the tide, recorded in the appearance of an ever-widening black wet strip of shore, and the emergence of the paved causeway from the river, foot by foot.
As the time so passed, this slinking business became a more and more precarious one. It would seem as if the man had had some intimation of what was in hand against him, or had taken fright? His movements might have been planned to gain for him, in getting beyond their reach, twelve hours’ advantage? The honest man who had expended the sweat of his brow became uneasy, and began to complain with bitterness of the proneness of mankind to cheat him – him invested with the dignity of Labour!
Their retreat was so chosen that while they could watch the river, they could watch the house. No one had passed in or out, since the daughter thought she heard the father calling. No one could pass in or out without being seen.
‘But it will be light at five,’ said Mr Inspector, ‘and then we shall be seen.’
‘Look here,’ said Riderhood, ‘what do you say to this? He may have been lurking in and out, and just holding his own betwixt two or three bridges, for hours back.’
‘What do you make of that?’ said Mr Inspector. Stoical, but contradictory.
‘He may be doing so at this present time.’
‘What do you make of that?’ said Mr Inspector.
‘My boat’s among them boats here at the cause’ay.’
‘And what do you make of your boat?’ said Mr Inspector.
‘What if I put off in her and take a look round? I know his ways, and the likely nooks he favours. I know where he’d be at such a time of the tide, and where he’d be at such another time. Ain’t I been his pardner? None of you need show. None of you need stir. I can shove her off without help; and as to me being seen, I’m about at all times.’
‘You might have given a worse opinion,’ said Mr Inspector, after brief consideration. ‘Try it.’
‘Stop a bit. Let’s work it out. If I want you, I’ll drop round under the Fellowships and tip you a whistle.’
‘If I might so far presume as to offer a suggestion to my honourable and gallant friend, whose knowledge of naval matters far be it from me to impeach,’ Eugene struck in with great deliberation, ‘it would be, that to tip a whistle is to advertise mystery and invite speculation. My honourable and gallant friend will, I trust, excuse me, as an independent member, for throwing out a remark which I feel to be due to this house and the country.’
‘Was that the T’other Governor, or Lawyer Lightwood?’ asked Riderhood. For, they spoke as they crouched or lay, without seeing one another’s faces.
‘In reply to the question put by my honourable and gallant friend,’ said Eugene, who was lying on his back with his hat on his face, as an attitude highly expressive of watchfulness, ‘I can have no hesitation in replying (it not being inconsistent with the public service) that those accents were the accents of the T’other Governor.’
‘You’ve tolerable good eyes, ain’t you, Governor? You’ve all tolerable good eyes, ain’t you?’ demanded the informer.
All.
‘Then if I row up under the Fellowship and lay there, no need to whistle. You’ll make out that there’s a speck of something or another there, and you’ll know it’s me, and you’ll come down that cause’ay to me. Understood all?’
Understood all.
‘Off she goes then!’
In a moment, with the wind cutting keenly at him sideways, he was staggering down to his boat; in a few moments he was clear, and creeping up the river under their own shore.
Eugene had raised himself on his elbow to look into the darkness after him. ‘I wish the boat of my honourable and gallant friend,’ he murmured, lying down again and speaking into his hat, ‘may be endowed with philanthropy enough to turn bottom-upward and extinguish him! – Mortimer.’
‘My honourable friend.’
‘Three burglaries, two forgeries, and a midnight assassination.’ Yet in spite of having those weights on his conscience, Eugene was somewhat enlivened by the late slight change in the circumstances of affairs. So were his two companions. Its being a change was everything. The suspense seemed to have taken a new lease, and to have begun afresh from a recent date. There was something additional to look for. They were all three more sharply on the alert, and less deadened by the miserable influences of the place and time.
More than an hour had passed, and they were even dozing, when one of the three – each said it was he, and he had not dozed – made out Riderhood in his boat at the spot agreed on. They sprang up, came out from their shelter, and went down to him. When he saw them coming, he dropped alongside the causeway; so that they, standing on the causeway, could speak with him in whispers, under the shadowy mass of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters fast asleep.
‘Blest if I can make it out!’ said he, staring at them.
‘Make what out? Have you seen him?’
‘No.’
‘What have you seen?’ asked Lightwood. For, he was staring at them in the strangest way.
‘I’ve seen his boat.’
‘Not empty?’
‘Yes, empty. And what’s more, – adrift. And what’s more, – with one scull gone. And what’s more, – with t’other scull jammed in the thowels and broke short off. And what’s more, – the boat’s drove tight by the tide ‘atwixt two tiers of barges. And what’s more, – he’s in luck again, by George if he ain’t!’
Chapter 14
THE BIRD OF PREY BROUGHT DOWN
Cold on the shore, in the raw cold of that leaden crisis in the four-and-twenty hours when the vital force of all the noblest and prettiest things that live is at its lowest, the three watchers looked each at the blank faces of the other two, and all at the blank face of Riderhood in his boat.
‘Gaffer’s boat, Gaffer in luck again, and yet no Gaffer!’ So spake Riderhood, staring disconsolate.
As if with one accord, they all turned their eyes towards the light of the fire shining through the window. It was fainter and duller. Perhaps fire, like the higher animal and vegetable life it helps to sustain, has its greatest tendency towards death, when the night is dying and the day is not yet born.
‘If it was me that had the law of this here job in hand,’ growled Riderhood with a threatening shake of his head, ‘blest if I wouldn’t lay hold of her, at any rate!’
‘Ay, but it is not you,’ said Eugene. With something so suddenly fierce in him that the informer returned submissively; ‘Well, well, well, t’other governor, I didn’t say it was. A man may speak.’
‘And vermin may be silent,’ said Eugene. ‘Hold your tongue, you water-rat!’
Astonished by his friend’s unusual heat, Lightwood stared too, and then said: ‘What can have become of this man?’
‘Can’t imagine. Unless he dived overboard.’ The informer wiped his brow ruefully as he said it, sitting in his boat and always staring disconsolate.
‘Did you make his boat fast?’
‘She’s fast enough till the tide runs back. I couldn’t make her faster than she is. Come aboard of mine, and see for your own-selves.’
There was a little backwardness in complying, for the freight looked too much for the