CHAPTER
29
AT THE BLUE ANCHOR
The man with the claret coloured nose was becoming quarrelsome. His unshaven friend who wore a tweed cap with the brim pulled right down over his eyes, was drunk also, but in a more amiable way.
John Bates, the landlord of the Blue Anchor, shirt-sleeved behind the bar, watched the pair inquiringly. The man with the claret nose came in at longish intervals, and was usually more or less drunk. Bates supposed that he was a hand in one of the coasting steamers which sailed from a near-by dock. His friend was a stranger, nor did he look like a sailor.
The Blue Anchor had only just opened and there were no other customers in the private bar, which was decorated with sporting prints and a number of Oriental curiosities which might have indicated that the landlord, or some member of his family, had travelled extensively in the East. John observed with satisfaction that the phenomenal fog which had lifted during the day, promised to return with. the coming of dusk.
From long experience of dockland trade, John had learned that fog was good for business. He lighted a cigarette, leaning on the bar and listening to the conversation of the singular pair.
“I bet you half a quid as it was above Wapping.”
The claret nosed man was the speaker, and he emphasized his words by banging his fist upon the table before him. John Bates was certain now that he was a sailor and that he had a pay-roll in his pocket. The other man stolidly shook his head.
“You’re wrong, Dick,” he declared, thickly. “It was somewhere near Limehouse Basin.”
“Wapping.”
“Limehouse.”
“Look here.” Claret Nose rose unsteadily to his feet, and approached the bar. “I’m goin’ to ask you to act as judge between me and this bloke here. See what I mean, guv’nor?”
John Bates nodded stolidly.
“It’s a bet for half a quid.”
Bates liked bets; they always led up to rounds of drinks, and:
“Put your money on the counter,” he directed; “I’ll hold the stakes.”
Claret Nose banged down a ten shilling note and turning:
“Cover that!” he shouted, truculently.
The othe man, who proved to be tall and thin when he stood up, extracted a note from some inner pocket and placed it upon that laid down by the challenger.
“Right.” John Bates inverted a tumbler upon the two notes. “Now, what’s the bet about?”
“It’s like this,” said the red-nosed man—”we was talkin’ about tunnels——”
“Tunnels?”
“Tunnels is what I said. We talked about the Blackwall Tunnel, the Rotherhithe Tunnel and all sorts of bloody tunnels——”
“What for?” John Bates inquired.
“We just felt like talkin’ about tunnels. Then we got to one what was started about fifty years ago and never finished. A footpath, it was, to go under the Thames from somewhere near Wapping Old Stairs——”
“Limehouse.”
The lean man, bright eyes peering out from beneath the brim of his remarkably large tweed cap, had imparted a note of challenge to the word.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Bates. “I never heard of such a tunnel.”
“Fifty years ago, everybody’d heard about it.”
“I wasn’t here fifty years ago.”
“I thought you knew all there was to know about this part o’ the world”
“I know a lot but I don’t know that. The Old Man would know.”
“Well ask the Old Man.”
“He’s upstairs, having a lay down.” Bates turned to a grinning boy who now stood at his elbow. “Keep an eye on that money, Billy,” he instructed. “I sha’n’t be a minute.”
He raised the flap of the bar, came through, and went upstairs.
“While we’re waitin’,” said Claret Nose, “another couple o’ pints wouldn’t do no harm.”
“Right,” the other agreed, and nodded to the boy. “The loser pays, so——” pointing to the notes beneath the inverted tumbler, “you take it out of one of those.”
John Bates returned inside three minutes from his interview with the invisible Old Man. He was grinning broadly, and carrying a cloth-bound book.
“Which of you said Limehouse?” he demanded.
“I did,” growled the man in the tweed cap.
Bates, stepping in between the two, raised the tumbler, and returned a ten shilling note to the last speaker. “The drinks are on you,” he said, addressing the other. “I’ll have a small whisky and soda.”
“Ho!” said the red nosed one, “you will, will you? You will when you tell me where the bloody tunnel
John Bates opened what proved to be a scrapbook, placing it upon the counter. He pointed to a drawing above which the words “Daily Graphic June 5, 1885” appeared. There were paragraphs from other papers pasted on the same page.
“There you are, my lad. What the Old Man doesn’t know about this district, nobody can tell him. Never mind about closing one eye, George——” addressing Claret Nose; “I don’t think you could read it even then. It boils down to this: There was a project in 1885 to build a footpath from where we stand now, to the Surrey bank. A shaft was sunk and the tunnel was commenced. Then the scheme collapsed, so the Old Man tells me.”
“Ho!” said the loser, staring truculently at the grinning boy behind the bar. “A small whisky and soda for the guv’nor, and take it out of that——” pointing to the note.
“What did they do with this ‘ere shaft?” growled the man in the tweed cap.
“The Old Man doesn’t know,” Bates replied. Everybody about here, except him, has forgotten all about it. But if you’re in any doubt, I can tell you something else. He told me to tell you.”
“What’s that?”
The voice of the man in the tweed cap exhibited an unexpected interest, and John Bates glanced at him sharply; then:
“You know the old wharf?” he jerked his thumb over his shoulder, “which has been up for sale for years—sort of Chinese restaurant backs right on to it.”
“I know it,” growled the red-nosed man.
“Well, the one and only ventilation shaft of this tunnel comes out there, so the Old Man says; in fact, it must run right up through the building, or at the side of it.”
“Ho!” said the man in the tweed cap. “Have another drink.”
CHAPTER
30
THE HUNCHBACK
Nayland Smith, wearing his long-peaked, large, check cap, and Detective-sergeant Murphy, very red of nose but no longer drunk, stood upon a narrow patch of shingle. That mysterious mist which had claimed London for so many days in succession had already masked the Surrey bank. They were staring up at the roof of that strange excrescence belonging to Sam Pak’s restaurant.
“The ventilation shaft which Bates referred to,” said Sir Denis, “is at the back of the bar, for a bet. It accounts for the heat at that end of the room.
“Why
“It is probably regarded as an old flue,” Nayland Smith went on, apparently not having heard his query, “and it very likely terminates in that big square chimney stack up yonder.”
“It’s above there that the light is seen.”
