The Memoirs Of Constantine Dix/Numbered Notes
IX
NUMBERED NOTES
In the course of my work in the East End I have seen a great deal of the misery and vice which result from begging and gambling. I remember on one occasion a poor clerk in whom I was interested being ruined in that way. It began with his taking a few shillings to put on a certainty, with the intention of replacing them as soon as the race was over and he had got his money. The certainty broke down and he was driven to take more money, and more again, always in the hope that he would be able to win enough to replace everything, and with the firm resolve that if this took place he would never bet again. He was discovered, and the law took its usual course. I said then what I repeat now—that it was not so much that poor clerk as the bookmakers who made a profit out of him that ought to have been punished.
Some time later I had an opportunity myself of punishing the bookmaker. It was a case in which I had to make an exception to my general rule. My general rule, to which I have already alluded, is never to touch numbered notes, but it would have been pedantic for me to have followed it in this case.
At a quarter to two one afternoon I entered an old-fashioned eating-house in the neighbourhood of Victoria Station, I had never been there before—I rather like to go to places where I have never been before. It seemed to be a house after my own taste, clean, comfortable, wholesome. Welsh mutton and good port would, I felt, be procurable there. I walked into one of the empty boxes and looked over into the next, A big man in a heavy frieze overcoat sat there with his back to me. By his side was a pile of notes, and he was laboriously entering the numbers of them with a stumpy pencil in his pocket-book. I noticed that the notes were in different stages of cleanliness or the reverse, and had not been folded uniformly. The numbers were not consecutive. The man put the notes into a leather satchel which fastened with a spring lock and shut the pocket-book. As he did this I slipped out of the box in which I was and entered his. There I sat down and picked up the bill of fare. I had not at the moment determined to do anything, but there was a good deal of money within a few yards of me, and it was worth while to think about it.
As I read the bill of fare I watched my man. He deposited the satchel by his side, and put the pocket-book in the inside pocket of his heavy overcoat, of which he now proceeded to divest himself. There were hat pegs at his end of the box, and he hung his coat on one of them. "Will you oblige me, sir?" I asked, as I handed him my own coat. He took it and hung it on the next peg without a word, and dropped heavily into his seat again. He was clearly a sulky, gruff, contemptuous, powerful beast. He did not mean to talk to me or anybody else more than could be avoided. His order to the waiter was "Chopanboiled."
"Yes, sir," said the waiter. "Anything to drink?"
The big man stared before him with eyes that were just a little fishy, as if he had not heard. After a few seconds of reflection he growled an abbreviated order for sixpenny-worth of a particular brand of whisky, which I cannot advertise by naming here. He was not drunk, not in the least drunk. All the same, he had been drinking.
I gave the waiter my order and asked him to bring me a newspaper. He brought me a morning paper.
"Funny thing," I said, "that you can never get an evening paper in this neighbourhood before three in the afternoon." It was to the waiter that I said this. The best way, I felt, to make my friend with the bank-notes talk, was not to talk to him. He tumbled into my little trap at once. "What, sir?" he said. "Why there's a boy selling them outside the door now, and any amount more of them down the street."
"You will excuse me, sir," I said, "but I'm afraid I must contradict you. I've just come in and I say there was no boy."
"You mean you didn't see him. He's there right enough, that's his pitch."
"Is it? Well, I can see without spectacles. I wouldn't mind making a small bet that you can't go out and bring an evening paper back with you inside of three minutes."
"Would you?" he said grimly. "If you like to have a sovereign on it, I'm your man."
I hesitated. "A sovereign is rather more than I intended," I said.
"I thought it would be," said my friend contemptuously.
"All right, then," I said, very much as if I were losing my temper. I fumbled in my pocket, and slapped my sovereign down on the table. "There you are," I said. "If you can show as much, it's a bet."
He pulled a loose handful of gold out of his trouser pocket. "That do for you?" he said. He snatched up his hat and the satchel containing his notes. "Now then," he said, "you can take your time by the clock over there."
The moment he had gone I made the interesting discovery that I had left my handkerchief in the breast-pocket of my overcoat. While my left hand, which was in view of the waiter at the other end of the room, was getting my handkerchief out of that pocket, my right hand was removing the pocket-book from the lower pocket of my friend's overcoat. This hand was entirely screened by the partition. Then I had to move pretty quickly. I tore out the page which contained the numbers of the notes, shut the pocket-book again, and put it back in the same place. I was seated at my own end of the box, watching the clock intently, when he entered—triumphant of course, and with an evening paper in his hand.
