Читать книгу The Adventures of Ralph Rashleigh - James Tucker - Страница 5

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IT was only a few weeks after the Welbeck Street burglary that Rashleigh’s quick wits led him to undertake the crime which at once taxed his endurance to the limit and provided him with money to an amount which might have rendered it unnecessary for him to pursue the career into which his weakness had drifted him. It happened, as he was walking down Lombard Street on a Thursday, that he noticed that the great common sewer was open for repairs, and also that there was an important bank a few yards from the opening. On the instant he decided to rob the vaults, which, he guessed, would in the ordinary course be situated in the basement, and therefore probably accessible from the sewer. He entered the bank on the pretext of making an inquiry regarding the failure of some country bank, and was kept waiting for some minutes, owing to the number of customers who were there on business. This brief time he used to take in all that he could regarding the building. The narrowness of the frontage confirmed his belief that there was no space on the ground floor for a strong room, which, he concluded, must therefore be below stairs.

He determined to make his attempt to rob the place on Saturday, and made everything ready during the two days which followed his astute conjecture. Telling the people with whom he lodged that he was going into the country until Monday, he set out at about eight o’clock in the evening, with a carpet bag containing all the implements he would need, and a sufficient supply of food and spirits. This bag he concealed by wearing a long boatcloak. On reaching the City he went into a coffee-room until it was well past eleven o’clock, when he paid his reckoning and went by a circuitous route to Lombard Street, arriving there about midnight. It had come on to rain heavily, so that he met no one, not even a watchman, as he approached the opening of the sewer. He got into it and reached the bottom safely. He groped his way cautiously along the sewer, noting the side drains as he went, until he came to the one which, according to his calculations, should be the one beneath the bank. Supplying himself with a light by means of phosphorus and a wax taper, he crept along the branch drain, sounding its sides until a hollow noise suggested that he was outside one of the walls enclosing the bank basement.

He then proceeded to remove the bricks, stripping to the waist as the closeness of the drain, combined with the strain of working hard in so cramped a position, made him sweat profusely. Steadily and indefatigably he worked, prising out brick after brick, losing count of time. It was not for nothing that this section of the sewer was under repair, and two happenings warned him in time of the danger of the feat he was undertaking. First a crash startled him and he was almost choked with dust and powdered mortar. When this had settled he saw by taper-light that several yards of the crown and sides of the drain had collapsed, the debris completely blocking his way out. He went to work again, unalarmed by this, confident of being able to get out some other way, once he had got into the vaults. The incident had, however, made him cautious, and he proceeded more carefully, keeping a watchful eye on the wall on which he was working. It was thus that he noticed in time that the wall above the hole which he was making had begun to crack, and that, unless he took instant measures, it would soon fall and crush his life out. He crawled away rapidly to a sound part of the drain, and had scarcely reached safety when the cracking wall caved in, bringing with it a large piece of the drain, which struck Rashleigh on the head and knocked him senseless.

When he came to his senses, he discovered with dismay that he was lying in a considerable depth of water. He groped and found his phosphorus bottle and his tapers, which luckily had not been buried, and, having lit a taper, he burrowed under the broken bricks until he recovered his bag, in which he found his spirit flask unbroken. A good pull at this revived him sufficiently to enable him to investigate the ruins of his many hours of work. He was elated to find that the collapsing walls had left a breach through which he saw that there was some kind of a cellar within. He cautiously enlarged the opening, gathered his tools into his bag, and entered. A brief examination of the place filled him with chagrin and despair. Packing cases, old hampers, broken bottles and piles of straw was all he found, and a strong smell of drugs. He realized, with an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach, that he had actually entered the basement of the house next to the bank, which, he recollected, was occupied by a wholesale druggist.

He sat down fatigued and disheartened at the negation of all his labour and danger, and took another pull at the flask. The spirit put new heart into him, and he determined to try the other side of the drain so long as there was time safely to stay in the sewer. It was only six o’clock in the morning, and as it was Sunday, he had the whole day for uninterrupted working.

