His decision to maroon the fugitives in their cabin was more than justified when he encountered two of the crew before ascending the stairs to the deck.
They mistook him for a passenger but if he had been propelling bound and gagged prisoners, he doubted they would have come to the same conclusion.
Up on deck, ghost once more to the gangplank, leave the bloody cat yowling on ship, and then?
In for a penny, in for a pound.
37
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored
JULIA WARDE HOWE,
The bearded man stood at the very edge of the pier and gazed back eastwards where he imagined Edinburgh to be as a lone seagull screeched overhead; another hungry bird.
Typical of his native city that it would be hiding at the very moment he was about to depart.
The place had done him few favours and left many scars but he would miss the harsh beat of that stony Midlothian hammer, pounding him into shape from birth. It was good his companion had gone on board and left him to have this last moment of fogbound privacy.
She was a good woman, and he would do his best to grapple with her for ever.
He lifted one bony big-knuckled hand in farewell to his native land. Good riddance. A New World beckoned.
But the Old World was not finished with him yet.
A soft tune was whistled from westwards behind him and the bearded man froze at the fragment of melody.
‘Charlie is my darling, the young Chevalier.’
He turned to find James McLevy in the mist.
‘Well Herkie,’ said the inspector quietly. ‘It’s been a long journey.’
McLevy held his revolver loosely at the side and in his other hand carried a length of rope he had picked up from the deck of the ship.
His plan was to stun Dunbar if necessary, bind the man then drag him back to the
With witnesses to hand, the captain would not dare interfere.
That was his calculation, but first things first.
Of course he could have sneaked up on the man and felled him where he stood but somehow that did not seem fitting for his old enemy.
So, he preferred to whistle instead. And now they were face to face.
Hercules Dunbar had lowered his head at the sight of his nemesis but now raised it again to speak.
‘I am a changed man, McLevy.’
Indeed his eyes and voice were level and considered but that cut no ice with the law.
‘Your past actions cannot change,’ was the inexorable response. ‘And they have caused many deaths.’
The inspector moved slowly towards his quarry, and as he did so, pronounced judgment.
‘I absolve you from the butler’s demise though you are more than implicated, but what of your only friend, Tommy Loughran?’
The guilt McLevy had intuited in the man was uncovered like a nest of maggots and Dunbar flinched as if he had been struck in the face.
‘He died in the February storm when three High Girders fell; it was believed the cause was that they had not been securely moored in place. But in your heart, you suspected that it was due to the bad practice in your foundry.’
There was now hardly an arm’s length between them and McLevy was intent on pressing home bleak advantage.
‘The wee riveter. Your best pal. He died. Of your neglect. Of your transgression.’
A look of fear passed over Dunbar’s face as if he was being drawn back into a terrifying past.
‘I sent money tae his wife, out of my own wages!’
‘I am sure that compensated her mightily,’ was the ironic rejoinder. ‘But for three years after that, you continued. Knowing that you were sinning against both God and Tommy Loughran. On and on you went.’
‘I did what I was told,’ Dunbar muttered.
‘That’s not good enough,’ replied the inspector who was suddenly brought to mind of the little girl who gifted him barley sugar and then saw the death of her father in McLevy’s face. ‘Not remotely.’
He brought the revolver up to point at Dunbar.
‘I cannot prosecute you for the poor bastards who died that night the bridge destroyed itself, but I have you in the frame for robbery, violent and duplicitous assault of a police constable, breaking out of Lieutenant Roach’s jail and pishing in my face.’
‘Ye deserved that,’ was the rejoinder.
‘Turn round, Herkie,’ said McLevy. ‘Put your hands behind your back. The game is over now.’
As Dunbar slowly did so, he threw a plaintive remark over his shoulder.
‘I could’ve taken the boat from Glasgow, but I wanted to see Edinburgh for a last time.’
‘You can watch it on the way to the penitentiary.’
‘Can ye not let me go McLevy? I have a good woman on hand. We will get married in the New World.’
‘She’ll have to find another class of criminal. Now clasp your paws together and stick them straight out!’
Dunbar did so, arms extended backwards, and McLevy approached cautiously; he had fashioned a slip knot in the rope and planned to drop it over the man’s hands, pull it tight, then make it fast possibly round the fellow’s neck.
From Hercules’ point of view, although he had pitched his voice to pleading, he knew that to be a waste of time; however he had too much to lose. Indeed he was changed, this woman had been the making of him; they had hidden out in the country with her relatives who owned a farm, and he had found a peace and harmony that he never believed could ever have been possible in his life.
She had sold the house in Magdalen Green and they had money to spare.
In the New World, as he had promised her, they would get married and then have their own farm.
He would kill for that dream.
In a strange way, he had not been surprised to see McLevy; the two of them were linked like birth and death.
And so though he presented an abject figure, his every sense was tuned to the moment when McLevy’s balance shifted, and then he would make his strike.
The inspector, in turn, perceived the coiled tension of the other and, sleeve riding back to expose an expanse of white cuff, lifted his revolver in warning to lay it right behind the man’s ear.
‘Softly does it, Herkie. If she loves you, she’ll be waiting when you emerge from the Perth Penitentiary thirty odd years from now.’
Who knows what might have happened at that moment, perhaps Dunbar would have swung desperately round, McLevy forced to shoot him where he stood, or the rope pulled tight upon the defeated wrists, then Hercules
