Part 9

And now here, in the cosy back parlour of the little shop in Fore Street, was assembled that quartet upon whom long companionship in the “Jane Gladys” had conferred a sinister brotherhood in ignoble aims and disreputable ambitions; and though each member had passed into a divergent class of shore-abiding life, it was plain that they were all still closely united by a common passion for petty intrigue.

Informal presidency over the meeting was exercised by Mr. Horace Dobb. At Mr. Dobb’s right hand sat the trim and debonair Mr. Peter Lock. On Mr. Dobb’s left was the corpulent and venerable Mr. Samuel Clark, who, by virtue of his appointment of ferryman across the mouth of Shorehaven Harbour, still preserved some remnant of his former nautical environment. Opposite to Mr. Dobb was Mr. Joseph Tridge, who had fortuitously laid aside his maritime jersey to wear a cotton overall in that hairdressing shop which Fate and force had secured for him.

Despite the stimulating and still undisclosed purpose for which the assemblage had been convened, the opening stages of the reunion were largely made up of spaces of vaunting autobiography, contributed by each of the members in a jostling, ill-disciplined way, sometimes separately, but usually in a pressing, conflicting chorus.

Thus Mr. Clark recounted, with great glee, as an example of his acumen, an anecdote concerning a foreign client who was unfamiliar both with the British system of coinage and the current rate of payment for passage on a ferry-boat. Mr. Tridge, in a similar boastful spirit, rehearsed some of his most successful retorts to customers who complained of dull razors or blunt scissors or intrusive lather-brushes. Mr. Dobb, for his part, supplied glowing accounts of the profits to be derived from the second-hand business by a man who was neither unperceptive nor too scrupulously honest and Mr. Lock, not to be overshadowed, revealed many hitherto unsuspected ways by which a billiard-marker might add substantially to his income.

And so the time wore on very pleasantly, till at last Mr. Dobb, looking pointedly at the clock, cleared his throat, and leaning his folded arms on the table, patently assumed a waiting attitude. Instantly a hush intervened, and something of an electric thrill coursed through this old and tried combination of small adventurers, for the time for consideration of serious business was come.

“Well, ’ere we are,” said Mr. Dobb, gazing round on his fellows, “all well and truly hestablished in the town of Shore’aven, like we’ve always ’oped and planned. Sitting round bragging about our cleverness is all very well, but you know my motter, don’t you?”

“‘Strictly business!’” supplied Mr. Tridge. “And I only wish I ’ad ’alf the friendly pints together it must ’ave saved you!”

“It’s a good motter,” said Mr. Dobb, equably. “It’s saved me a lot of talk, anyway, when you chaps ’ave dropped round on the chance of borrering a bob or two. ‘Strictly business!’—that’s got to be the motter for all of us, from now on. We’ve only to work together, and we can make ourselves ’ated for twenty miles round Shore’aven.”

“We used to be ’ated for a ’undred miles round the poor old ‘Jane Gladys,’” recalled Mr. Tridge, regretfully.

“‘Strictly business!’—that’s got to be one of our motters,” continued Mr. Dobb. “And the other must be ‘’Elp one another!’”

“Well, I like that!” exploded Mr. Clark. “And only the day before yesterday you refused to let me ’ave a cracked old second-’and teapot on credit!”

“And now ’ere we are, all hassembled for a trial trip, so to speak,” said Mr. Dobb, blandly ignoring the interruption. “If we work it right, there’s a couple of quid in it for each of you.”

“And what do _you_ take?” demanded Mr. Tridge.

“I take the risk,” answered Mr. Dobb, simply.

“Oh, well, what’s the hidea, anyway?” asked Mr. Lock. “The boss ’as only given me one night off from the saloon, so I can’t stop here till to-morrow while you and Joe gets arguing as to whether you’re a miser or a philanthro-what-is-it! I suppose you’ve got some notion to put before us? You generally have.”

