Part 3

“Stop ’er pocket-money!” promptly advised Mr. Clark.

“Yes; but supposing she earns her own pocket-money?” propounded Mr. Poskett.

Mr. Clark, emitting a baffled grunt, passed to silent examination of the problem. Mr. Horace Dobb, settling himself deep in his seat, tilted back his head and puffed at his cigar, as one who postponed intervention till the affair was more clearly established.

“You—you might lock up ’er bonnets,” hazarded Mr. Clark at last, but with no great confidence.

“But she ’as to go to her employment behind the counter at Messrs Wicklett & Sharp’s shop in the High Street,” objected Mr. Poskett. “She comes ’ome for dinner, and goes back again to the shop in the afternoon.”

There was another pause, and then Mr. Clark regretfully admitted that it seemed to him something was wrong somewhere, but he could not quite tell where it was. He respectfully intimated that he might understand better were Mr. Poskett to be more explicit in information.

“My niece,” said Mr. Poskett, complying. “She’s been and got herself engaged!”

“Tut-tut!” murmured Mr. Clark, politely shocked.

“She has! Without my permission! She never even asked me!” complained Mr. Poskett. “Not that I should have given it, mark you, if she had asked! What right has she to go and get herself engaged when she is needed at home?”

“Ah, what right, indeed?” asked Mr. Clark, with indignation.

“Where’s ’er gratitude to me and ’er loving aunt, who have brought ’er up since she was eleven?” demanded Mr. Poskett. “Is it not ’er duty to tarry with us while we ’ave need of ’er? We cannot spare ’er, for she is too useful. I grant that she ’as done ’er fair share of work in the past, but that ain’t any reason why she should seek to avoid it in the future, is it?”

“Certainly not!” stated Mr. Clark.

“She’s got a earthly ’ome where she’s well looked after and kept up to the mark,” declared Mr. Poskett, his voice taking a high-pitched monotone. “Do we not know ’oo it is that lays in wait to find work for idle ’ands? Work and plenty of it is the only right way to bring up a young female. Idleness of body leads to idleness of thought, my friends, and—”

Mr. Dobb emitted a cough with a long, droning tail to it, and this served its purpose in restoring Mr. Poskett to more natural speech.

“Anyway,” he said, “when Nancy ain’t at the shop, we does our best to keep ’er time properly hemployed for ’er. As I say, it’s the only right way to bring young females up, and Nancy will admit one day, when me and my wife ’ave passed away to our reward, that she was very well brought up indeed! Tidy up the ’ouse, and off to the shop; dinner, wash-up, back to the shop again; ’ome again, bit more tidying up, and then bed,” he sketched. “Now, ain’t that a model life for a young female? What more can a right-minded girl want?”

“Ah, what, indeed?” sighed Mr. Clark.

“But is she content?” asked Mr. Poskett, sadly. “Oh, dear, no! She knows that all flesh is grass, and yet she talks about wanting amusements and recreation! And her nearly twenty! And now and then she gets quite out of control, and indulges in all manner of worldly vanities. Only last week she went to a whist-drive! When she come back, I wrestled with the evil spirit within ’er for a full hour, trying to get ’er to say she repented.”

“And did she?” queried Mr. Clark.

“She did not, alas! She was that ’ardened that she only said the enjoyment was worth a bit of suffering for afterwards! And now she’s gone and got ’erself engaged!”

“’Oo to?” asked Mr. Clark.

“That’s just it,” complained Mr. Poskett. “That’s what we wants to know! We don’t know ’oo ’e is, and she won’t tell us; and she’s that deceitful we can’t find out! I spent ’alf an hour, only yesterday, questioning and ex’orting ’er, and she had not even the grace to cry! If it wasn’t for all the money we’ve spent in bringing ’er up, and for ’er being so useful in the ’ome, I’d ’ave nothing more to do with ’er! I believe she would like things to come to such a sorry pass, too!”

“And I’d not blame ’er—” began Mr. Clark, absently. “I mean,” he began again, more carefully, “and I shouldn’t blame you, neither.”

“I must do my duty,” said Mr. Poskett, unctuously. “’Er place is with me and ’er aunt, and I must keep ’er there!”

“And you ain’t got the least idea ’oo the young fellow is?” asked Mr. Clark.

“Not the least! She won’t bring ’im to the ’ome. She knows too much for that, because I’d soon send ’im about ’is business, ’ooever ’e is! She won’t even tell us ’is name! All she says is that he don’t hold with the same views as us about anything, and that there’d only be trouble if we met. And so there would! And she says she prefers things to go on as they are for a little longer, till they’re quite sure they really wants to marry each other. She says ’is very way of earning a living would ’orrify me, so don’t that just show you? Can you wonder I’m ’eart-broken?”

