Читать книгу The Lion and the Lamb - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 8

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DAVID NEWBERRY, a few days later, came face to face with an old friend in Bond Street. He endeavoured to pass on with wilfully unseeing eyes, but the Marquis would have none of it; a large man, he blocked the pathway and made escape impossible.

"David Newberry, by all that's amazing!" he exclaimed.

"So you're about again, young fellow."

"Yes, sir, I'm out," was the toneless reply. "I passed through the little postern gate a few days ago."

The Marquis refused to wince.

"And glad of it, eh?"

"Well, I like fresh air," David admitted. "There are certain restrictions, too, about prison life, which never appealed to me."

"Don't write your reminiscences," the Marquis begged.

"We're fed up with them, Newberry. What are you going to do about things now? The world has changed for you during the last seven or eight months."

"Yes, it has changed," the other admitted. "I have a title which I don't want and a position which is useless to me. I may be able to do something with the money."

"Embittered," his companion murmured. "I thought so. Don't know that I blame you altogether, but you'll have to be reasonable. You've more friends than you know of. Every one thought that your father was terribly hard, and, although one doesn't want to speak ill of the dead, there weren't two young men in the country more unpopular than your two brothers. You've been a bad boy, of course, but I don't mind telling you that there isn't one of us in the county wouldn't sooner have you at Anderleyton than either of them. Poor chaps, they were asking for it and they got it in the neck, and that's all there is to be said about it. Now, what are your plans?"

"I haven't any," David told him, "beyond the immediate present."

"Not thinking of settling abroad, or any rubbish of that sort? Martha seemed to have got hold of that idea, somehow."

"I might," David admitted. "I should have liked Kenya in the old days, if I'd had a little capital."

The Marquis thrust his hand through the young man's arm.

"At six o'clock in the evening," he confided, "I owe it to my constitution to take a drink. You'll say stupid things if I ask you to come to the Club. We'll try the Ritz Grill Room."

They went on their way together—the Marquis of Glendower, Lord Lieutenant of the county in which David had been born, a portly, dignified man, broad-shouldered, yet with a certain sparseness of frame which spoke of athletic pursuits, and David, fretting a little, but very helpless against the friendliness of the older man. Over a whisky and soda in a retired corner, the latter abandoned all restraint.

"What did you do it for, David?" he demanded.

"I joined the gang partly out of devilishment, and partly because I was starving," the other confessed. "I literally hadn't a shilling."

"But surely," Glendower persisted, "your father couldn't have refused you a reasonable income, however small it was."

"I wrote and told him precisely the straits I was in,"

David confided. "He answered me through his lawyers. I'll show you the letter some day, if you like—rather an epic in its way. He declined to assist me with even a five-pound note."

"One doesn't wish to speak ill of the dead," the Marquis repeated, "but I always thought Henry was the hardesthearted, coldest-blooded, most obstinate old curmudgeon in our part of the world."

"Up till then," David went on, "I had never committed a dishonest deed. I joined up with these fellows primarily to get a meal, and they sent me out during the first week. I hadn't much to do with the actual robbery at Frankley, except, of course, that I was there to help. I did the fighting, and played the fool generally. My companions sold me like a couple of dirty scoundrels; they got away with the jewellery, and I recovered consciousness in hospital."

"You knocked those two policemen up a bit, though."

"They weren't badly hurt. I sent each of them a cheque yesterday."

"A dirty gang you seemed to have got mixed up with, even for criminals," the Marquis mused. David lit a cigarette.

"Yes, they're a bad lot," he admitted. "They won't last much longer, though."

"You know," his companion went on, "the troubles of your home life were absolutely flagrant. There isn't a soul who doesn't realise that you were very badly treated. I don't wish to hurry things, of course, David, but we want you back again, and I'm jolly certain that you'll be surprised at the welcome you get. People soon forget, and there are a good many of us have knocked a policeman or two about, some time or other during our lives, and ought to have gone to jail for it. In a month or two's time, or a year, say, if you come and settle down with us, not a soul will remember a thing about your little affair. I bet you could have the hounds if you wanted them before long."

"You're very kind, as you always were to me," David acknowledged gratefully.

"Well," the Marquis continued, "I'm very glad to have met you this evening, anyway. You were always a harumscarum sort of lad, and difficult to deal with, and I sort of feel that after this little escapade, unless some one talks to you seriously, you might be dropping out of sight again, and we don't want you to. Have you been to see your sister?"

"Not I."

"I don't know that I blame you. All the same, you can afford to forgive a good deal when you remember that she's lost her father and two brothers within six months."

"I fancy I should be the last person she'd want to see," David objected.

"Give her the chance of saying so, then. Jolly nice girl, Harold's stepdaughter's turned out to be. She'll be one of the beauties next season. By- the-by, would you like me to trot you round to see them all? It wouldn't be a bad idea, and I should rather enjoy it."

