Part 10

“Lawks!” was Mr. Lister’s simple tribute to the dramatic quality of the occasion. “Whatever ’ave you got there?” he asked, somewhat unnecessarily. “A picture?”

“Pickcher?” said Mr. Pincott, setting down the landscape flat on the table, and mopping his forehead. “It’ll be about the finest thing in your collection. I bought it for you, a rare bargain. ’Alf the dealers in the kingdom was after it, but I managed to diddle ’em!”

“It—it ain’t very ’andsome,” mildly criticized the worthy amateur.

“’Andsome?” queried Mr. Pincott. “What’s it want to be ’andsome for? It’s a genuine Old Master! ’Undreds of years old! It’s been in one family for generations.”

“Ah, that’s the kind of thing I want,” said Mr. Lister. “And ’ow did you come to ’ear of it?”

“I’ve ’ad my eye on it for months past,” Mr. Pincott told him. “I’ve been waiting my opportunity. You know ’ow it is in our line. You ’ave to go slow, otherwise you’re likely to get the price raised.”

“That’s so,” said Lister, with a nod of appreciation for such nice consideration of his pocket. “And ’oo’s it by?” he queried, examining the canvas with enhanced interest.

“Andrew Carrotti, the famous Old Master,” returned Mr. Pincott glibly. “Surely you don’t need me to tell you anything more about _’im_?”

“I don’t seem to ’ave ’eard the name before, though,” admitted Mr. Lister, very honestly.

“Oh, you’ve ’eard of ’im and forgot,” returned Mr. Pincott, easily. “It’ll look well on that wall there, opposite the window, won’t it? If you’ve got any pickcher-cord ’andy—”

“’Tain’t every one that’s got a genuine Old Master hanging on their dining-room wall,” remarked Mr. Lister, with naïve pleasure. “Little did I ever dream, when I used to be serving out ’alf-pounds of sugar—”

“Mind you, you’re lucky to get it,” said Mr. Pincott. “If I wasn’t so himpulsive, I’d ’ave took it up to London and sold it at Christie’s, but I’m content with a small profit, so long as I can keep your patronage and—”

“What are you going to ask me for it?” inquired Mr. Lister, with a belated effort to appear businesslike; and evinced no more objection than a twinge of surprise when Mr. Pincott nominated a price.

“I’ll write you out a cheque,” promised Mr. Lister, and this agreeable feat he was in the act of beginning when the advent of Mr. Horace Dobb was announced.

Mr. Dobb, proclaiming that he had come specially to bring Mr. Lister a saucer which matched a cup already in his collection, betrayed considerable surprise at view of the picture.

“Well, now, I do ’ope you ain’t going to start collecting trash like that, sir?” he observed, reproachfully.

“Trash, Mr. Dobb?” echoed Mr. Lister. “I’m surprised at a man of your knowledge saying that! Can’t you see that it’s a genuine Old Master? Trash, hindeed!” he said again, indignantly.

Mr. Dobb bent and scrutinized the landscape closely. Then he shook his head, and smiled tolerantly.

“Pincott’s got to learn the business, just as I ’ad to,” he said. “That ain’t a Old Master, sir, and never was!”

“Don’t you take no notice of ’im, sir!” begged Mr. Pincott. “Why, ’e was after this very pickcher ’imself!”

“Oh, no, not me!” disclaimed Horace. “I only buys and sells genuine stuff.”

“This is genuine!” insisted Mr. Pincott.

“So’s that ’ere diamond in your necktie,” scoffed Mr. Dobb. “I don’t think!”

“Why, it’s a Carrotti!” cried Mr. Pincott. “And you know ’ow long ago ’e lived, don’t you?”

“Can’t say I do. I’ve never ’eard of ’im in all my life before this very minute. When did ’e live?”

“’Undreds of years ago!”

“’Undreds of years ago, eh?” mused Horace, looking again at the canvas. “Fancy that, now. But the pickcher’s so dirty you can ’ardly see what it’s meant to be. I’ve got a little bottle of stuff ’ere,” he went on, producing a small phial full of a liquid, “and if I might clean up just one corner—”

“Yes, do,” invited Mr. Lister.