“And I ’ave now.” Mr. Dobb assured him. “A good ’un, too! You know old George Pincott?”

“The chap what’s lately started in the second-hand business in opposition to you?” returned Mr. Lock. “Aye, I know him. He often drops in at our place for a game of billiards.”

“I know ’e does,” admitted Mr. Dobb. “I’ve been taking that into account.”

“I know ’im, too,” put in Mr. Tridge. “’E comes round to me every day for a shave.”

“So I understand,” said Mr. Dobb, dryly.

“’E’s doing pretty well for a new-comer, too, ain’t ’e?” queried Mr. Clark, not without suspicion of relish.

“Too jolly well!” declared Mr. Dobb.

“’E wouldn’t buy my carumgorum studs off of me, though,” mentioned Mr. Clark, as though this were a circumstance that disproved Mr. Pincott’s business inefficiency. “Three chances I give ’im, too, to say nothing of leaving ’em at ’is shop for four days for ’im to make up ’is mind. ’E was out when I left ’em.”

“Oh, ’e ain’t a fool, not by no means!” observed Mr. Dobb. “Well, and now do you know Mr. Simon Lister?”

“I know hof ’im,” volunteered Mr. Clark. “’E’s that old chap what lives in the big new ’ouse along the London road, what used to be something in the hoil and colour line.”

“That’s the chap,” accepted Mr. Dobb. “’E come into a fortune, unexpected, about a year ago. ’E’s one of my regular customers.”

“What! you don’t mean to say a rich old chap like that drops around with old iron and odd crockery to sell to you?” cried Mr. Tridge, in surprise.

“Oh, no!” corrected Mr. Dobb, a trifle loftily. “’E belongs to the hart section of my business. He buys off of me; ’e don’t sell. ’E buys china and vallyble hornyments and so forth. A collector, ’e is, only the better kind. What they calls a connosher. ’E only goes in for good stuff.”

“And ’e buys it off of _you_?” asked Mr. Tridge, incredulous.

Momentarily Mr. Dobb’s eye drooped.

“’E don’t know so very much about hart,” he observed. “’E goes very largely by what I tells ’im.”

“And what do _you_ know about hart?” asked Mr. Lock, gaping.

“If I can do business by making out I knows things,” said Mr. Dobb, firmly, “I _knows_ ’em! See? Anyway, I make out I do. And ’e’s got the money to spare to get a collection together, and ’e comes to me to ’elp ’im, and I ain’t the man to refuse ’elp to anyone with money. Pounds and pounds ’e’s spent with me, just on my recommendation. I let ’im think that I think ’e knows nearly as much as I do about hart, and ’e thinks, therefore, as I wouldn’t think of cheating ’im.”

“There seems a lot of thinking about it,” said Mr. Lock.

“It’s a hobby of mine,” returned Mr. Dobb, “thinking is.”

“And you wouldn’t dream of deceiving ’im, I’ll lay!” said Mr. Tridge, ironically. “No more would I sell a chap off the ‘Raven’ a solid, rolled-gold himitation ring for a quid if I ’ad ’alf a chance!”

“China and brickybacks ’e’s bought off of me, and a few rare old prints, and some genuine hoil-paintings,” catalogued Mr. Dobb. “And some odds and ends what ’e calls bigjewrious and virtue. ’E’s got the money to spend, and ’e wants to spend it, and ’oo am I to stand in the way of a man’s wishes?”

“It’s better than a lottery,” said Mr. Clark, wistfully. “And ’ave you got ’im all to yourself, ’Orace?”

“Up to a few days ago,” replied Mr. Dobb. “And that brings me to the matter in ’and. Old George Pincott got to ’ear about this ’ere Mr. Lister, and ’e’s trying ’ard to get ’is ’ooks in ’im and drag ’im clean away from me. After all, I found ’im first, and so I told Pincott, but ’is only answer was that all was fair in love and war.”

