The Victorian Villains Megapack (33 page)

About nine o’clock Pringle started in search of his new acquaintance, but at the hotel he was met by fresh difficulty—he knew no name which to describe the stranger, and could only ask for “a gentleman with a bicycle.”

“You may well say the gentleman with the bicycle,” exclaimed the waiter as he took Pringle’s judicious tip. That’s what we all call him. Why, he wouldn’t let its put it in the yard last night, but he stuck to it like cobbler’s wax, and stood it in the passage, where he could see it all the time he was eating. An’ would you believe it, sir?”—sinking his voice to a confidential whisper—“he actually took the machine up to his bedroom with him at night!”

Pringle having expressed his horror at this violation of decency, the waiter continued—“Ah! And when the guv’nor heard of it and went up to speak to him about it, he’d locked the door and pretended not to hear. He said it was a valuable machine, but I’ve got a brother in the trade and I know something about machines myself, and I don’t see it’s anything out of the way.”

“What name did he give?”

“Think it was Snaky, or something foreign like that.” The waiter consulted a slate. “Ah! Here it it, sir—Snaburgh, number 24: call 7.30.”

“Has he gone, then?” inquired Pringle anxiously.

“Took his machine out with him soon after eight. The guv’nor objected to his going out before he’d paid his bill, seeing as he’d got no luggage, so he paid up, and then took a look at the time-table, and asked when lunch was on.”

“What time-table was it?”

“
ABC
I saw him with.”

“Do you expect him back?”

“Can’t say for—Why, dash my wig, here he is, cycle an’ all!”

The cyclist, holding a small black hug and wheeling the machine, wormed his way into the lobby, resolutely declining the waiter’s assistance. On seeing Pringle he started, then paused, and half turned back, but encumbered as he was his movements were necessarily slow and Pringle, ignoring the action, advanced with his most engaging smile.

“I’m so pleased to find you’re none the worse for your accident. Allow me!” He steadied the machine against the wall. “Have you been for a morning ride?”

“Only to do some shopping,” was the ungracious reply.

Mr Snaburgh, as he called himself, looked all the better for his morning toilet, and Pringle watched him closely in the endeavor to compare him with the rather vague newspaper description He was certainly thick-set, and might have been any age from thirty to five-and-forty. His moustache was coal-black and drooped in cavalry fashion over his mouth; the chin had already grown a short stubble, and two fresh cuts upon his chops were eloquent of the hasty removal of a recent beard. There was a constant nervous twitching about the eyelids, but although shaded by the peak of the cap, a dirty-colored corrugation over the right brow was quite apparent. Pringle took special note of the right pupil. As Snaburgh stood he was in a full light, but yet it was unduly dilated,
thus showing its insensibility to the light and the blindness of the eye
.

“I must apologise for intruding on you so early in the day,” said Pringle, with all his wonted suaveness, “but a sprain is often at its worst a few hours after the accident.”

“It’s all right. Thanks,” gruffly.

“If I can be of any service to you while you’re in town—”

“I’m not going to stay in town! Er—good-morning!” And he resumed his elephantine struggle through the hall.

In face of this snub Pringle could do nothing, and fearful of rousing suspicions which might scare the fugitive into another sudden disappearance, he accepted the dismissal. As he passed out he overhead, “Shall I take the machine, sir?” and the reply, “No, I want a private sitting-room where I can take it.”

Pringle meditated upon two facts as he turned homeward. He had ascertained beyond any reasonable doubt that the cyclist was Thomas, and that the machine was as much as ever the object of his idolatry. The extraordinary pains to keep it in sight, his refusal to part with it even in his bedroom, the saddling himself with it when, as he said, he only went shopping, all pointed to the fact that a machine intrinsically worth some three or four pounds had a very special value in his eyes. One thing was a little puzzling to Pringle: the man had no luggage—not even a cycle-valise—the night before, yet at an early hour, almost before the shops were open, in fact, he had gone out and purchased a bag. Did he suspect how much comment his care of the cycle was arousing? Was he about to transfer its freight to the bag? He must be meditating a further move, too, else why consult the time-table? Here again he displayed his usual shrewdness, for the
ABC
gave no hint as to the line he favoured. Pringle wondered how much longer Thomas would remain at the hotel. He had certainly made inquiries about lunch, and the unloading of the cycle would take a little time. But then there was that story in the
Chronicle
to be reckoned with. Were Thomas to see that he would be sure to connect it with Pringle’s visit, and would promptly vanish. But was it in any other paper? Pringle made a large investment in the journalism of the morning and, mounting an omnibus, industriously skimmed the whole. The
Chronicle
alone printed it, and he decided to take the risk of Thomas reading it there.