Mr. Dobb, moistening his handkerchief with a little of the liquid, worked industriously at a small region on the canvas.

“Well, well!” he marvelled. “Blest if there ain’t another pickcher underneath this ’ere one! If the top one is ’undreds of years old, the bottom one must be thousands! Why, look! ’Ere is a old girl in a crinoline just come to light, and a little bit of what looks like the Crystal Palace. Must be a view of the Great Hexibition, or something!”

“Clean it up a bit more,” said Mr. Lister, in a new, and strange voice.

Nothing loth, Mr. Dobb renewed his energies over a wider extent, with such success that presently his theory stood substantiated.

“Well, there it is, sir,” said Mr. Dobb, standing back from his handiwork. “I shouldn’t like to say Pincott deliberately tried to cheat you, but when a man starts in this line of business and knows nothing whatever about it—”

Mr. Dobb gave a half-pitying shrug of the shoulders.

Five minutes later a husky, indignant and profane Mr. Pincott had taken his departure, and the discredited picture had gone with him. Mr. Lister expressed his gratitude to Mr. Dobb in the warmest terms.

“That’s quite all right, sir,” said Mr. Dobb. “I don’t like to see no one cheated by chaps like ’im, if I can ’elp it.”

“In future,” promised Mr. Lister, “I shall stick by you and abide by your decisions alone.”

“I’ll look after you all right, sir,” returned Mr. Dobb.

That same evening, at a convivial little gathering at the “Royal William,” Mr. Dobb loyally and uncomplainingly paid out two pounds to each of his former shipmates.

“A little present from Mr. Pincott,” he observed, flippantly.

“All the same, ’Orace,” said Mr. Tridge, thoughtfully, “’ow was you so cocksure about the pickcher being a wrong ’un? You’d ’ave looked funny if it ’ad turned out genuine. After all, seeing it’s been ’anging up all those years in that there little shop, and never left the family—”

“I knew it wasn’t genuine,” stated Mr. Dobb. “I knew jolly well. Matter of fact, I give that old gal ten bob to ’ang the pickcher up in ’er shop. Matter of fact, it was my property to start with. See?”

_EPISODE VII_ HIDDEN TREASURE

Mr. Horace Dobb, concluding his exposition with an emphatic prophecy of success, settled himself back in his chair, and smiled round on his old shipmates with a certain high, patronizing confidence, as a card-player might triumphantly sit back after spreading an invincible hand on the table for open inspection.

There followed a short, analytical silence, punctuated towards its close by crescendo grunts which indicated a widening and warming comprehension. And next arose an incoherent little duet, made up of the beginnings of exclamations of admiration from the lips of Mr. Joseph Tridge and Mr. Peter Lock, while the tribute of the ancient and corpulent Mr. Samuel Clark took the flattering form of speechlessness, allied to a slow, marvelling oscillation of the head and a gaze almost of veneration at Mr. Dobb.

And then Mr. Joseph Tridge, never a man to restrain honest sentiments, rose from his chair and forcefully pounded Mr. Dobb’s shoulder in token of esteem for his astuteness, and at the same time loudly challenged the world to produce Mr. Dobb’s equal either in artfulness or fertility of invention. And Mr. Peter Lock affectionately declared that Mr. Dobb, far from being spoiled by life ashore, was now even a bigger rascal than when he had served as cook to the “Jane Gladys,” of mixed memories.

These compliments Mr. Dobb equably accepted as his just due, merely observing that he counted himself fortunate to have the co-operation of men who had graduated in craft on that ill-reputed vessel to assist him now in furthering the more ambitious plans for which his present occupations as second-hand dealer offered such scope. As sufficient answer to an interpolated suggestion of Mr. Tridge’s, he reminded them that “Strictly Business” was his motto, and explained that, therefore, he would produce no bottles nor tumblers till it was manifest that all present thoroughly understood their parts in the plan of campaign he had outlined to them.

“Let’s see,” said Mr. Clark. “Peter Lock’s the ’ero, ain’t he?”