Mr. Dobb paused and sighed at such commercial laxity. Mr. Tridge feelingly remarked that he did not know how the principle acted in war, but that sometimes it made things very awkward so far as love was concerned. He was about to cite an instance when Mr. Dobb again claimed attention.

“Ever been in that poky little sweetstuff shop ’alf way down Market Lane?” he asked, as a general question. “Oh, well, I ain’t surprised!” he continued, as heads were shaken negatively. “It’s a tumble-down, ramshackle little place. But there’s a big hoil-painting ’anging up against the end wall, because that’s the only place where they can find room for it.”

“What sort of a picture?” asked Mr. Lock, with interest. “Saucy?”

“No, it’s supposed to be a bit of scenery—scenery in a fog at twilight, by the look of it. It’s signed by a chap called Carrotti, and the old gal what keeps the shop will tell you that it’s been in ’er family for ’undreds of years. She won’t sell it, she says, because it’s a heirloom in the family.”

“Sentimental old geezer,” commented Mr. Clark. “I’d sell—well, I don’t know what I wouldn’t sell if I ’ad the chance!”

“’Ave you tried to buy it off of ’er?” asked Mr. Tridge.

“I haven’t, and I ain’t going to, neither,” said Mr. Dobb. “I’m going to give old George Pincott a chance to buy it and make a big profit out of it.”

“But—” expostulated Mr. Lock, at such altruism.

“It looks,” continued Mr. Dobb, imperturbably, “as if it might be one of them there Old Masters. But it ain’t! Not by no means! I’ve took the opportunity to examine it pretty thorough, and, though I may not know much about hart really, I do know enough to know that this pickcher ain’t worth as much as the frame round it.”

“I see!” declared Mr. Lock, slapping his knee exultantly. “You want George Pincott to buy it and then get stuck with it?”

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t wish ’im anything so unkind as that!” denied Mr. Dobb, primly. “I want ’im to buy it and go along to sell it to Mr. Lister at a good profit.”

“You’ll be growing wings and learning the ’arp next!” foretold Mr. Tridge, in wide-eyed astonishment.

“Yes, and while ’e’s trying to sell it to ’im,” purred Mr. Dobb, “_I’m_ going to step in and hexpose it as a fraud! And that ought to get old Lister away from Pincott and back safe to me and my shop for ever and ever, oughtn’t it?”

“Yes; but how are you going to get Pincott to buy it?” asked Mr. Lock.

“Well, in the first place,” said Mr. Dobb, “don’t forget that Pincott keeps a pretty close eye on me, and that ’e generally goes by what I do, seeing I’m quicker at the business than ’e is. And, for another thing don’t forget that ’e’s a new-comer to these parts, and don’t know that us four was all shipmates together once.”

“Yes, but how—” began Mr. Lock again.

“Ah, that’s where you chaps comes in,” stated Mr. Dobb, and began to converse in lowered, more earnest tones with each of his old companions in turn.

It was on the following evening that the squat and not completely fashionable figure of Mr. George Pincott entered the billiard-room of the “Royal William.” The hour was still early, and Mr. Peter Lock, the marker, was rather forlornly reading a newspaper in a corner. Considerably did he brighten at the advent of even so unremunerative a patron as Mr. Pincott, and willingly did he accept that gentleman’s challenge to play a short game in the interval of waiting for brisker business.

“I see a friend of yours this afternoon, sir,” observed Mr. Lock, casually, after a while. “At least, hardly a friend, but more of an acquaintance.”

“Oh!” said Mr. Pincott, without much interest.

Mr. Lock squinted along his cue, made a shot, and retrieved the red ball from a pocket.

“Mr. Dobb, of Fore Street,” he said.

“Oh, _’im_?” said Mr. Pincott.

“Yessir, Mr. Dobb,” went on Mr. Lock; and was silent till he had brought another stroke to fruition. “Looking very pleased with himself, he was, too.”