“If I was you,” said Mr. Clark, resolutely, “I wouldn’t rest till I’d found out ’oo ’e is! I wouldn’t be beat by a gal!”

“Ah, now you’re coming to it, Sam!” struck in Mr. Dobb. “That’s something of the idea I’ve talked over with Poskett ’ere. What ’e wants is a kind of watchdog to that niece of ’is; some one ’oo’ll follow ’er everywhere, and find out ’oo it is that’s making up to ’er. Then Poskett will know ’ow to act. But, you see, ’im being a big man in the prayers-and-penitence line round ’ere, it ’ud look so bad for ’im to go loafing round the streets all day playing private detective. And ’is missis is too delikit, she says.”

“As a local preacher,” said Mr. Poskett, “I ’ave many hengagements, and between them and business my time is fully occupied.”

“In short,” remarked Mr. Dobb, “’e’s ready to pay you to follow ’is niece about everywhere in ’er spare time, so as you can find out ’oo’s the young man. And when you ’ave found out—which will take you some days, I expect, the pair of ’em being very artful to all accounts you must go straight to Poskett and tell ’im. That’s all ’e wants you to do, and ’e’ll pay you well for it. But you’ll ’ave to give every minute of your time to it, otherwise ’e wouldn’t go to the trouble and expense of engaging some one special for the job—would you, Poskett?”

“That is so,” agreed Mr. Poskett. “Well, what do you say, Mr. Clark? Will you help to restore a girl to the proper henjoyment of ’er ’ome life?”

“When you puts it like that,” said Mr. Clark, slowly, “it don’t sound so— I must say, though, it ain’t exactly the sort of job—”

He broke off to shake his head in a troubled, dissatisfied way. In so doing, he caught a glimpse of Mr. Dobb’s face, and was arrested by the slight but emphatic nod which Mr. Dobb accorded him.

“All right!” said Mr. Clark, at once obeying the habit of years and yielding initiative to the ex-cook. “I’ll do it!”

Things progressed swiftly after that decision, and outstanding details were settled all the sooner because Mr. Dobb had somehow taken over control of the negotiations. Ten minutes later the trio had left the “Jane Gladys” and Mr. Dobb was returning to his emporium, while Mr. Clark was taken by Mr. Poskett to his abode, there to be introduced to wife and niece, so that general acquaintanceship with the family might prove a weapon in Mr. Clark’s hand, if necessary.

Reluctance was plainly discernible in Mr. Clark’s demeanour as he entered Mr. Poskett’s domicile, and, taken into the front room, he glanced about him with something of guilt. Relief at discovering the apartment to be void of feminine presence was evidenced by an unconscious exclamation of pious gratitude.

“Ah, ’ere she comes!” announced Mr. Poskett.

“Wait a bit!” begged Mr. Clark. “I been thinking—”

He clutched at his host’s arm in some trepidation as the door opened and an elderly female of unaffectionate aspect entered.

“This,” said Mr. Poskett, “is my wife,” and explained the reason of Mr. Clark’s presence to that lady, while the seaman himself, mopping his forehead with his handkerchief, smiled unconvincingly, and vaguely remarked that girls would be girls, and that there was no need to be too worried about it.

Before Mrs. Poskett could reply to these remarks, the latch of the front door clicked.

“Ah, ’ere’s Nancy at last,” observed Mr. Poskett.

“And—and that reminds me, I—I forgot something!” stammered Mr. Clark. “Appointment I made a week ago! I must be going—now—at once!”

“You sit down!” firmly ordered Mr. Poskett. “You ’ave set your ’and to the plough, and you must not look back. Besides, ’ow could you have made an appointment a week ago? You were at sea then, weren’t you?”

“Why, I wrote a letter, and—and—”

“But you could not post it at sea.”

“I put it in a bottle and threw it overboard,” gulped Mr. Clark, edging nearer the door. “See you some other time. I—”

He ceased abruptly at sight of the girl who had entered the room and was now standing by the door, a little surprised at this unusual incidence of a visitor.

“This is Mr. Samuel Clark, Nancy,” said Mr. Poskett, seizing the opportunity. “And ’e’s an old friend of Mr. Dobb’s, and one ’oo ’as a deep knowledge of the world and its pitfalls—”

“’Ere, steady!” murmured Mr. Clark.

“And ’oo, I feel sure,” continued Mr. Poskett, with a leathery smile at the other man, “will give you good counsel and guidance if ever the need for such should arise.”

Miss Nancy Poskett, clearly suspecting the nature of this tribute, bowed distantly to Mr. Clark, and sat down in a corner.