Hard by Furnival’s Inn is an emporium where the appliances of every known sport (and even of a few unknown ones) are obtainable. Pringle was no stranger to the establishment, and making his way to the athletic department, purchased a cheap cycling suit and sweater, with a cap which he ornamented with an aggressive badge. Downstairs among the cycling accessories he bought a “ram’s-horn” handle-bar, and hurried back laden to his chambers. His first step was to remove the characteristic port-wine mark on his right cheek with spirit, and then, having blackened his fair hair and brows, he created the incipience of a moustache with the shreds from a camel-hair brush. Although it would have been difficult for Pringle to look other than a gentleman, with his slim athletic figure clothed in the sweater, the cycling suit, and the cap and badge (especially the badge), he presented a fair likeness of the average Sunday scorcher. The manners of the tribe he fortunately saw no necessity to assume. To perfect the resemblance, the scorcher being comparable to a man who shall select a racehorse for a day’s ride over country roads, it was necessary to “strip” his machine, so, removing the mudguards and brake, and robbing the chain of its decent gear-case, he substituted the “ram’s-horn” for his handlebar.

Towards noon Pringle rode down Arundel Street, and alighting at a tavern commanding a new of the Embankment Hotel, sat down to wait in the company of a beer-tankard; but as he slowly sipped the beer, his vigil unrewarded and the barman beginning to stare inquisitively, the thought arose again and again that Thomas had given him the slip. He almost decided on the desperate step of visiting the hotel and once more pumping the friendly waiter, when, shortly after one, he caught a momentary glimpse of a familiar face as its owner examined the street over the coffee-room blinds. Pringle drew a long breath. He was on the right scent, after all; and ordering a cut from the joint he made a hearty lunch, preserving an unabated watch upon the hotel door. This was a somewhat irritating task. It was the autumn season, and with a full complement of country and American cousins in the house, there was a constant movement to and fro. Nevertheless, his persistence was rewarded after an hour by a slight but portentous occurrence: a waiter emerged with a cycle, which he propped against the kerb. It was the hired crock. By this time Pringle could have identified it among some thousands at a cycle show. But the owner? Where was he? What, Pringle asked himself, could have soured his affection for the machine? What else but the removal of the treasure? Pringle was saved further speculation by the appearance of Thomas himself. He was carrying the handbag, and entered on an earnest conversation with the waiter, the subject of discussion appearing to be the cycle itself. Presently the waiter opened the tool-bag, and taking a wrench from it, commenced in adjust the handle-bar, which Pringle for the first time noticed was all askew. This took some little time, and when the man finished he pointed to the saddle, as if that too required attention, an office which he straightway performed. And all the while Thomas, with the bag fast held, contented himself with supervising the task. The sighr was an instructive one for Pringle. The disarrangement of the cycle was and assurance that the contents had been transferred, and Thomas clearly regarded the machine but as a means of locomotion.

Resisting the waiter’s attempt to hold the bag while he mounted, Thomas scrambled to the saddle and steered a serpentine course up the slope, the bag bouncing and trembling in his grasp. Even had he been capable of the feat of turning round, he would have felt no apprehension of the youth who followed at a pace regulated by his own.

In the case or every pastime some special Providence would seem to direct the novice: either he has an impregnable run of luck, or he performs feats which he can never after attain So it was with Thomas. An indifferent rider, he boldly plunged into the torrent which roared along Fleet Street; unscathed he shot the rapids of Ludgate Circus, and kept a straight and fearless course onwards up the hill. But in Queen Victoria Street the steering became too complicated and, forced to dismount, he pushed the cycle for the remainder of the way. Pringle had followed in some alarm that they might be hopelessly separated in the traffic, and more than once had even entertained ideas of seizing the bag in the midst of a purposed collision and trusting to luck to dodge into safety between the omnibuses. But he dismissed them all as crude and dangerous; besides, his artistic ideals revolted at the clumsiness of leaving any details to mere luck.

