Chapter 14

THERE ARE STRANGERS IN THE CAVES

It was some time after midnight when Alban reached Broad Street Station and discovered that the last train for Hampstead had left. A certain uneasiness as to what his new friends would think of him did not deter him from his sudden determination to turn westward and seek out his old haunts. He had warned Richard Gessner that no house would ever make a prisoner of him, and this quick desire for liberty now burned in his veins as a fever. It would be good, he thought, to sleep under the stars once more and to imagine himself that same Alban Kennedy who had not known whither to look for bread--could it be but five short weeks ago!

The city was very still as he passed through it and, save for a broken-down motor omnibus with a sleepy conductor for its guardian, Cheapside appeared to be almost destitute of traffic. The great buildings, wherein men sought the gold all day, were now given over to watchmen and the rats, as the bodies of the seekers would one day be given over to the earth whence they sprang. Alban depicted a great army of the servants of money asleep in distant homes, and he could not but ask what happiness they carried there, what capacities for rest and true enjoyment.

Was it true, as he had begun to believe, that the life of pleasure had cares of its own, hardly less supportable than those which crushed the poor to the very earth? Was the daily round of abundance, of lights and music and wine and women--was it but the basest of shams, scarce deceiving those who practised it? His brief experience seemed to answer the question in the affirmative. He wondered if he had known such an hour of true happiness as that which had come to him upon the last night he had spent in the Caves. Honesty said that he had not--and to the Caves he now turned as one who would search out forgotten pleasures.

The building in St. James' Street had made great advance since last he saw it, but he observed to his satisfaction that the entrance to the subterranean passages were not absolutely closed, and he did not doubt that many of the old night-hawks were still in possession. His astonishment, therefore, was considerable when, upon dropping into the first of the passages, a figure sprang up and clutched him by the throat, while a hand thrust a lantern into his face and a pair of black eyes regarded him with amazed curiosity.

"A slap-up toff, so help me Jimmy! And what may your Royal Highness be doing this way--what brings you to this pretty parlor? Now, speak up, my lad, or it will go queer with you."

Alban knew in an instant--his long experience taught him--that he had fallen into the hands of the police, and his first alarms were very real.

"What right have you to question me?"

"Oh, we'll show our right sharp enough. Now, you be brisk--what's your name and what are you doing here?"

"I am the son of Mr. Richard Gessner of Hampstead and I used to know this place. I came down to have a look at it before the building is finished. If you doubt me, let us go to Mr. Gessner's house together and he will tell you who I am."

It was a proud thing to say and he said it with pride. That thrill of satisfaction which attends a fine declaration of identity came to Alban then as it has done to many a great man in the hour of his vanity. The son of Richard Gessner--yes, his patron would acknowledge him for that! The police themselves admitted the title by almost instant capitulation.

"Well, sir, it's a queer place to come to, I must say, and not very safe either for a gentleman in your position. Why didn't you ask one of us to bring you down? We'd have done it right enough, though not to-night perhaps."

"Then you're out on business?"

"You couldn't have guessed better, sir. We're here with the nets and there will be herrings to salt in the morning. If you care to wait five minutes, you may look into the bundle. Here's two or three of them coming along now and fine music they're making, I must say. Just step aside a minute, sir, while we give a hand. That's a woman's voice and she's not been to the Tabernacle. I shouldn't wonder if it was the flower girl that hobnobs with the parson--oh, by no means, oh dear, no."

He raised his lantern and turned the light of it full on the passage, disclosing a spectacle which brought a flush of warm blood to Alban's cheeks and filled him with a certain sense of shame he could not defend. For there were three of his old friends, no others than Sarah and the Archbishop of Bloomsbury with the boy "Betty," the latter close in the custody of the police who dragged him headlong, regardless of the girl's shrieks and the ex-clergyman's protests upon their cruelty. For an instant Alban was tempted to flee the place, to deny his old friends and to surrender to a base impulse of his pride; but a better instinct saving him, he intervened boldly and immediately declared himself to the astonished company.

"These people are friends of mine," he said, to the complete bewilderment of the constables, "please to tell me why you are charging them?"

