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Page 53
A well-planned piece of work, cleverly performed, made it advantageous
to the couple to go abroad. It was a question of money, not dread of
discovery and arrest; they had covered their tracks well, and they
believed that no suspicion could fall upon them. They were not prepared
for the ill-luck that awaited them on the Continent. Their fruit of hope
turned to ashes of despair, or very nearly so. They realized but a
fraction of the sum they had expected, and Hawker lost his share of even
that through the treachery of his pal, who departed by night from the
German town where they were stopping. So Hawker started for home, and
he had landed at Dover with, two sovereigns and a few silver coins. He
still believed that the police were ignorant of the business that had
taken him abroad; the worst that he feared was getting into trouble for
failing to report himself.
"There isn't much danger if I'm sharp," he thought, as the Kentish
landscape, the Garden of England, sped by him in the gathering dusk;
"and I won't touch a crib of any sort till I've tried those other two
lays. It's more than doubtful about the papers--I forget what was in
them. And they may be gone by this time. But, leaving that out, I've got
a pretty sure thing up my sleeve. What happened in Germany put me on the
track--but for that I wouldn't have suspected. I'll make somebody fork
over to a stiff tune, and serve him d---- right. It's the first time I
was caught napping."
The endless chimney-pots and glowing lights of the great city gladdened
Hawker's heart, and a whiff from the murky Thames bade him welcome home.
He gave up his ticket at Grosvenor road, and when the train pulled into
Victoria he walked boldly through the immense station. He loved London
with a thoroughbred cockney's passion, and he exulted in the sights and
sounds around him.
Hawker spent his last coppers for a packet of tobacco, and broke one of
his sovereigns to get a drink. He speedily lost himself in the crowds of
Victoria street, satisfied that he had not been recognized or followed.
He went on foot to Charing Cross, and climbed to the top of a brown and
yellow bus. Three-quarters of an hour later he got off in Kentish Town
and made his way to a squalid and narrow thoroughfare in the vicinity of
Peckwater street. He stopped before a house in the middle of a dirty and
monotonous row, and looked at it reminiscently. He had lodged there five
years back, previous to his third conviction, and here he had been
arrested. He had not returned since, for on his release from Dartmoor he
went to live near his pal, who was then planning the lay that had ended
so disastrously.
He pulled the bell and waited anxiously. A stout, slatternly woman
appeared, and uttered a sharp exclamation at sight of her visitor. She
would have closed the door in his face, but Hawker quickly thrust a leg
inside.
"None o' that," he growled. "Don't you know me, missus?"
"It ain't likely I'd furgit _you_, Noah Hawker! What d'ye want?"
"A lodging, Mrs. Miggs," he replied. "Is my old room to let?" he added
eagerly.
"It's been empty a week, but what's that to you? I won't 'ave no
jail-bird in my 'ouse. I'm a respectable woman, an' I won't be disgraced
again by the likes of you."
"Come, stow that! Can't you see I'm a foreign gent from abroad? The
police ain't after me--take my word for it. I've come back here because
you always made me snug and comfortable. I'll have the room, and if you
want to see the color of my money--"
He produced a half-sovereign, and a relenting effect was immediately
visible. A brief parley ensued, which ended in Mrs. Miggs pocketing the
money and inviting Mr. Hawker to enter. A moment after the door had
closed a rather shabby man strolled by the house and made a mental note
of the number.
Presently a light gleamed from the window of the first floor back, which
overlooked, at a distance of six feet, a high, blank wall. Noah Hawker
put the candle on a shelf, locked the door noiselessly, and glanced
about the well-remembered room, with its dirty paper, frayed carpet and
scanty furniture. A little later, after listening to make sure that he
was not being spied upon, he blew out the candle and opened the window.
He fumbled for a minute, then closed the window and drew down the blind.
When he relighted the candle he held in one hand a packet wrapped in a
piece of mildewed leather.
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