Читать книгу The Lion and the Lamb - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 6

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IN some odd and varying manner, every person in the hideous corner room on the first floor of the Lion and the Lamb public house seemed to possess something in common with its appalling ugliness. Tottie Green, renowned in criminal circles from Limehouse to Seven Dials, a mountainous heap of flesh, sat in his specially constructed easy-chair, upholstered in crimson velvet plush, coatless, his unbuttoned waistcoat freely sprinkled with tobacco ash, beads of perspiration from the heat of the room he loved standing out upon his coarse, low forehead. Cannon Ball Lem, in a suit of checks of music-hall size, the front of his hair plastered in two little curls over his forehead, and wearing bright yellow boots, represented the oldfashioned race of prize fighters as completely as the room itself had passed out of date with the ornate public houses of the last decade. The girl stretched upon the sofa, also upholstered with crimson plush, at first sight seemed to possess only the attractions of the barmaid type. She was large, richly but unbecomingly dressed, with flowing limbs, masses of golden hair, hazel eyes, a large pouting mouth, and over-beringed hands. The room itself was Tottie Green's headquarters and abode. It represented to him everything he had desired in life. The furniture was all of one pattern and had been proudly chosen in the Tottenham Court Road by the proprietor of the Lion and Lamb when he had furnished his corner public house in the purlieus of Bermondsey. There were two scratched mirrors with gilded frames upon the walls, whose only other adornments were advertisements of whisky and other alcoholic beverages. The carpet was thick and might once have been expensive, but it was stained in many places, and much of the cigar ash which had escaped Tottie Green's waistcoat seemed to have found an eternal resting place in its pile. There were a few cheap vases upon the mantelpiece, decanters and an open box of cigars upon the table, an empty bottle of wine lying on its side, a floating cloud of cigar smoke, and many indications that the heavily curtained window had remained closed if not for weeks, at least for days.

"I guess our young gent ain't coming," Cannon Ball Lem observed, without removing the cigar from the corner of his mouth. "Think I'll drop down and have a game of billiards with Harry."

"You stay where you are," his patron and Chief growled.

"He'll come fast enough. They generally do when Tottie Green sends for them."

The girl raised herself a little on the sofa and removed the cigarette from her lips. There was something lionesslike in the grace of her attitude, as she leaned with her elbow on the back of the couch, her cheek in the palm of her hand.

"What's all this talk about?" she demanded. "Why don't he come for his money?"

"He don't seem to need it," her guardian confided. "He ain't touched a bob from us, and there he is driving about in a fine motor car and staying at a West End hotel."

She laughed.

"If he's got any money to spare, I shall have to look after him," she remarked.

"I doubt whether you'd get him if you tried," Cannon Ball Lem snarled. "You should have heard him talk to us up at Wandsworth. He's got some of them fine gentleman manners with him I can't abear. I'd like him in the ring for five minutes. I'd spoil his beauty."

"Don't do anything of that sort until I've made up my mind whether he's worth while," the girl yawned. "If I want to get him, I shall, so you needn't fret about that, Lem, or any of you. What's doing these days? I want some more jewellery."

"We've three of the lads out Hampstead way to-night," Tottie Green told her. "Might be a fat little job, but small. There's another affair I've marked down for some time, but our lads are getting too well known. That's one reason why I want to keep Dave."

"If you wanted to keep him, what did you start with selling him for?" she asked lazily.

"The lads did that," her guardian replied, puffing asthmatically. "Reuben was in the show, and if they'd nabbed him it might have meant the swinging room."

The girl rose to her feet and lounged over to the looking-glass. Her hands toyed ineffectually with the great coils of fair hair, which in their abundance and vitality seemed never to have known the restraining hand of a coiffeur. She turned around and looked about her disdainfully.

"Daddy Green," she complained, "this is the foulest room in London. I think that I shall leave you all and start on my own."

"What's the matter with the room?" her guardian demanded in bewilderment. "It's just the sort of place I always meant to have, all my days—the kind of headquarters to sit in and do nothing but make plans. Don't you go and spoil it all, Belle. Where would you go to if you left here, I wonder?"

"Up the West End," the girl replied thoughtfully. "I should like to go on the films. Think I shall, too."

Tottie Green began to shake. His enormous stomach heaved and quivered. He perspired more freely than ever. Yet, notwithstanding his general appearance of impotence, there was a terribly menacing look about his eyes and lips.

"If you did that, my girl," he threatened, "you'd be sorry for it."

"My God, the boys were right!" Cannon Ball Lem, who had been looking out of the window, declared. "Here he is, in a motor car, with a chauffeur in livery, getting out as bold as brass. Isn't he the toff too! I ain't sure that I want him back, guv'nor," he added, turning to his Chief.

"I fancy him and me'd fall out."

"You'd probably get what you're asking for if you did," the girl mocked. "You've gone a bit to seed, you know, Lem."

There was a knock at the door. David Newberry entered, closing it behind him. For a moment, he stood still. The girl was watching him, her hand resting lightly upon her hip, her hair aflame against the common, incandescent light. She smiled a welcome to him.

"Well, Mr. Bad Penny," she said, "come to see the old folks at home, eh?"

He acknowledged her greeting courteously but without enthusiasm, and, advancing farther into the room, laid his hat and stick upon the table and drew off his gloves. He nodded curtly to Tottie Green and ignored Cannon Ball Lem altogether. They watched him, a little stupefied. He had had time to visit his tailor, and he was wearing clothes of a cut and style outside the range of their experience. He was a great deal more assured in his manner, too, than any one should have been in the presence of the great Chief of the Underworld. The old man carried a book in which seven crosses appeared at different times after the names of seven young men. Two of Tottie Green's Lambs were languishing in prison, but the seven young men had passed into oblivion, all right. Pa Green ruled his band through fear, and the composure of this young visitor in his presence was distressing. He scowled across at him.