“Why, was Mr. Lister along with him?” quickly asked Mr. Pincott.

“No, sir, he was alone. He must be finding business very good just at present. He couldn’t help smiling as he walked along, and he stopped and chatted to me as affable as affable. He told me I ought to give up billiard-marking for picture-dealing. He said there was big money to be made at it by a chap who keeps his eyes open. It struck me at the time that it was rather a pity in some ways that he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Mind you, sir, I think he’d been—”

Mr. Lock made a pantomimic gesture indicating the assuagement of thirst.

“Ah!” cried Mr. Pincott, with a rising inflexion. “And what else did ’e say?”

“Well, sir, I don’t know as I ought to repeat it, you being a trade rival of his, so to speak,” said Mr. Lock, chalking his cue afresh. “But, after all, he didn’t tell me nothing very definite. It seems—”

He ceased to speak, transferring his entire attention to the preliminaries of a stroke.

“Well, what did ’e tell you?” demanded Mr. Pincott, when Mr. Lock stood erect again with a sigh of relief, and then began to stride purposefully towards the top of the table.

“Who, sir?” asked Mr. Lock, bending for further effort.

“Why, Dobb!”

“Dobb? Oh, yes!” said Mr. Lock. “Ah, I thought there was just the right exact amount of ‘side’ on that one!”

“About this ’ere Dobb!” Mr. Pincott impatiently reminded him.

“Oh, yes! Well, he didn’t tell me so very much, after all, sir. Only something about being on the track of a vallyble picture, what was hanging up practically unbeknown in this very town here, and about him hoping to buy it cheap before anyone else slipped in and snapped it up.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Mr. Pincott, thoughtfully. “Oh!” he repeated, still more thoughtfully. “Oh, ’e said that, did ’e? Did ’e tell you where the picture was?”

“No, sir, he didn’t say no more after that. He just lit a cigar and walked on.”

For a few seconds Mr. Pincott silently contemplated this goading mental picture of Mr. Dobb prodigally lighting cigars, plainly an earnest and foretaste of opulence to come. Then Mr. Pincott turned again to the marker and urged him to strive to remember every word that had passed in this interview with Mr. Dobb.

Mr. Lock, obliging, repeated some severe strictures of Mr. Dobb’s with regard to the district council, the state of the weather, and the badness of the local railway service. He was unable, however, to add one iota to that which he had already repeated concerning Mr. Dobb’s boasted pictorial discovery.

In the circumstances it was not surprising that Mr. Lock won the game with unusual ease, for Mr. Pincott had become heavily meditative, and in this mood he continued long after he had left the billiard-table, and it was still on him in a slightly increased degree when he came down to breakfast next morning.

It was soon after that meal that the bell affixed to the door of his shop summoned Mr. Pincott to the counter. Standing near the door, in an attitude somewhat furtive and hesitant, was a stout and aged mariner whom Mr. Pincott identified as the propulsive power of the ferry plying across the harbour mouth.

“Can I—can I speak to you, private and confident, for a minute, sir?” asked Mr. Clark, hoarsely.

“It depends,” hedged Mr. Pincott.

“It ain’t nothing to do with carumgorums this time, sir,” promised Mr. Clark.

“If it’s anything the police might want to know about,” said Mr. Pincott, “you’ve come to the wrong shop. Come at the wrong time o’ day, anyway.”

“Nor it ain’t anything to do with lead piping nor door-knockers, nor anything like that, sir,” disclaimed Mr. Clark.

“Then what is it?”

Mr. Clark gazed cautiously about him, and then, articulating into the back of his hand in a conspiratorial way, whispered across the counter.

“Eh?” asked Mr. Pincott. “I didn’t ’ear? Carrots? This ain’t a greengrocery!”

“I asked,” said Mr. Clark, more audibly, “’ow much is Carrottis worth?”

“Carrottis?” echoed Mr. Pincott, puzzled. “What are they, anyway?”

