Читать книгу Ambition's Slave - Fred M. White - Страница 13

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ONCE out in the roadway Price stepped out briskly. His quarry was not in sight, but he expected to come up with him presently. Really things were coming out splendidly for him. Only yesterday morning he had been a prisoner with no hope of freedom. In his wildest dreams he had not expected anything like this. He was to go to London to give evidence, to which he looked forward with more or less indifference.

It would be a change, anyhow. He would see fresh faces and scenery, he would have the privilege of talking, at the stations where the trains stopped he would get something respectable in the way of food. There was something like a smile on his broad face as he thought of it. On the whole he looked forward to it.

And here he was free! It had all come like a dream. There was a dissolving view of a struggle, the dull thud of blows, a vision of two warders lying back, dazed and white, in their respective corners of a third-class carriage, and then Price was speeding down a country lane in a high dog-cart with two strange companions. An overcoat had been hurriedly buttoned over his convict's garb, and one of his new friends proffered him a cigarette. The delicious flavour of tobacco filled Price with content.

"What's it all mean?" he asked. "Where are you taking me to?"

"No harm intended," the driver said. "Ask no questions and you'll hear no lies."

They came to the outskirts of a wood at length, and there Price changed his stripes for a suit of artisan's clothing. It was nearly dark before the dog-cart went on again, and it was quite late when, coming down Hampstead way, Price could see the light of London. It mattered little where Price was going. He was free now and meant to remain so. The dog-cart pulled up at length, and at a sign Price dismounted.

"Now foot it the rest of the way," Price's companions growled. "Then we'll give you some supper and a bed and tell you all about it to-morrow."

Price was in no mood to ask questions. The supper was good, the bed better, so clean and comfortable that Price slept far into the next afternoon. The luncheon was as good as the supper, and the escaped convict ate heartily. His taciturn companion pushed a box of cigarettes across the table and glanced at Price.

"I dare say you'd like to know what all this means," he growled. "You'd better call me Jones. That ain't my real name, but it's good enough for the people here, and you're my brother Bill, up from the north, looking for a job as a boiler-maker. I'm a gas engineer. Is there anything more you'd like to know?"

"A lot," Price said, as he pulled at his cigarette. "What have I got to pay for that little job yesterday? You didn't run all this risk to get my company for nothing."

Price's rough manner had left him. He spoke with the air and manner of a gentleman. He picked his words slowly and there was a cynical flavour about them.

"You've got nothing to do," the other said sullenly. "There's big people behind the job, though who they are I don't know any more than the dead. All I had to do was to get you out of the way, and to see that you don't go taking the air in the locality of the Law Courts. That's what I'm paid for and I'll see that it's done."

Price pulled thoughtfully at his cigarette. So the reason of that daring and successful attempt at kidnapping was to prevent his giving evidence in the Certified Company case. For the present he was at a loss to understand why. How could the suppression of his evidence be of such vital importance to one party or another? But he would find out, as men with a jaw like Price's find out everything that they set their minds on. There might be money in this later on. For the present he was free. Till the hue and cry had died away he would be housed and fed and well looked after. There would be no going back to prison again. And Price was a man of resource, his knowledge of London was extensive and peculiar.

"Then so long as I keep close, I can do as I like!" he asked.

"Oh, can you?" the other sneered. "Not much. My orders are not to lose sight of you on any account. If the police pick you up again I shall have had all the trouble for nothing. You can go for walks after dark, but I go along too."

Price smiled to himself as he lit another cigarette. He had not the slightest intention of being used as a puppet in somebody else's game. To their own ends some other people had set him at liberty. But his liberty was not going to be curtailed like that. He would give his gaoler the slip presently and lose himself in London.

"All right," he said, dropping into his rougher manner. "I'm not likely to go out so long as it is daylight. Leave me plenty of cigarettes and a paper and I'll make myself comfortable. Only I shall be glad of your entertaining company after dark."