“Not the ’ero,” corrected Mr. Dobb. “The rightful heir.”

“I’ve seen ’em at the theatre,” stated Mr. Clark, vaguely. “With their ’air all smarmed down with ile, and being shot at by villains, and what-not. There’s generally a gal or two in the offing and—”

“Well, anyway,” interrupted Mr. Lock, with some satisfaction, “I’ve got to be pretty conspicuous. What’s that worth, Horace?”

“Same to you as to the others,” replied Mr. Dobb. “When I’ve taken one quid, cost price, off the sum received, and another one quid for profit, and one quid more because it’s my idea, the rest is divided into five equal shares and we takes each one, and one over for me!”

“Good enough!” accepted Mr. Lock. “All right. I’ll be the unfortunate young chap what’s lost his great-uncle. What was his name, Horace?”

“’Ennery Pash,” supplied Mr. Dobb. “You was the happle of his heye, Peter!”

“Loved me like a father he did,” stated Mr. Lock. “Always together we was, didn’t you say, Horace?”

“Right up to the day before ’e died so sudden,” instructed Mr. Dobb. “And then you went away on business, and you never come back till weeks after the melancholy event,” he ended, with pride of artistry.

“That’s right,” said Mr. Lock. “And what was he like to look at, Horace?”

“A snuffy, grubby little chap with sandy whiskers and a bald ’ead,” returned Mr. Dobb.

“He don’t seem exactly the kind of relation to be proud of,” complained Mr. Lock. “Can’t you do me better than that, Horace?”

“You don’t get misers with top-’ats and white weskits, Peter,” pointed out Mr. Dobb. “If ’e’d spent all ’is money on clothes, ’e wouldn’t ’ave ’ad any to ’ide in the seat of ’is favourite old arm-chair, would ’e?”

“By the way, ’Orace,” put in Mr. Clark, “where did you get the chair to start with?”

“Bought it with a odd lot of stuff at a farm sale a few miles away. It ain’t worth stuffing and re-up’olstering, so I thought I’d try to sell it as it was, and that’s ’ow I come to ’atch out this idea I’ve been a-telling you of.”

“Well, you’ve ’it it on just the right chap in Tommy Lane,” approved Mr. Tridge. “’E drops into my place pretty well every day for a shave, and I never see such a old idjit for believing what ’e’s told! You ought to ’ear some of the adventures of seafaring life I’ve told ’im! Why, they almost make _me_ choke, telling ’em! And yet he’d swallow ’em down without so much as a cough!”

“’Ere!” exclaimed Mr. Dobb, in some alarm. “’E don’t know you and me and Peter and Sam Clark was all shipmates together once, does ’e?”

“No, ’e don’t,” said Mr. Tridge, flushing a little.

“’Ow do you know ’e don’t?” demanded Mr. Dobb.

“Because,” said Mr. Tridge, rather reluctantly, “I’ve always give ’im to understand that afore family misfortunes made me take a ’air-dresser’s shop I was second in command on a torpeder-boat!”

“And ’e believed _that_?” cried Mr. Clark.

“’E said that ’e’d guessed it! Said that there was always something about us naval chaps what couldn’t be disguised, no matter ’ow ’ard we tried!” related Mr. Tridge, with pride.

“Well, then, we shan’t ’ave no trouble with _’im_!” foretold Mr. Lock, happily. “I don’t know the chap myself; he don’t come to the ‘Royal William’ billiard-saloon, as I knows of. Have _you_ ever met him, Sam?”

“’Undreds of times!” asserted Mr. Clark. “I often ferries ’im across the river.” Mr. Clark paused, and his eyes twinkled joyously. “’E thinks I used to be a smack-owner!” he crowed.

“Whatever made ’im think that?” asked Mr. Tridge, in surprise.

“I told ’im so!” shamelessly answered Mr. Clark. “A smack-owner! _Me_! Only I was unlucky!”

“A bit of make-believe I can understand,” reproved Mr. Tridge, loftily. “But a pack of downright _lies_!”