"Well, you surprise me," I said. "I could have sworn there was no boy there when I came in. However, it can't be helped. A bet's a bet. Perhaps I'll make another one with you before we've finished."
"I've no objection," said the big man, as he pocketed my sovereign, "supposing that it's anything I care to bet on. I'll give you a fair chance anyhow."
His contempt was obvious. He was a sharp man, and had found that there were many fools in the world. Given any signs of acuteness on my part, he would have been on his guard at once. As it was, he classed me at once as the usual ass, and felt that he could play with me as he liked, and that I might be worth another sovereign or two to him. It was perhaps with a prospective view to this sovereign or two that he handed me the evening paper.
"There you are, sir. It's yours—or ought to be. I'm sure you paid enough for it, and paid up like a sportsman, I'll say that for you."
The purport of his little bit of flattery did not escape me, but I smiled with sufficient fatuousness. All the time I was thinking hard. I had got the numbers of the notes, and he had no other record of them. To get the notes themselves seemed likely to be a more difficult business. I rather like the use of drugs on these occasions, and I had what I wanted in my pocket. But to get it out, and to administer it without detection seemed to me pretty well impossible. If I had made a second bet with him which involved his leaving the room, it is quite possible that he would have become suspicious. I could not risk that.
"Seems you're a teetotaller," he said, glancing at the soda-water that I was drinking. "Quiright. Very good thing. I am pretty nigh a teetotaller myself. Rare thing for me to indulge. Waiter, take this damn glass back, and have another sixpenn'orth put in it."
I am not a teetotaller. I drink when I wish to get drunk, but not otherwise. It seemed to me that this was an occasion on which, whether I won or lost, intoxication would be reasonable, and there was no objection to my taking the first step towards it now.
"Teetotaller." I said. "Not a bit of it. I'm simply a moderate man, same as yourself. I wasn't taking anything with my lunch, because I meant to try a little port afterwards, and I'll ask you to join me."
"Now you're talking like a sensible man. I'll join you with pleasure. I'll do more for you than that. Do you know this house?"
"Never been here before."
"Well, I know the people here and they know me, and I can tell you what's the best thing to order, and it's not the most expensive port on the list either."
I said that I should be very glad to leave it to him, and the waiter was called. The waiter looked pityingly at me, as at a pigeon, who has fallen in with a hawk. My friend was undoubtedly well known there.
The wine was brought. "Thash where I have the advantage of you," he said. "I'm a licensed victualler myself. Orram's my name—very well-known name. You ask about Mr James Orram anywhere in Fulham, they'll tell you." He winked sagaciously, and finished his first glass. "Goosstuff," he observed.
"Yes," I said, "very good port indeed." The drug that I use can be procured, if you know how to get it, in tabloid form. As I spoke I unscrewed the top of the phial in my waistcoat pocket. Presently I had one tabloid out. Chance might put something in my way, or I might manage to get the tabloid into the decanter when there were only two glasses left. It would be easy enough for me to have an accident with my own glass.
Chance did put something in my way, but it was something quite different. I had noticed that the room was getting very dark, and now the waiter came forward and lit the gas above us. "A regular pea-souper outside, sir," he said to Orram, in a familiar way. "Come up pretty sudden too."
"Yes," I said, "it was pretty thickish in the city this morning."
"You a city man?" asked Orram.
"Yes," I said, "in the provision business. Burnside's my name We've had some crates gone wrong, that's how it was I came to Victoria. I shan't go back to work if the weather stops like this."
"Quiright," said Orram enthusiastically. "Who wants work? I don't want to work. Let's go to a music hall."
"Right you are!" I said. "And perhaps we'll have a bit of dinner together afterwards. I don't care if I do make a day of it, for once in a way. Come along. Waiter, call a four-wheeler."
"Make it a 'ansom," said Orram. "I like a 'ansom myself."
"So do I," I said, "but not in this weather. We should want the glass down, and you can't smoke in a hansom with the glass down. I've got some cigars here that I'm not ashamed of."
Orram took one, lit it, and saw that it was good. "You're a goosort," he said appreciatively.
The waiter brought our bills, and told us that the four-wheeler was waiting at the door. Orram paid his bill and corrected a mistake of the waiter's in the change. He picked up his satchel, flung his overcoat over his arm, and walked out straight. It was only in his speech that one detected that he had been drinking too much. By this time my little plan, which was simplicity itself, was quite formed.
