Part 65 (1/2)

”Come upstairs, child,” and the girl followed him to the upper floor.

On reaching the room in which the baby was crying they tried the door.

It was locked. John attempted to force it, but it would not yield. The child's sobs were dying down to a sleepy moan.

Another room stood open and they went in. It was the living-room. A kettle on the fire was singing and puffing steam. There was no sign of a key anywhere. Only a table, some chairs, a disordered sofa, certain sporting newspapers lying about, and a few pictures on the walls. Some of the pictures were of race-horses, but all the rest were memorial cards, and one bore the text, ”He shall gather them in his arms.” Aggie was shuddering as with cold, being chilled by some unknown fear.

”We must go down to the cellar--there's no help for it,” said John.

The man in the hall had not spoken or stirred. He was still gazing in terror on the bloodshot eyes looking out of the darkness. John gave the candle to the girl and began to go noiselessly downstairs. There was not a movement in the house now. Big Ben was striking. It was twelve o'clock.

At the next moment John Storm was midway down, and had full view of the den. It was a was.h.i.+ng cellar with a coal vault going out of it under the street. Some fifteen or twenty men, chiefly foreigners, were gathered about a large table covered with green baize, on which a small lamp was burning. A few of the men were seated on chairs ranged about, the others were standing at the back in rows two deep. They were gambling. The game was faro. Rows of lucifer matches were laid on the table, half-crowns were staked on them, and cards were cut and dealt. Except the banker, a middle-aged man with the wild eye of the hard spirit-drinker, everybody had his face turned away from the cellar stairs.

They did not smoke or drink, and they only spoke to each other when the stakes were being received or paid. Then they quarrelled and swore in English. After that there was a chilling and hideous silence, as if something awful were about to occur. The lamp cast a strong light on the table, but the rest of the room was darkened by patches of shadow.

The coal vault had been turned into a drinking-bar, and behind the counter there was a well-stocked stillage. In the depths of its shade a woman sat knitting. She had a gross red and white face, and in the arch above her was the iron grid in the pavement. Somebody on the street walked over it, causing a hollow sound as of soil falling on a coffin.

John Storm was no coward, but a certain tremor pa.s.sed over him on finding himself in this subterranean lurking-place of men who were as beasts. He stood a full minute unseen. Then he heard the woman say in a low hiss, ”Cat's mee-e-et!” and he knew he had been observed. The men turned and looked at him, not suddenly, or all at once, but furtively, cautiously, slowly. The banker crouched at the table with an astonished face and tried to smuggle the cards out of sight.

John stood calmly, his whole figure displaying courage and confidence.

The group of men broke up. ”He's got the 'coppers,'” said one. n.o.body else spoke, and they began to melt away. They disappeared through a door at the back which led into a yard, for, like rats, the human vermin always have a second way out of their holes.

In half a minute the cellar was nearly empty. Only the banker and the woman and one young man remained. The young man was Charlie.

”What cheer, myte?” he said with an air of unconcern. ”Is it trecks ye want, sir? Here ye are then,” and he threw a pack of cards at John's feet.

”It's that gel o' yawn that's done this,” said the woman.

”So it's a got-up thing, is it?” said Charlie, and stepping to the counter, he took up a drinking-gla.s.s, broke it at the rim; and holding its jagged edges outward, turned to use it as a weapon.

John Storm had not yet spoken, but a magnetic instinct warned him. He whistled, and the dog bounded down. The young man threw his broken gla.s.s on the floor and cried to the keeper of the house: ”Don't stir, you!

First you know, the beast will be at yer throat!”

Hearing Charlie's voice, Aggie was creeping down the stairs. ”Charlie!”

she cried. Charlie threw open his coat, stuck his fingers in the armholes of his waistcoat, said in a voice of hatred, pa.s.sion, and rage, ”Go and p.a.w.n yourself!” and then swaggered out at the back door. The keeper made show of following, but John Storm called on him to stop. The man looked at the dog and obeyed. ”Wot d'ye want o' me?” he said.

”I want this girl's baby. That's the first thing I want. I'll tell you the rest afterward.”

”Oh, that's it, is it?” The man's grimace was frightful.

”It's gone, sir. We've lost it,” said the woman, with a hideous expression.

”That story will not pa.s.s with me, my good woman. Go upstairs and unlock the door! You too, my man, go on!”

A minute later they were in a bedroom above. Three neglected children lay asleep on bundles of rags. One of twelve months' old was in a wicker cradle, one of three years was in a wooden cot, and a younger child was in a bed. Aggie had come up behind, and stood by the door trembling and weeping.

”Now, my girl, find your baby,” said John, and the young mother hurried with eager eyes from the cradle to the cot and from the cot to the bed.