“’Ave you come straight ’ome from Wicklett & Sharp’s, Nancy!” asked Mrs. Poskett, mistrustfully.

“I came back by way of East Street, aunt.”

“Meet anyone you know?” inquired Mrs. Poskett.

“One or two people,” replied the girl, carelessly.

“And ’oo were they, pray?” demanded Mrs. Poskett, at once.

“Oh, no one you know, aunt,” replied Nancy, and began to fidget with her brooch.

“Why, you’re wearing a ring!” shrilled her aunt at that, and the girl quickly concealed her hand. “A new ring!” went on the elder lady in awesome tones. “And on your engagement finger!”

“Yes,” said Nancy, “that was the finger it was meant for.”

There was a scandalized little wait. Mr. and Mrs. Poskett shook their heads, muttering inchoately. Mr. Clark gazed upon the mutinous damsel with but thinly veiled admiration for her courage. Just as Mr. Poskett cleared his throat and drew a deep, long breath, thereby intimating that he had garnered a few fitting phrases for immediate use, the girl rose and strolled to the door.

“I’m just going upstairs to put on my other hat and my coat,” she mentioned, casually.

“You—you’re not going out again, Nancy?” quavered Mrs. Poskett, aghast. “Why, it’s a quarter to eight!”

“I want to run out and post a letter, aunt.”

“Dressing up to go and post a letter!” groaned Mrs. Poskett, sepulchrally.

“Mr. Clark will drop it in the post for you on his way back,” said Mr. Poskett.

“Thanks, but it’s rather special,” returned the girl; and passing out of the room, she closed the door quietly after her.

“There you are!” breathed Mrs. Poskett. “There’s a brazen hussy to deal with! She’s going out to meet _him_!”

“You follow ’er the moment she leaves,” Mr. Poskett directed Mr. Clark. “And don’t let ’er out of your sight.”

Miss Nancy, returning soon after, in smart outdoor toilet, shook Mr. Clark’s hand and bade him a quite disinterested farewell. A few moments later the front door closed behind her with a definite snap, and, a few moments later still, Mr. Clark was in the street, intent on following her.

She was already some score of yards away, but none the less an encouraging remark offered by her uncle from the doorstep to Mr. Clark on the pavement caught her ear. She glanced back, and then went on her way at slightly accelerated speed.

Thrice did the girl turn unexpected corners, and thrice did the portly Mr. Clark have to break into a clumsy trot before he brought her in view again. And then she continued unremittingly to the very end of a particularly long thoroughfare, and faithfully did the panting Mr. Clark tag along in her wake on the opposite side of the road.

Presently, Nancy came to a corner at the end of the thoroughfare, and here she stopped, gazing expectantly this way and that. Mr. Clark with a nimbleness surprising in one of his build, skipped into the doorway of a shop. The girl, suddenly resuming her course, passed swiftly round the corner out of sight. With a feeling that the climax of the chase was at hand, Mr. Clark darted from his lair and ambled after her. Breathlessly he rounded the corner, and here he narrowly averted collision with Miss Poskett, who was standing quite still beneath a street lamp.

“Er—er—good evening, miss!” stammered Mr. Clark. “I—I _thought_ it might be you! ’Ow—’ow do you do?”

“You’ve been following me!” she scornfully charged him.

“Oh, no!” he declared. “Just a—a cohincidence! I—I simply ’appened to be coming this way, and—and—”

“Fancy! And are you going along this road here on the right, too?”

“I am, miss.”

“Well, I’m _not_!”

“Then—then I’ll wish you good evening again,” he said, and wandered forlornly away.

Nancy sped off again. Mr. Clark, swinging round, once more followed the trail, but with greater caution.

The girl, turning and twisting among the huddled streets of the old seaport town, gave her exhausted pursuer an engrossed half-hour.

Then, again, she halted—exactly opposite her own dwelling. And Mr. Clark, tottering to a full-stop, fancied he heard a low, gleeful laugh between the ensuing opening and shutting of the Posketts’ front door.

* * * * *

It was a stiff and weary-eyed Mr. Clark who called to see Mr. Horace Dobb at his shop next morning. Mr. Dobb, when furnished with the narrative of the previous night’s events, merely smiled unsympathetically.

“Never mind!” he said. “It’ll all come right in the end. You just keep on, to show you’re in earnest. ’Ave you arranged with Captain Dutt to leave the ‘Jane Gladys’ to-day? Good! And got all the money owing to you? Better! Now you must go and sit and rest yourself in the ‘Green Dragon,’ opposite Wicklett & Sharp’s in the ’Igh Street. You’ll be able to see when she comes out for dinner then, and keep an eye on ’er again.”