When we had got into the cab and were crawling slowly eastward, I reminded my friend that he had promised to give me a chance to win my money back.
"Very well," he said, "what are you grumbling at? It's for you to speak, isn't it? As soon as there's anything you fancy, you can mention it. I'm a man of my word. It would take a blankly lot more than a sovereign to break me. Make it a fiver if you like. Can't we get this blankly funeral to go a bit quicker? The show will be done before we get there."
"The roads are pretty slippery," I said, "and it's too dark to drive fast anyhow. Look here, suppose we have a bet as to which of us is the first to see a horse down. You look out of one window and I'll look out of the other."
"Give me choice of windows?" he asked cunningly.
"Certainly," I said, with apparent simplicity.
"Right," said Orram. "Change over then. I'll take the off side and leave you the near. If you do see a horse down, it'll have to be on the pavement."
"I don't know about that," I said. "I may spot one down a side street or in front or behind. I'll chance my fiver on it anyhow."
I leaned right out of the window.
"All right, my son," said Mr Orram, "two can play at that game." He, in his turn, leaned right out of the window. While he was in this position I picked up his satchel, opened the door of the cab, and under cover from a passing 'bus, jumped out.
That was quite a useful 'bus. I slipped round to the far side of it, by which means I was screened from the driver of the four-wheeler. At the same time I asked myself what a man in my circumstances would naturally do. I decided that he would go back, so that the distance between himself and the four-wheeler might be increased as rapidly as possible. This being so, I took the exactly opposite course. I walked leisurely along on the pavement in the same direction that the four-wheeler was going. For the moment it was blocked, and I easily got ahead of it. I was about twenty yards away when I heard the row begin. Probably my friend had looked round to make some remark to me, and had discovered my absence, and the still more painful absence of his satchel So far as I could tell, a vigorous search was being made in the wrong direction. I turned down Dover Street, and there, under the friendly veil of the fog, I cut open the satchel and took out the notes. I put the notes in my pocket, and dropped the satchel. On reaching home, I examined the notes and rejected two or three of them, owing to marks on their back, which I did not like. These I burnt, and I hope the Bank of England feels grateful to me. The rest I changed at different times, and the net result was eighty-five pounds. It was a nice little morning's work. It was a pleasant reflection also for me that this sharp, gambling sportsman would find himself outwitted by the simpleton whom he had despised, and that he would, if anything, be even more angry with himself than with me.
The story had a sequel about six months later. I was driving in a hansom in Tottenham Court Road, and another hansom met us going in the opposite direction. In the other hansom sat Mr Orram. He recognised me, leaned forward and shook his fist. I glared stonily at him. I flatter myself that there was not one sign of comprehension or recognition in my face. I saw his hand shoot up to the trap in the roof, and I knew that he would have his cab turned round and would follow me. My horse was not a very good one, and I knew the constable on the pavement a few yards ahead. I stopped my cab, got out as if to enter a shop, suddenly recognised the constable, and stopped for a moment's chat with him. Up drove Mr Orram, white and furious. He tumbled out of his cab, before it had stopped, and rushed up to me.
"Now then, by God! I've got you!" he shouted.
The constable paid attention. I smiled.
"What's the matter, my good man?" I asked. Disguise of face was impossible, but disguise of manner was very easy. I was no longer the vacuous mug that I had pretended to be when he saw me before. I was grave, sensible and unperturbed. Mr Orram observed that I was the—something unprintable who had robbed him. I turned to the policeman.
"I have never seen this man in my life before," I said. "You can tell him who I am. Possibly he's made some mistake."
"Made a pretty big 'un!" said my friend the policeman, and began to talk to Orram in a distinctly unsympathetic manner, telling him to go away and not to make a fool of himself.
Unfortunately, Mr Orram had been drinking. He was also perfectly certain that he had got the right man, and furious that his word was doubted. Finally, he so far forgot himself as to attempt to push the policeman out of the way in order to get at me. Now, in England policemen may not be pushed.
He was let off rather lightly. There was no doubt he had been robbed some time before, and that he had believed that he had secured the thief. This did not justify him in the course he had taken, especially as the policeman had been able to point out to him the absurdity of the blunder. I fancy Orram must himself have been convinced in the end that it was a blunder, for I met him once since, and, after careful inspection, he went on his way without a word.