“Pickchers,” explained Mr. Clark. “Sort of these clarrsical pickchers painted by a chap called Carrotti, ages and ages ago.”

“’Ow the dooce should I know?” irritably began Mr. Pincott; and then his professional instincts asserted themselves. “They—they might be worth anything, up or down. It all depends. What makes you ask?”

“There’s a certain party wants to buy one,” said Mr. Clark. “And ’e’s made a offer for it, and it’s been refused. And ’e’s asked me to go along and make a little ’igher offer for it on ’is behalf and yet not on his behalf, if you takes my meaning. ’E’s frightened that they know ’e’s keen on getting it. And I says to myself that if there’s money to be made, why shouldn’t I make a bit extra, too? That’s only fair, ain’t it, sir?”

“Yes, yes,” assented Mr. Pincott. “And who might your friend be?”

“Ah, that ’ud be telling,” said Mr. Clark. “And I promised to keep ’is name right out of it. But,” he added, leering artfully, “there’s only you and ’im in the same business in this ’ere town.”

“’Orace Dobb!” cried Mr. Pincott.

“Well, I can take my haffydavit that I never told you ’is name, now, can’t I?” pointed out Mr. Clark, primly. “Well, be ’e ’oo ’e may, why should I take the trouble to buy it for ’im for a small tip when some one else might be willing to give me a bigger one? ’E ain’t got no particular call on me, and business is business when all’s said and done, ain’t it, sir?”

“Of course,” assented Mr. Pincott. “Why shouldn’t you be artful as well as anybody else? Where did you say the pickcher was?”

“I didn’t say,” replied Mr. Clark, gently.

“Well, ’ow can I say whether I want to buy it if I ’aven’t seen it?” contended Mr. Pincott, frowning.

“Ah, I wasn’t born yestiddy!” declared Mr. Clark, acutely. “If I tells you where the picture is to be found I might as well be right out of the affair altogether. You’d go along and buy it on your own, behind my back.”

“No such thing,” denied Mr. Pincott, with overdone indignation.

“Oh, well, I can proteck my own hinterests, thanks be!” stated Mr. Clark, easily. “I’ll wait till things is a bit further hadvanced before I commits myself. I’ll find out what price she’s willing to take, and see you again before I sees Mr. Dobb. ’Ow will that do?”

“That’s a good idea,” commended Mr. Pincott. “But—but I shouldn’t waste no time if I was you. I’d go right down there now, wherever it is, and carry things a step farther without delay.”

“And so I will, this minute,” agreed Mr. Clark. He favoured Mr. Pincott with a vast wink, and nodded very knowingly at him in token of mutual understanding. He then took his departure, and Mr. Pincott, giving him a grudged start of one minute, followed cautiously after him. The fact that Mr. Clark, without stopping anywhere, made his way directly back to his employment at the ferry caused Mr. Pincott to speak of that aged man’s duplicity in the harshest terms.

“Oh, well, anyway, I’m further than I was last night!” was the consolation Mr. Pincott eventually found for himself. “It’s a Carrotti, and Dobb’s found it and means to buy it at a bargain, and intends to sell it to old Lister, no doubt. However, there’s nothing to prevent me selling it to Lister either, if I can get ’old of it. Carrotti?” he mused. “First I’ve ever ’eard of ’im, but ’e _sounds_ all right. Anyway, if it’s good enough for Dobb, it’s good enough for me.”

And with a grin of satisfaction at the prospect of defeating his sole competitor in the district, Mr. Pincott put on his hat again, and sauntered along for his customary shave.

He found the Magnolia Toilet Saloon to be void of customers, and at once sat down in the operating chair. Mr. Tridge, deftly tucking a towel about his patron’s throat, began to indulge in conversation with professional fluency.