"Not just at present," was the prompt refusal. "It's awfully good of you, sir, and I appreciate it immensely, but I am going to ask you to keep quiet, if you don't mind, even about having met me, for a month or two. I want to lie perdu if I can."

"Up to more mischief?" the older man asked gravely. David shrugged his shoulders.

"You might think so, sir," he admitted, "but, at any rate I'm not out to defy the law or anything of that sort."

The Marquis rose to his feet.

"Well," he said, "I've got to go upstairs to sign some fellow's visitor's book. London seems packed with foreign royalties just now. You'll leave me your address, David. Come, I insist upon that."

"I'm at the Milan Court, sir," David confided, "but keep away from me for a time, please. I'm staying there as Mr. David Newberry, and I want to remain as quiet as I can for a week or so. I'll look you up directly I'm through with my little business."

"That's a promise?" the Marquis stipulated.

"Word of honour."

David turned back into Bond Street, curiously and illogically disturbed. His was one of those dispositions warped by a long course of injustice which become almost apt to resent kindness. It was like an unwanted sop, an irritating balm, for wounds which he preferred to keep open. Many more interviews like this one with the Marquis, he realised, might altogether change his settled poise towards life. He had been ill-used, and the bitterness of it was fast becoming part of himself. He was being cheated of self-pity, he reflected, with a grim little smile forced upon his lips by a latent sense of humour. In his disturbed mental attitude, he saw his way less clearly, as he passed through the crowded streets. His eyes had lost their hard, steely gleam. He was perplexed by a momentary weakness, which he discarded almost with reluctance.

At the corner of Bruton Street, he picked up a taxicab and drove eastwards. With some difficulty he found the place of which he was in search—a large building, which had once been a warehouse, at the end of a paved alley off a side street in Holborn. A black sign was painted over the entrance:

ABBS'S GYMNASIUM

BOXING. COURSES IN PHYSICAL CULTURE. FENCING.

(Terms moderate)

(Enquire within)

David pushed open the swing door, and stood for a few moments at the foot of some steps leading to the office in which two young women were typing, gazing down the long room. There was a certain amount of sparring going on in the various rings, and some vigorous work with the punch ball. A short, stout little man presently came hurrying up.

"What can I do for you, sir?" he asked cheerfully.

"Recognise me, first of all. Then I should like you to show me round."

The little man looked hard at his visitor. Suddenly a light broke into his face.

"My God, it's young Mr. David!" he exclaimed. "Glad I am to see you, sir— real glad!"

David held out his hand, which the other grasped. Suddenly a cloud darkened the gymnasium instructor's face. He coughed.

"I beg your pardon, my lord," he apologised. "I forgot for a moment. I thought you were back at Anderleyton."

"I want you to forget Anderleyton," David told him curtly. "I'm living for a short time, well—incognito—as much as I can. As a matter of fact," he went on, with a grim smile, "I've been living incognito for the last six months—a life of complete seclusion, Abbs. Hear anything about it?"

The little man coughed once more.

"I did hear as how there'd been a bit of trouble, sir," he admitted, "and very sorry I was too. And then to lose your father and brothers like that! Enough to turn any one's head."

"Let it go at that," David enjoined shortly. "I came here to talk business with you, Abbs. Who's that sandyhaired fellow there with the useful punch?"

"That's Sammy West," Abbs confided. "We're training him seriously. He's fighting at the Albert Hall next week. Then there's Teddy Levy a little lower down. He's having a rest with his sparring partner."

"Any jiu-jitsu instructors?"

"Only one at present, but I'm in correspondence with another. I tell you, sir, we could turn out as plucky a band of fighters as you'd see anywhere—fellows who know how (to use their hands and their legs, and get out of any scrap clean."

"Business good?"

Mr. Abbs scratched his head.

"It's good enough, so to speak, sir," he replied, "but, all the same, it's difficult to make it pay. We've plenty of clients just now—couldn't keep them out last night. A good many of them only comes in for half an hour's exercise. Better for them than the public house, but there ain't much profit about it."

"Show me round," David begged. "I should like to see your lads at work."

They completed a tour of the premises. Then David laid his hand upon his companion's arm.

"Take me to your office," he enjoined. "I have a proposal to make to you."

Mr. Abbs led the way up the steps to the untidylooking apartment, where a couple of girls sat typing at old-fashioned and battered desks. There were announcements of boxing contests upon the walls, and torn bills dealing with several other sporting events. One of the girls paused, with her fingers upon the keys of her machine, and looked curiously at David. The other continued her work, unnoticing. The two men passed on beyond to a smaller sanctum, and Abbs closed the door behind them carefully.