“Well, ’e shouldn’t try to be so clever, then!” said Mr. Clark, with spirit. “If ’e can slip out the other side without paying my fare, ’e think’s ’e’s done well, and ’e takes a deal of convincing, too, to get the money out of ’im in the end.”

“Yes, ’e certainly watches money pretty close,” agreed Mr. Tridge. “Never yet ’as ’e over-paid me by as much as a ’apenny, and ’e tried to beat down the price of a shave till ’e see it was no good. Oh, ’e’s got a eye for the main chance all right!”

“That was the character I got of ’im,” mentioned Mr. Dobb, dryly. “’Ence this gathering of old friends.”

“Anyway,” summarized Mr. Lock, “this here Mr. Lane sounds just our mark!”

And with that the confederation went into close committee.

It was during the course of the next afternoon that a rotund little gentleman, with a countenance remarkable for a guileless expression and neatly trimmed side-whiskers, sauntered down to the ferry-boat at the mouth of the harbour.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Lane, sir!” said Mr. Samuel Clark, with deference. “Going across?”

The little gentleman, affably admitting this to be his intention, disposed himself neatly in the boat, and Mr. Clark pulled off at his customary leisurely stroke.

“Beautiful weather!” observed Mr. Lane.

“Just right for heverybody except the doctors, as my old pal, ’Ennery Pash, used to say,” agreed Mr. Clark, with some emphasis on the latter portion of his remark.

“Lovely lot of ozone in the air to-day,” mentioned Mr. Lane, sniffing appreciatively at the odours from the dredger.

“All, if ’e could ’ave got more into ’is system, ’e wouldn’t be where ’e is to-day,” stated Mr. Clark, regretfully.

“Who wouldn’t?” inquired Mr. Lane.

“My old pal, ’Ennery Pash.”

“And where is ’e now, then?” asked the passenger.

Mr. Clark sorrowfully shook his head and pointed aloft.

“Far as I know,” he explained. And added: “’E was a good churchman, according to ’is views, anyway.”

Mr. Lane, in response to this sombre intrusion on the brightness of the day, kept a chastened silence. Mr. Clark, sighing deeply, shook his head again, and offered a well-known quotation bearing on the instability of human life.

“P’r’aps you knew old ’Ennery Pash, sir?” he suggested.

“Can’t say I did,” returned Mr. Lane, apologetically.

“Ah, ’e was a quiet old chap. ’E didn’t get about much. There wasn’t many as met ’im. ’E stopped indoors most of ’is time, only I thought p’r’aps you might ’ave knowed ’im.”

“No. Where did he live?”

“Oh, ’e was always moving!” replied Mr. Clark. “’E never stopped anywhere long, but now ’e’s settled for good and all. Five weeks ago, that was.”

“Is he buried in the town?” asked Mr. Lane, politely, affecting interest in the sad event.

“No, sir; in Scotland, where ’e was born.”

“And what was ’e like?”

“Ah, a little, short, shabby old chap, ’e was. But, then, there was a reason for ’is going shabby.”

“Oh, indeed? He was poor, I suppose?”

“Not _’im_! ’E was a miser.”

“A miser?” said Mr. Lane. “Really?”

“Really! ’E told me so ’isself dozens of times! ‘Sam,’ ’e says to me, ‘you’d never believe ’ow much I’ve got saved up!’ Couldn’t bear to spend a penny, ’e couldn’t; and ’e kept it all in the ’ouse. Didn’t believe in banks, ’e said.”

“And I suppose they found it when—”

“Not a brass farthing!” cheerfully affirmed Mr. Clark.

“Strange! What did his relations do about it?”

“’E’d only got one, a great-nephew, and ’e was away at the time and couldn’t be found.”

“But who paid for the funeral? It must have cost a lot, taking place in Scotland.”

“Some of us paid for it, sir, ’is old pals. Leastwise, we sold all ’is furniture and stuff, and raised the money that way.”

“But what do you think became of his savings?”