"So you've come at last," he remarked harshly. "Taken your time about it, haven't you?"

"Well, to tell you the truth, my first intention was not to come at all," David replied. "Then I decided it would be rather interesting to know what you wanted from me. Besides," he added, after a moment's pause, "I have something to say to you on my own account."

Tottie Green drew one or two deep breaths. The sound itself was unpleasant, and the display of his teeth was worse. He drank from a tumbler by his side and lit a cigar. For some reason or other, it seemed to occur to him that amicable methods might be better with his visitor.

"Do you want a drink or smoke, young man?" he asked, pointing to the table on which was set out a liberal supply of decanters and cigar boxes.

"Not with you," was the calm reply.

The autocrat of the Lambs stared across the room. His eyes for the moment were bulbous. He had the air of one who could scarcely believe what he heard. From behind, Belle laughed lightly.

"That's right, Mr. Dandy," she encouraged him. "Don't let them bully you."

Cannon Ball Lem clenched his fist and looked at it thoughtfully. The man in the chair had more than ever the appearance of a fat and bloated satyr. Nevertheless, though he was shaking with anger, he still took pains to restrain himself.

"Young fellow," he confided, "there's more than one has gone to his grave for holding out against me. I don't allow insubordination. You joined my Lambs, and when you join you're mine until I give you your quittance, or until you buy it from me."

"Give it to me then," David demanded. "I've had enough of your Lambs."

"I don't choose to give it to you," was the angry reply.

"Be sensible, Dave lad. I need you for my work. You ain't so well known as some of the others, and you can do the gentleman stunts. That's what we're short of. You can work with Belle there sometimes, if you don't want the rough stuff, although they tell me you're a scrapper, all right."

"That's more than your lads are," David answered bitterly. "They left me alone to fight two policemen whilst they got away with the swag. If that's their idea of running a j ob, it isn't mine. I've finished. Do you understand that? I wouldn't go out with your pack of cowards again for anything in the world."

The old man was breathing heavily. Speech at that moment would have been unwise. Belle called across the room to this very bold visitor.

"What about me, Dave? Wouldn't you take me along and let me show you a few stunts? There are more ways of making money than breaking into safes."

"Thank you," David answered, "I don't want to hear of any of your stunts. I've finished with the lot of you. That is one of the two things I came here to say."

"And what might be the other?" Lem asked, sidling up a little closer to where David was lounging against the table.

"Get out of my way," the latter enjoined. "I'm going to say it to the old man there, and I want to say it face to face. You've had a pretty good innings, Tottie Green. You've sat in here, filling your stomach, and swilling, and getting hold of young men to do your dirty work a trifle too long. It's time it came to an end. You played a foul trick on me, and I'm going to get it back on you. I'm going to break you and your gang. As to those two cowards who ran away and left me to face the music down at Frankley Grange, they're going to be sorry they were ever born before I've finished with them."

There was a brief and strange silence. Cannon Ball Lem, who was a slow thinker, stood for a moment with his mouth open, and an ugly light dawning gradually in his eyes. The old man was making wicked and stertorous noises in his place. The girl was leaning a little forward, mildly amused, but watching every one closely through half-veiled eyes.

"You've got it straight from me now," David went on coldly. "I came here to give you warning. I'm just being honest about the matter. Open war. That's what it's going to be. I'm a Lamb in revolt."

"Hold on a minute, Lem," his Chief croaked. "Wait till I give the word."

David, who, warned by certain twitchings of the other's body, was standing tense and prepared, shrugged his shoulders.

"You can turn your bully loose on me if you want to," he said, "but I don't see the use. My chauffeur down below knows I've come here, and he won't go away without me. There was a policeman at the door as I came in. I should think a row up here in the Holy of Holies wouldn't do you any good."

Cannon Ball Lem was eyeing his master wistfully.

"Five minutes, Dad," he begged. "Let me have five minutes with him."

"Can you fight, David Newberry?" the girl drawled.

"I shouldn't have come to a place like this without being able to take care of myself," was the evasive answer. There was regret in her eyes as she lounged across the floor, moving as though without definite intent between the two men. With the flutter of her skirts, there stole out into the tobacco and drink-odorous room a waft of peculiar but seductive perfume, overstrong, almost nauseating, yet in its way disturbing. The memory of it lingered with David long after he had left the sordid apartment.

"I should have loved a scrap," she confessed, "but you're right, David. The police are better away from this place. Chuck it, Lem," she enjoined in a voice of authority. "A scrap between you two wouldn't do any one any good. As for you, David," she concluded, with a challenging look into his set, determined face, "you're a brave man in your own way, I suppose, but you're a fool, all the same, to come here and talk like this. You'll get what you're asking for, all right, if you don't take care. They'll have you one of these dark nights."

David Newberry prepared to take his leave.

"Let them, if they can," he rejoined. "I've learned a few of their tricks myself, you know."

"Your hundred and seventy-five pounds is here," Tottie Green growled.

"Keep it," was the scornful reply. "It will do to pay the hospital bill of some of your Lambs when I begin to talk to them."

In some unexplained manner, each one of them knew that the immediate danger of a fracas was over. Belle, with her hand upon her hip, crossed over to the plush-draped mantelpiece. She took a cigarette from a box and lit it.

"Can't I have it for chocolates?" she asked. "It's not enough for diamonds, or I should have liked a ring. Goodbye, David Newberry."

She flung a mocking smile across the room, and, with an ironic bow, he took his leave. As they listened to his retreating footsteps, she laughed again.

"He won't be much trouble," she declared scornfully. "If you really want him, I can get him all right."