"What can I do for you, sir?" he enquired, throwing some papers from a chair and dusting it carefully. David lit a cigarette. His eyes seemed always to be wandering back to the long line of sparring youths dimly to be seen now through the glass casements.

"I heard of your establishment in an odd sort of way, a few months ago," he observed, "and when I was told it was run by a man named Abbs, I felt sure that it must be you. Seems a good many years since you were our gymnasium instructor down at Anderleyton."

"It does indeed," the little man agreed. "Your poor dad, he was one for looking after his health, he was. An hour's exercise in the morning, and an hour in the afternoon. And then your two brothers—that was fair tragic. You was the only one though, sir, as took to boxing proper. Neither of them could have stood up to you for thirty seconds."

"And didn't they love me for it!" David reflected, a little grimly. "Never mind. I didn't come here to talk about that. Listen to me carefully, Abbs. Why do you suppose you get so many of these young fellows anxious to learn boxing and jiu jitsu?"

Abbs looked at his visitor keenly. He had the air of a man not altogether at his ease. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, and considered for a moment.

"Do you really want me to tell you that, sir?"

"It's what I came for."

"Well, then, this is how it seems to me, and naturally I've come across a few things that carry out the idea," Abbs began slowly. "There's a good many of them who come just for exercise and because they want to be able to hold their own in a tussle, but there's another lot that comes here what I'm not so sure about. Queer lads they are too, some of them."

"Tell me about them," David begged.

"You see, sir," Abbs continued, "there's a good deal of this quick, raiding robbery going on nowadays, and a young man who's clever with his fists, and knows how to use his feet and wrists, is the one who can get away with it. Mind you," he went on guardedly, "I'm not saying that you'd find many at my show like that, but I'm certain that it's at the backs of the minds of most of them."

"Gangsters," David murmured softly.

"Gangsters is the word. Why, where there used to be half a dozen bands in the country, and these pretty well confined to the race courses, to-day I should say there are fifty. The worst of them use guns or knives. I try to get into the brains of my lads here that that's where the serious trouble comes. I try to teach them to do all that is necessary in the way of defence or attack in as straightforward a manner as possible, if one might use the word."

"That's good," David approved. "Talking of gangs," he went on, "have you ever heard of the Lambs?"

Abbs shook his head doubtfully.

"Not by name, sir," he admitted. "I know there is one gang—very hot stuff too—with a leader who is supposed to live in seclusion and direct them from a distance. I don't know anything about them, though, sir, or any one else."

"It is my intention," David announced, tapping another cigarette upon the table and lighting it, "to put that particular band out of business. Do you think I could engage, and train, say, thirty of your lads, who would take the job on under your supervision and mine?"

Abbs was frankly startled.

"You'll excuse me, sir," he protested, "but surely that's a police job?"

"I'm not exactly hand in glove with the police," David explained drily. "There's money in my proposition, you know, Abbs. Quite enough to make it worth while."

The man was obviously uncomfortable.

"I'm doing very well with my little academy," he confided. "I'd rather not know what my pupils are training for. I'd rather not know what they do when they're outside these walls."

"It would be a thousand pounds down for you," David announced, with the air of a deaf man; "ten pounds a week for the lads, and fifty pounds for each one of the Lambs they tumble into jail or put out of action."

"It's real money, all right," Abbs acknowledged wistfully, "but by all accounts these gangsters are a wicked lot. There ain't one of them who don't carry a gun or a knife or something. My lads ain't used to that sort of stuff."

"No, but I want your lads trained so that they can deal with it," David explained. "With the help of jiu jitsu, there's very little in it between a man who's armed and a man who isn't at close quarters. I think I could prove that to you sometime, if we go into this little affair together. Besides, I can tell you another thing about the Lambs. They've been earning too much money. They're getting fat and lazy, some of them, and they haven't the stomach for a fight that they had in the old days."

"Was it them as played the dirty on you, my lord?" Abbs queried.

"It was," David acquiesced, "and whether you help me or not, there isn't one of them who isn't going to regret it. I can give you the cheque for the thousand now, Abbs."

"To-morrow morning, if you please, sir," the man begged. "Leave it over till then, and I'll see what can be done. I didn't want to be dragged into any business of this sort, but after all, it's you, Mr. David, and the money's good."

David, as he turned to take his leave, was suddenly conscious of a queer sense of disturbance. He was back again for a moment in that hideous public- house sitting room, a flaring palace, with its beer-stained interior. The stink of the room was in his nostrils and, mingled with it, the same half-alluring, half-nauseating perfume, with its queer suggestions of the jungle, of secret and sickly places. He lifted his head quickly. There was a rustle in the outside office.

"Where on earth does that scent come from?" he asked. Abbs looked over the top of the window.

"It's one of them damned typists," he muttered.