“Well, if you ask _me_, sir I reckon the old fool—begging ’is pardon, I forgot!—the poor old fellow ’ad kept on changing ’em into paper money and ’ad burned ’em by accident, or else because ’e couldn’t bear the idea of anyone else getting ’em after ’e was gone.”

“I should have thought he’d have been glad for his nephew to get them.”

“His great-nephew, sir. Well, that’s as may be. All I know is that we found a great ’eap of charred papers in ’is fire-place when we broke in, when we suspected the worst. Lots of it was only old letters and noos-papers, and so on, but there might easily ’eve been paper money amongst it. It was all so powdered up. Anyway, that’s what we decided on in the end, there being no other way to account for the habsence of the money; and we ’adn’t ’alf ransacked ’is chest of drawers and boxes, neither!”

“Strange!” commented Mr. Lane again. “Very strange!”

“So we thought, sir,” acquiesced Mr. Clark. “’Owever, ’ere we are,” he went on, with an abrupt change of key, as the ferry gently nosed into the opposite bank. “And I never noticed ’ow quick we was travelling; all along of chatting about poor old ’Ennery Pash.”

He assisted his passenger to alight, pocketed his fare, and slowly sculled away again across the river.

“Another minute and I’d ’ave bust!” he told himself, in rapt enjoyment. “Sam, my boy, you’re like wine—you improves with age!”

The Magnolia Toilet Saloon, Shorehaven, was empty next morning at noon, save for two individuals. One of these was the proprietor, Mr. Joseph Tridge; the other was the trim, debonair Mr. Peter Lock, and to-day he wore a black tie in place of his usual brilliant neckwear.

“’E’s sure to be in soon, Peter,” Mr. Tridge was saying. “This is just about ’is time. It’s no good your complaining about ’aving to ’ang about ’ere. You agreed with ’Orace and us others— ’Ere quick, sit down! ’Ere ’e comes!”

Mr. Lock, casting aside a newspaper, seated himself at a bound in the operating chair. Mr. Tridge, wrapping a towel about his companion’s shoulders, began delicately to powder Mr. Lock’s smooth chin. A minute later the door opened, and Mr. Thomas Lane entered with the inquiring, calculating gaze habitual to men entering barbers’ shops.

“Shan’t keep you waiting a minute, sir!” called out Mr. Tridge. “I’m just finishing this gent.”

Mr. Lane sat down readily enough, and Mr. Tridge proceeded to remove the powder from Mr. Lock’s chin.

“So you ain’t ’eard nothing more about your great-uncle’s money, sir?” inquired Mr. Tridge, in confidential tones that just reached Mr. Lane’s ears.

“I’ve pretty well given up hope now,” said Mr. Lock. “I begin to think with them others, that he must have burned it. If ever he had it, mind you! Perhaps he only talked about it to keep me up to the mark as his great-nephew. Not that there was any need to do that, though,” declared Mr. Lock, rising, as Mr. Tridge removed the towel from his shoulder with a professional flourish. “I was always very fond of him for his own sake.”

“I’m sure you was, sir,” agreed Mr. Tridge, with sympathy. “But I can’t ’elp thinking you’ve been the victim of bad luck.”

“No use crying over spilt milk,” said Mr. Lock, philosophically. “Still, I’d like to have had a souveneer in memory of him, even if it wasn’t money. But by the time I’d got back here, everything had been sold and the funeral was all over, as you know.”

Mr. Tridge nodded, and irrelevantly mentioned the sum of threepence, extending his hand at the same time. A little light which was shining at the back of his eyes abruptly expired when Mr. Lock airily told him to put it down on the account, as usual.

At the departure of Mr. Lock, Mr. Lane took up his position in the chair, and for some while Mr. Tridge wielded the lather brush in silence. Frequently did Mr. Tridge glance in the mirror at his patron, and each time he was pleased to note the continuance of a meditative look on Mr. Lane’s face.

“Who was that young chap you were shaving when I came in?” asked Mr. Lane at last. “I don’t seem to recognize him.”

“Oh, he’s been about some time,” answered Mr. Tridge. “He’s the billiard-marker down at the ‘Royal William.’”

“Is his name, by any chance—er—what is it?—oh, yes! Pash?”