This time he worked with more circumspection, and after about two hours, by which time his hands were dreadfully galled and blistered, he had made an opening large enough to crawl through. A single glance in the light of his taper assured him that he had made no second mistake. Investigation showed several cases of silver and copper money, and several small cases, which he prised them open, he found to contain only blanks of bank-notes. Then he found a case of bill stamps, and he was beginning to think that his night of tormenting labour was to prove practically unrewarded, when he came upon a toughly made chest of antique design. It was strongly clasped and padlocked, and resisted all his attempts to open the lid. Sweating and breathless from his exertions, he sat down on the chest, his brain working desperately, furious at being balked when treasure was within an inch of his hands. He sprang up suddenly and heaved the chest over until it stood before him bottom up. He recollected having heard from an experienced thief in jail that a chest of this kind could often be opened at the bottom, if there had been any chance of damp collected under and round it, which causes the wood to rot. A careful examination proved that the bottom of the chest was indeed almost rotten, and in a few minutes he had broken it away. At what he found within all the toil and moil and danger were forgotten. Bags of coined gold, and a case of Bank of England notes, waiting there for him to take!

He emptied his carpet bag and stuffed it with as many sovereigns as he could carry, and then crammed in every bank-note that he could lay his hands on, until he judged that he had about ten thousand pounds. He then hid all his implements and went back to the adjoining house, where he made up a bed of straw in the most out-of-the-way corner that he could find. After eating a hearty meal of the food which he had brought with him, he lay down and slept.

He awoke at about six in the evening and decided to explore all the druggist’s cellars with a view to discovering whether there was some way out other than the choked-up drain. The idea of removing all that heap of bricks and rubbish was something he could scarcely bear to contemplate, rested though he was. After examining every inch of the cellar’s floor-space, he came at last upon a grating in a corner, which, on being raised, proved to open into the main sewer. He returned to his straw couch and waited impatiently for twelve midnight to strike. All his anxiety to be gone did not overcome his caution, as at that hour the City was practically certain to be deserted on a Sunday night. Midnight came at last, and he got through the grating, carrying his bag of booty, and crept silently towards the opening of the sewer. Listening attentively, he waited until no sound of footsteps or anything else broke the silence of the sleeping City, and then clambered up into the street.

The night was as dark as it had been at Winchester, and rain was still falling steadily, but Rashleigh’s elation at the favourable conditions was short-lived. As he made his way to the footpath, a watchman stepped suddenly out from a doorway and stood before him. Rashleigh was startled, but kept cool.

‘Good night, watchman,’ he said in his blandest tones.

‘Good night, sir,’ returned the watchman, a note of surprise in his voice. ‘D’you know, I thought I saw you come out of that big hole!’

Rashleigh laughed with the man at the absurdity of the idea, and, breathing deeply with relief at avoiding another awkward contretemps, walked on.

No hackney coach being obtainable at that hour, he went down to the river to a house which he knew was kept open all night for the convenience of passengers arriving by the late packet boats, booked a room, and, being too excited to sleep, spent the night alternately feasting his imagination on the future, and reading a book which he found in his bedroom.

In the morning he took boat up to Lambeth and breakfasted, going to his lodgings by hackney coach immediately after his meal. He concealed all his gold and notes except about one hundred pounds, and departed by coach for the City. Here by adroit questioning and listening, he learnt that the police were baffled by the crime, and had that morning arrested all the workmen employed in the repairing of the sewer, so that they could all be closely questioned. As a number of the workmen had not returned to work, there were some grounds for the suspicious of the authorities that the gang was concerned in the robbery. Placards offering a reward of five hundred pounds for the detection of the guilty parties were already posted outside the Guildhall. Rashleigh stayed that night at the ‘Swan with Two Necks,’ in Lad Lane, and next morning continued his inquiries. He, posing as a visitor from Bristol, chatted with a civic functionary at the Guildhall, from whom he learnt that the watchman who had accosted him on Sunday night in Lombard Street, had come forward and told his tale. In spite of the fact that the magistrates could make nothing of this information, Rashleigh was alarmed, and, content with what he had learned, took coach at once for his favourite retreat, at Farnham in Surrey. Here he decided to remain until it would be safe to return to his lodgings, pack his spoil and leave for foreign parts. He had heard that all the ports were being closely watched, and therefore he did not dare to make a precipitate flight.

About a fortnight later, he was sitting at breakfast in the inn, when he read in a newspaper that which made him leave his breakfast unfinished and leave immediately for London. Essex Street, Strand, where he lodged, had been burnt down, one side of the street having been entirely gutted. Sick with apprehension, he took the first available coach, which landed him in the evening at the Golden Cross, Charing Cross. He raced up the Strand to Essex Street, and at a single glance he knew that complete loss had befallen him. Only the shell remained of the house in which he had lodged; it was a blackened ruin, and its walls were being demolished by an emergency gang of workmen, as they were in danger of falling.

Half demented with rage, Ralph Rashleigh went into a neighbouring tavern, and drank himself into a state of oblivion.