“And ’ow’s business, sir?” he asked. “Pretty bright, I ’ope? There seems to be plenty of money knocking about the town for them as knows where to look for it. I know one gent, a customer of mine, what reckons to clear easy fifty quid over a little deal ’e’s got in ’and, and the funny part of it is that ’e ain’t bought what ’e’s after yet. ’E’s made a offer, but—”

He stopped abruptly and, obtaining Mr. Pincott’s attention in the mirror, frowned warningly at him as Mr. Dobb entered.

“I understand,” said Mr. Pincott.

Mr. Dobb nodded patronizingly to Mr. Tridge, and accorded a rather more patronizing nod to Mr. Pincott. He then sat down quietly with a newspaper to await his turn for Mr. Tridge’s services. This coming at last, he took his place in the chair with marked alacrity.

“Don’t keep me longer than you can ’elp,” he directed. “I’m a bit later than I meant to be already. Give me a nice, clean shave, will you? I’m just on my way to see a lady on business.”

Mr. Pincott, in the act of passing through the doorway, involuntarily turned round and stared at Mr. Dobb.

When, ten minutes later, Mr. Dobb emerged from Mr. Tridge’s establishment, lovingly caressing and pinching a velvet chin, he betrayed not the slightest indication that he was aware that Mr. Pincott was lurking inconspicuously at an adjacent corner. Mr. Dobb, as one with a definite purpose, walked sharply up the street, turned into the neighbouring High Street, and thence crossed the wide market place diagonally. His itinerary was closely watched and imitated by Mr. Pincott.

And next Mr. Dobb made his way down the narrow, tumble-down alley known as Market Lane, still vigilantly attended by his trade rival. Finally, Mr. Dobb halted at a little sweetstuff shop, and without looking round, entered at its door. Mr. Pincott, finding convenient ambush near by, patiently waited for some minutes, and at last saw Mr. Dobb come again to the threshold of the tiny shop. Here Mr. Dobb turned round, and seemed to be in earnest discussion with some one within, eventually going off back along Market Lane with his hands deep thrust in his pockets and a dissatisfied expression on his face.

Mr. Pincott elatedly watched Mr. Dobb vanish from sight. Then, with long, eager strides, he went across the street and entered the little shop to the symptoms of tempestuous jangling of its door-bell. A female gazed at him inquiringly from behind the counter, but Mr. Pincott made no immediate remark to her, for he was engrossed in staring at a huge and pitchy landscape. Closer examination revealed the signature of “Andrew Carrotti” flung across a corner in a crimson scrawl.

“Very old picture, that,” observed the lady behind the counter, speaking with a kind of heavy and mechanical civility. “Been in our family for years and years. Not for sale, of course. We only hangs it up there because there ain’t any other room for it. And what can I get for you, please, sir?”

“Not for sale, eh?” said Mr. Pincott.

“No, sir,” she replied, definitely. “There’s another gent just been in and tried ’ard to buy it, but I ’ad to refuse him. Was you thinking of choc’lates, sir? We’ve got some just fresh in.”

Of certain negotiations which, despite the lady’s unwillingness, followed so swiftly and with such continuity of impact, it is superfluous to write. Suffice it to record that Mr. Pincott, fortified and stimulated by the thought that here was something he was snatching from the very grasp of Mr. Dobb, was content to believe that the intrinsic unloveliness of the picture did not matter, and that its value was not its value as a work of art, but as a piece of property for which Mr. Lister would pay handsomely.

So at last the lady, conceded her sex’s privilege, changed her mind, and was at last prevailed upon to part with the picture at a price which was only satisfactory to Mr. Pincott for the justification it afforded him to demand profits on the higher scale from Mr. Simon Lister.

In some excitement and a decrepit cab, Mr. Pincott carted his purchase direct to that gentleman’s abode in the suburbs of Shorehaven. Mr. Dobb, who had been doing a little reconnoitring duty in his turn, saw the vehicle turn into the London road with its burden, and he followed after it on foot.

Staggering spectacularly beneath his load, Mr. Pincott was ushered into the presence of Mr. Lister.