“No, his name’s Lock, sir—Peter Lock. Funny you should have mentioned Pash, though. ’E was related to old ’Ennery Pash. You know, sir, the old chap they said was a miser.”

“I’ve heard of him,” admitted Mr. Lane.

“Mind you, I’ve never really swallowed the yarn that ’e was a miser,” declared Mr. Tridge. “Only one ’as to agree with one’s customers, and show an interest in ’em, you know. But as for old Pash being a miser—I wouldn’t like to bet on it. I know ’e used to ’ave a lot of registered letters come for ’im, but that don’t prove anything, do it? And as for that tale about ’im being seen with stacks of notes as thick as a pack of cards—well, I never met anyone as could swear to it, anyway. Besides, they never found none in ’is cottage afterwards, though they searched every ’ole and corner. Ah, a queer old chap, ’e wos! I can see ’im now, sitting beside ’is fire in that old arm-chair of ’is. ’E never stirred from it if ’e could ’elp it. ’E regular loved that old chair of ’is. Once ’is chimney caught light, and bless me if that chair wasn’t the first thing ’e thought of to save!”

“Really?” said Mr. Lane, with interest.

“_And_ truly,” affirmed Mr. Tridge. “Soon as ever that chimney began to blaze, ’e lugged that chair outdoors. Ah, and ’e wouldn’t leave it, neither, to go in and rescue anything else. ’E just sat tight on it there, out in the middle of the road, and let some one else put out the fire. ’E said ’e wouldn’t leave ’is old chair in case some one stole it. A shabby, broken old chair like that, fancy!” scornfully concluded Mr. Tridge. “No wonder folk thought ’im a bit dotty!”

“Why, perhaps he’d—” exclaimed. Mr. Lane starting.

“Steady, sir, or I’ll be cutting you,” warned Mr. Tridge. “P’r’aps what, you was a-going to say?”

“Perhaps—perhaps he was very fond of it,” said Mr. Lane, a trifle weakly.

“I been a-telling you he was,” remarked Mr. Tridge. “But there! Old people like ’im often ’ave queer fancies like that!”

As one dismissing a thoroughly exhausted subject, Mr. Tridge turned the talk to the doings of Parliament, expounding his views with no more interruption than an occasional monosyllable interjected in a preoccupied way by his client.

“Let me see, where did you say that young man was employed?” inquired Mr. Lane, when at length Mr. Tridge simultaneously ceased his political remarks and his tonsorial services.

“What young man, sir?”

“Mr.—er—Mr. Pash’s great-nephew.”

“Oh, along at the ‘Royal William Hotel,’ sir,” said Mr. Tridge, turning aside to conceal a satisfied smile.

It was in the slack hour after tea that same day that the billiard-room of the “Royal William” was honoured by a first visit from Mr. Thomas Lane. He entered coyly, seating himself just inside the door in the most unobtrusive manner. Mr. Lock, idly testing his skill at the table, accorded the visitor a courteous greeting.

“No, I don’t want to play, thanks,” replied Mr. Lane. “I—I only just looked in, that’s all.”

“Quite so, sir,” agreed Mr. Lock.

Mr. Lane offered no further explanation of his presence, and Mr. Lock walked round the table a few times in leisurely pursuit of that perfection which comes to practice. The visitor, watching Mr. Lock’s activity through narrowed eyelids, patiently awaited opportunity, and this Mr. Lock presently offered him.

“Very good table, this, sir,” he observed, casually. “Good as any you’ll find in the town.”

“Dare say,” returned Mr. Lane, absently.

“I ain’t come across a public table to beat it,” stated Mr. Lock. “Of course, I don’t know anything about the private tables in the big houses round here. I expect there are a few good ones in some of them big houses on the cliff. If I was a rich man, I’d have a good billiard-table, I know.”

“I see,” said Mr. Lane, not very brilliantly.

“Once I did think that maybe I’d have a billiard-table of my own,” remarked Mr. Lock, with a smile at his own folly. “But it never come off.”

“How was that?” asked Mr. Lane, alertly.