The pursuit led on through the City till presently Pringle found himself descending the approach to the Great Eastern terminus. Inside all was bustle and confusion, and they had to elbow an arduous track through the crowd. Seeing wisdom in a less intimate attendance, Pringle withdrew to the shelter of a flight of steps, and while Thomas perspired he rested. But he never relaxed his watch, and the moment the other emerged from the booking office and panted towards the labeling rack, Pringle followed on. As Thomas moved off with his machine Pringle palmed a shilling on the porter with the demand, “Same, please,” and a few seconds later drew aside to read the label pasted on his spokes It was
Witham
. Handing the cycle to a porter, he rushed to the booking office and then on to the platform as the crock, in the indifferent absence of Thomas, was trundled into the van with customary official brutality; his own followed with a shade more consideration, and under the pretence of adjusting it he presently got into the van, and as he passed Thomas’s machine buried a knife blade in each of its tyres. He had just time to take his seat before the whistle sounded, and the train glided out of the station.

Witham was a good forty minutes off, and at every halt Pringle’s shoulders blocked the carriage window He feared lest Thomas should repeat his favourite strategy of alighting before his destination. But so long as they were in motion Pringle whiled the time by imagining fresh reasons for this mysterious journey. He was staring at the map of the Great Eastern system which appositely hung in the compartment, when his eye fell on a miniature steamboat voyaging a mathematically straight line drawn across from Harwich 10 the Hook of Holland. The figure suggested a new idea. Supposing the present trip had been arranged with an accomplice—could it in brief be a clever scheme to dispose of the diamonds in the best market? What more likely to disarm suspicion than for Thomas to cycle from Witham to Harwich?

“Witham!”

Pringle, with every sense alert, looked out. No one alighting? Yes, here he was. The guard had already evicted the two cycles when Thomas, with the precious valise, hurried down the platform and seized his own. The supreme moment had arrived. Pringle waited until the other had disappeared, and stepped onto the platform as the train began to move. There was no need for him to hurry, the damage he had inflicted on the crock would ensure its leisurely running. And true enough, when he reached the station door Thomas had got but a little way along the road in a bumpy fashion, which even to his inexperience might have told the rapid deflation of the tyres. His progress was further complicated by the presence of the bag, which he had no means of fastening to the cycle; and, slowly as Pringle followed, the distance between them rapidly shortened, until when Thomas turned into the main toad he was nearly up to him. Pringle halted a few seconds to allow a diplomatic gap to intervene, and then followed round the corner as Thomas shaped a painful course along the Colchester road. On and on, growing ever slower, the way led between high edges, until with a pair of absolutely flat tyres there dawned upon Thomas’s intelligence a suspicion that all was not well with the machine and, dismounting, he leant it against the hedge.

“Can I lend you a repair? You seem badly punctured,” piped Pringle in a high falsetto. He had shot by, and now, wheeling round, passed a little to the rear and propped his machine against a gate.

“I thought that was it. I haven’t got a repair,” was the least bearish reply that Pringle had yet heard from Thomas.

“You must get both tyres off—like this!” Pringle inverted the crock, and with the dexterity of long practice, ran his fingers round the rims and unnecessarily dragged out both the inner tubes for their entire length. “Catch hold for a second, will you, while I look for a patch.”

Thomas innocently laid the bag at his feet and steadied the machine, when a violent thrust sent him diving headlong through the frame. With a spasm of his powerful back-muscles he saved a sprawl into the hedge, and was on his feet in another second. Pringle, the bag in hand, was already a dozen yards away. He had noted a fault in the hedge, and for this he made with all imaginable speed. The road sank just here, but scrambling cat-like up the bank, with a rending and tearing of his clothes, his bleeding hands forced a passage through the gap. Once clear of it he doubled back inside the hedge: beyond the gate there stood his cycle, and even as he neared it there was a scream of curses as the thorns waylaid Thomas in the gap. In a bound Pringle was over the gate. The bag was hooked fast upon a staple; desperately he tugged, but the iron held until at a more violent wrench the leather ripped open. He seized the canvas packet within; it crisped in his fingers. Behind there was a furious panting; he could almost feel the hot breaths, but as Thomas clutched the empty bag and collapsed across the gate, Pringle disappeared towards Colchester in a whirlwind of dust.