The other man lounged away, leaving Price to his own reflections. For the present he was tired, he dare not go out in the daylight. And even when darkness came he could not slip away as he might have done for the simple reason that he had no money. The other man seemed to be pretty flush, for he had taken out a handful of sovereigns to find a sixpence to send the landlady's little girl to fetch some cigarettes. Price's eyes gleamed as he saw the gold. If only that were in his possession he need not trouble his new friends any longer. And they need have no anxiety as to his coming in contact with the police. Price would see to that for his own sake.

He read the paper carefully, as a man does who has been debarred from newspapers for a long time; he read of his own escape with a grim smile. He carefully noted the names of counsel engaged on both sides, for in his roaming life he had once been in the service of the Certified Company. But, puzzle as he would, he could find no reason why his tongue should have been tied in this way. It was quite dark before the other returned.

"Come along and stretch your legs," he said. "We'll try a music hall presently."

"You don't mind my sending a telegram?" Price said.

"Yes, I do," the other growled. "None of your nonsense. My orders were to let you communicate with nobody. You're being well looked after and well fed, and you ought to be satisfied. We'll have a drink at some respectable place, and you can go as far as the Momus in Oxted Road."

Price professed himself to be perfectly agreeable. It was no cue of his to run counter to the wishes of his companion. But he set his teeth close as he heard the jingling of the sovereigns in the other man's pockets. It would go hard if those sovereigns were not his before long. "I'd like to have sent that telegram," he said, "but, after all, it doesn't matter much. There used to be a snug little house down this way that I knew years ago—the Norfolk Arms>."

The other man nodded. The Norfolk Arms was well known to him. They might just as well take their whisky and soda there as anywhere else. A florid-looking landlord with a fat face and a cunning eye started as he caught sight of Price. The latter passed a glance at his companion. He made a significant gesture of pouring something into a glass, and a moment later a tiny phial was dexterously slipped into his hand by the landlord under pretence of tendering his customer a match. The other man had seen nothing of what was going on.

"Better be moving," Price suggested. "We don't want to be out late."

The other man nodded. A half hour passed in the Momus watching a dreary and not too refined entertainment and in the consuming of more whisky and soda. A fight flared up in one corner, and Price's companion stood up eagerly to watch. Like a flash the little bottle came out of Price's pocket and the contents were dropped into his companion's glass. There was a sound of a scuffle, the sudden flash of a policeman's buttons and it was peace again. The other man drank his whisky with a remark that they sold pretty queer stuff at such places.

"Come along!" Price said. "This isn't good enough. We're better at home. My nerves ain't very strong, and the sight of that policeman gave me a turn."

The other man rose willingly. He seemed dazed and stupid as they reached the outer air. He muttered something about poisonous drink, he hung heavily on Price's arm. It taxed the enormous strength of the convict to get his companion along. They came presently to a new road where extensive building operations were being carried on. Price literally carried his now senseless companion into one of the empty houses and laid him on a pile of sacking. He plunged eagerly for the sovereigns into the other's pocket. There had been no mistake; here was a score or more of the precious, clinking, yellow coins, more than enough to keep Price in funds till he had developed his plans.

"Well, my star is in the ascendant to-night," he muttered. "Freedom, a change of clothes, getting clear away to London, and a pocketful of money, all in a little over twenty-four hours. I ought to back my luck now that it is in. Good-bye, my friend, sleep well, and if you have a fine head in the morning, put it down to the Momus whisky."

Price strode cheerfully along in the direction of London. It was a little past ten when he reached Oxford Circus. Here he stopped to dispatch a telegram. Then he wandered on filled with an exulting sense of freedom. What should he do next he was asking himself. He had a presentiment that further developments were coming. It was at this moment that a passing figure half stopped, there was the sound of an alarmed cry. And then it was that Price found himself face to face with Ericsson—Ericsson in the flesh, the cur who had laid a better man than himself by the heels. Price forgot everything in the exultation of the moment. What followed the reader already knows.