Faithfully did Mr. Clark obey these instructions. Not only did he shadow Miss Poskett home in her dinner-hour, but he hung about the road till she emerged again, and then watched her back to her place of employment. But in the interval he was far from happy, and his only solace was to be found in the discovery that more than one householder spoke respectfully to him under the impression that he was so thrilling a thing as a detective in the local police force.

That same evening found him in grim ambush outside Messrs. Wicklett & Sharp’s place of business, and there he lurked till the blinds of the shop were lowered, and at last Miss Poskett came tripping out. After gazing round far more carefully than the sentinel realized, Nancy hurried away.

Sedulously did Mr. Clark follow her, rejoicing that he had had the foresight to don an easier pair of shoes this evening. But to-night the course was short. A couple of hundred yards were covered, and then the girl flitted into a big, official-looking edifice.

“The Registry Office!” ejaculated Mr. Clark. “No, it ain’t; it’s the Free Library!”

He passed into the interior of the building and proceeded to efface himself behind a newspaper-stand in a draughty, ill-lit corner.

Miss Poskett, seating herself at the table nearest the fire, selected a magazine. This, Mr. Clark felt sure, was but a ruse, for every time that the swing-door opened the girl raised her head expectantly, and then glanced up at the big clock before returning her attention to the magazine.

Half an hour passed—an hour. Mr. Clark, prevented from the solace of tobacco by imperative notices, found the time dragging most tediously. His legs had begun to ache with the strain of standing and he felt chilled, and savage; but he did not dare to risk discovery by moving to more comfortable quarters. Another thirty minutes crept by, and a new and exquisite agony had come to Mr. Clark, for he was thinking now of the many snug inns with which the town abounded, and picturing the enjoyment of Messrs. Tridge and Lock in some such paradise at that moment.

Another forty minutes lagged painfully past. The janitor of the library began a sonorous locking-up in adjacent apartments, and still Miss Poskett remained to divide her attention between the swing-door, the clock, and the magazine.

“Closing time, please!” pronounced the janitor, entering.

Miss Poskett, springing readily to her feet, quitted the edifice. Mr. Clark, one vast sensation of numb passion, followed more slowly after her.

Miss Poskett, looking neither to the right nor the left, walked briskly back to her abode; and again Mr. Clark fancied that he heard a gurgle of malicious satisfaction as the girl entered the Posketts’ household and closed the door after her.

So furious was Mr. Clark that late as was the hour, he stamped round to Fore Street and knocked at the door of Mr. Dobb’s little shop. The house was in darkness, but after Mr. Clark’s third thunderous assault on the panels, an upper window opened and the head of Mr. Dobb, crowned with so obsolete a thing as a nightcap, protruded in inquiry.

“Finished, me!” roared Mr. Clark, to this apparition.

“Don’t you be a silly old stoopid!” counselled Mr. Dobb. “You stick to your job like a man!”

“But it ain’t a man’s job!” declared Mr. Clark. “Sneaking about, watching gals, at my time of life! I’ll trouble you to ’and in my resignation for me to Mr. Poskett, because some’ow I don’t think it ’ud be safe for me to see ’im—safe for ’im, I mean!”

“You wait a bit,” directed Mr. Dobb. “I’ll come down to you.”

And this he did, unbolting the shop door and revealing himself in a chaste dressing-gown of crimson flannel. Dragging the fretful Mr. Clark into the back premises, he hospitably set out glasses and a bottle, and Mr. Clark’s snarls of annoyance died away into murmurs of faint protest.

“Look ’ere,” said Horace, seriously, “you take it from me that you’re doing very well. Better than you think. It don’t matter whether you catches ’er with the chap or not; the main point is that he knows by now that you’re in earnest.”

“But ’ow does ’e know?” queried Mr. Clark.

“She’s told ’im! She’s kept away from ’im on purpose to diddle you, but she’s let ’im know by a note what’s ’appened last night, and you can bet she’ll let ’im know what ’appened to-night.”

“’Ow do _you_ know?”

“Because,” was Mr. Dobb’s astonishing answer, “because I know ’oo the fellow is! I not only know ’im, but I know ’im well enough to be very friendly with ’im, and it was ’im what told me she’s sent ’im word.”

“But if you knows ’oo ’e is, why don’t you tell old Poskett and settle the affair?” asked Mr. Clark, very naturally.

“Because that ain’t in the programme,” replied Mr. Dobb. “‘Strictly business!’” he quoted, enigmatically. “Surely you ain’t forgot that?”

