CHAPTER XVII
IN BLUE GATE
In her den at the black stair-top in Blue Gate, Musky Mag lurked, furtive and trembling, after the inquests at the Hole in the Wall. Where Dan Ogle might be hiding she could not guess, and she was torn between a hundred fears and perplexities. Dan had been seen, and could be identified; of that she was convinced, and more than convinced, since she had heard Mr. Cripps's testimony. Moreover she well remembered at what point in her own evidence the police-inspector had handed the note to the coroner, and she was not too stupid to guess the meaning of that. How could she warn Dan, how help or screen him, how put to act that simple fidelity that was the sole virtue remaining in her, all the greater for the loss of the rest? She had no money; on the other hand she was confident that Dan must have with him the whole pocket-book full of notes which had cost two lives already, and now seemed like to cost the life she would so gladly buy with her own; for they had not been found on Kipps's body, nor in any way spoken of at the inquest. But then he might fear to change them. He could scarcely carry a single one to the receivers who knew him, for his haunts would be watched; more, a reward was offered, and no receiver would be above making an extra fifty pounds on the transaction. For to her tortured mind it seemed every moment more certain that the cry was up, and not the police alone, but everybody else was on the watch to give the gallows its due. She was uneasy at having no message. Doubtless he needed her help, as he had needed it so often before; doubtless he would come for it if he could, but that would be to put his head in the noose. How could she reach him, and give it? Even if she had known where he lay, to go to him would be to lead the police after her, for she had no doubt that her own movements would be watched. She knew that the boat wherein he had escaped had been found on the opposite side of the river, and she, like others, judged from that that he might be lurking in some of the waterside rookeries of the south bank; the more as it was the commonest device of those "wanted" in Ratcliff or Wapping to "go for a change" to Rotherhithe or Bankside, and for those in a like predicament on the southern shores to come north in the same way. But again, to go in search of him were but to share with the police whatever luck might attend the quest. So that Musky Mag feared alike to stay at home and to go abroad; longed to find Dan, and feared it as much; wished to aid him, yet equally dreaded that he should come to her or that she should go to him. And there was nothing to do, therefore, but to wait and listen anxiously; to listen for voices, or footsteps, even for creaks on the stairs; for a whistle without that might be a signal; for an uproar or a sudden hush that might announce the coming of the police into Blue Gate; even for a whisper or a scratching at door or window wherewith the fugitive might approach, fearful lest the police were there before him. But at evening, when the place grew dark, and the thickest of the gloom drew together, to make a monstrous shadow on the floor, where once she had fallen over something in the dark—then she went and sat on the stair-head, watching and dozing and waking in terror.
So went a day and a night, and another day. The corners of the room grew dusk again, and with the afternoon's late light the table flung its shadow on that same place on the floor; so that she went and moved it toward the wall.
As she set it down she started and crouched, for now at last there was a step on the stair—an unfamiliar step. A woman's, it would seem, and stealthy. Musky Mag held by the table, and waited.
The steps ceased at the landing, and there was a pause. Then, with no warning knock, the door was pushed open, and a head was thrust in, covered by an old plaid shawl; a glance about the room, and the rest of the figure followed, closing the door behind it; and, the shawl being flung back from over the bonnet, there stood Mrs. Grimes, rusty and bony, slack-faced and sour.
Mrs. Grimes screwed her red nose at the woman before her, jerked up her crushed bonnet, and plucked her rusty skirt across her knees with the proper virtuous twitch. Then said Mrs. Grimes: "Where's my brother Dan?"
For a moment Musky Mag disbelieved eyes and ears together. The visit itself, even more than the question, amazed and bewildered her. She had been prepared for any visitor but this. For Mrs. Grimes's relationship to Dan Ogle was a thing that exemplary lady made as close a secret as she could, as in truth was very natural. She valued herself on her respectability; she was the widow of a decent lighterman, of a decent lightering and wharf-working family, and she called herself "house-keeper" (though she might be scarce more than charwoman) at the Hole in the Wall. She had never acknowledged her lawless brother when she could in any way avoid it, and she had, indeed, bargained that he should not come near her place of employment, lest he compromise her; and so far from seeking him out in his lodgings, she even had a way of failing to see him in the street. What should she want in Blue Gate at such a time as this, asking thus urgently for her brother Dan? What but the reward? For an instant Mag's fears revived with a jump, though even as it came she put away the fancy that such might be the design of any sister, however respectable.
"Where's my brother Dan?" repeated Mrs. Grimes, abruptly.