"Gawd Almighty--if it ain't Mr. Kennedy!"--this from the woman.

"Indeed," said the clergyman, with a humility foreign to him, "I am very glad to see you, Alban. Our friend 'Betty' here is accused of theft. I am convinced--I feel assured that the charge is misplaced and that you will be able to help us. Will you not tell these men that you know us and can answer for our honesty?"

The lad "Betty" said nothing at all. His eyes were very wide open, a heavy hand clutched his ragged collar, and the police stood about him as though in possession of a convicted criminal.

"A young lad, sir, that stole a gold match-box from a gentleman and has got it somewhere about him now. Stand up, you young devil--none of your blarney. Where's the box now and what have you done with it?"

"I picked it up and give it to Captain Forrest--so help me Gawd, it's true. Arst him if I didn't."

The sergeant laughed openly at the story.

"He run two of our men from the National Sporting right round Covent Garden and back, sir," he said to Alban. "The gentleman dropped the box and couldn't wait. But we'll see about all that in the morning."

"If you mean Captain Forrest of the Trafalgar Club, I have just left him," interposed Alban, quickly; "this lad has been known to me for some years and I am positively sure he is not a thief. Indeed, I will answer for him anywhere--and if he did pick up the box, I can promise you that Captain Forrest will not prosecute."

He turned to "Betty" and asked him an anxious question.

"Is it true, Betty--did you pick up the box?"

"I picked it up and put it into the gentleman's hand. He couldn't stand straight and he dropped it again. Then a cab runner found it and some one cried 'stop thief.' I was frightened and ran away. That's the truth, Mr. Alban, if I die for it--"

"We must search you, Betty, to satisfy the officers."

"Oh, yes, sir--I'm quite willing to be searched."

He turned out all his pockets there and then, was pinched and pushed and cuffed to no avail. The indignant Sarah shaking her clothes in the sergeant's face dared him to do the same for her and to take the consequences of his curiosity. The Archbishop obligingly offered his pockets, which, as he said, were open at all times to the inspection of his Majesty's authorized servants. A few words aside between Alban and the assembled police, the crisp rustle of a bank-note in the darkness, helped conviction to a final victory. There were other ferrets in that dark warren and bigger game to be had.

"Well, sir," said the sergeant, "if you'll answer for Captain Forrest--and he'll want a lot of answering for to-night--I'll leave the lad in your hands. But don't let me find any of 'em down here again, or it will go hard with them. Now, be off all of you, for we have work to do. And mind you remember what I say."

It was a blessed release and all quitted the place without an instant's delay. Out in the open street, the Archbishop of Bloomsbury took Alban aside and congratulated him upon his good fortune.

"So your old friend Boriskoff has found you a job?" he said, laying a patronizing hand on the lad's stout shoulder. "Well, well, I knew Richard Gessner when I was--er--hem--on duty in Kensington, and in all matters of public charity I certainly found him to be an example. You know, of course, that he is a Pole and that his real name is Maxim Gogol. General Kaulbars told me as much when he was visiting England some years ago. Your friend is a Pole who would find himself singularly inconvenienced if he were called upon to return to Poland. Believe me, how very much astonished I was to hear that you had taken up your residence in his house."

"Then you heard about it--from whom?" Alban asked.

"Oh, 'Betty' followed you, on the day the person who calls himself Willy Forrest, but is really the son of a jockey named Weston, returned from Winchester. We were anxious about you, Alban--we questioned the company into which you had fallen. I may say, indeed, that our hearths were desolate and crape adorned our spears. We thought that you had forgotten us--and what is life when those who should remember prefer to forget."

Alban answered at hazard, for he knew perfectly well what was coming. The boy "Betty," still frightened out of his wits, clung close to the skirts of the homeless Sarah and walked with her, he knew not whither. A drizzle of rain had begun to fall; the streets were shining as desolate rivers of the night--the Caves behind them stood for a house of the enemy which none might enter again. But Alban alone was silent--for his generosity had loosened the pilgrims' tongues, and they spoke as they went of a morrow which should give them bread.