“Well, why don’t you tell _me_ ’oo ’e is, and let me tell old Poskett?”

“There is such a thing as digging up pertaters before they’re ready to be dug,” remarked Mr. Dobb, mysteriously.

“Well, anyway, ’ow did you find out ’oo the chap was?” asked Mr. Clark, with something akin to professional jealousy.

“Two or three days back,” related Mr. Dobb, “I ’ad a very ’andsome-looking overmantel mirror for sale ’ere. It was in the window, and it caught Miss Poskett’s eye. And she stepped in and admired it, and asked the price, and you could see she thought it was a bargain. But she went out again, trying to be off’and.”

“Well, is it a riddle, or are you supposed to be telling me something?” asked Mr. Clark, as his friend made a long pause.

“I thought you’d guess the rest, easy. First thing next morning in comes a certain young gent, and said ’e’d ’eard I’d got a overmantel for sale, and ’e bought it straight off, almost without looking at it. Ah, if only there was more lovers in the world, it ’ud be a happier place altogether!” stated Mr. Dobb. “For chaps in my line of business, anyway!”

“Oh, well, I shall be glad when it’s all over and done with, that I do assure you!” said Mr. Clark. “I reckon I owe old Poskett something for getting me to take on a job like this, and a grudge is a debt of honour to me, don’t forget!”

“I don’t mind what you do to ’im after it’s all over,” said Mr. Dobb. “In fact, I reckon to quarrel with ’im myself before very long. It won’t matter a bit, because I ’ave pumped ’im dry in the way of business already.”

“Well, I wish you’d tell me—” began Mr. Clark, wistfully.

“You wait! You see, Sam, you’re all right, but you ain’t clever; and if I was to tell you ’oo the chap is and what I’ve ’atched out, you’d try to be clever and ’elp me, and that ’ud spoil everything.”

And this was an attitude from which Mr. Dobb was not to be wooed by all the blandishments of Mr. Clark, so at last the stout sailorman, relinquished further effort, repaired to the modest lodging he had taken for himself in the town, and there retired to bed.

So soundly did he sleep as the result of the strain of detective work that it was already nearly noon when he was awakened next morning by the advent of a visitor in the form of Mr. Dobb.

“I was quite right,” announced Horace. “That gal’s sent another note to ’er young man about the way she tricked you last night. Very tickled by it, ’e was but, at the same time, ’e sees what a old nuisance you’re going to be to ’em when they wants to meet.”

“You’ve seen ’im?” asked Mr. Clark.

“I ’ave! I’ve been ’aving a long, confidential chat with ’im. But I ain’t come to talk about that now. I ’appen to know of a job what might suit you—a job as ferryman down at the ’arbour.”

“Just the one job in the world I’d really like!” cried Mr. Clark, enthusiastically. “Rowing across the river all day from a pub. on one side to a pub. on the other!”

“The pub. on this side is the ‘Flag and Pennant,’” said Horace. “The landlord there runs the ferry, and ’is ferryman is leaving to-morrow.”

“I’ll go up and ask for the job.”

“That ain’t the way to set about it—not in this case. You want to use the ’ouse for a few hours first, and then lead up to the job tactful-like. Tell the landlord about your present job, and ’ow you don’t like it, and so on, and come to the ferry gradual.”

Mr. Clark, bowing to the superior wisdom of Horace, spent the whole of the afternoon, after he had watched Miss Poskett from her work to her home and back again, in the bar-parlour of the “Flag and Pennant” and it was not till tea-time that he decided that he had acquired sufficient standing as a patron of the house to advance a little further in the matter of the ferry.

“There’s good jobs and bad jobs, ain’t there, sir?” he observed, rather irrelevantly, to the dapper young landlord. “I wish I could change my job. I got a rotten job at present.”

“Oh!” said the landlord, without much interest. “What’s the job?”.

“Watching a young gal—a artful, tricky young gal.”

“Watching her? Do you mean you are married to her?”

“’Eaven forbid! I’m watching ’er at ’er relations’ wish to find out ’oo she’s carrying-on with unbeknown to them.”

“I shouldn’t have thought it was a very pleasant job for a man like you,” observed the landlord, disdainfully.

“It ain’t! Far from it! Little did I think, when Poskett asked me to keep a eye on ’is niece—”

“Miss Poskett, eh?” exclaimed the landlord, with sudden interest. “And so you are the chap who’s trying to find out who’s dangling after Miss Poskett, are you? Why, it’s—”

He checked himself sharply. For a few moments he stood tapping his fingers on the counter and eyeing Mr. Clark.

“What’s Poskett going to do when he finds out?” he asked.

“Send ’im about ’is business pretty sharp!”