I spent a month in Japan, sold the old Itang for more than I had given for her and paid off captain and crew.
IV
I made up my mind that the Churles Street referred to in the message lay in London. London was the home town evidently of the master of the Shanghai, and he would refer to Churles Street—perhaps a well-known place in the dock quarter—just as one might speak of Cromwell Road or Regent Street.
On getting in to Southampton, the first thing I did at the hotel was to consult a Kelly’s directory, and sure enough, there was Churles Street, E.C., the only street of that name, a short street of twenty houses or so with the name J. Robertson against No. 11. The street opened off the West India Dock Road, and two days later, when I had disposed of my private business in London, I took a walk in the East End. The Dock Road is a fascinating place if you are in good health and spirits, and if the day is fine, but there is no fascination about Churles Street, a gloomy, evil looking cul-de-sac, not rowdy, but quiet with the quietude of vice reduced to misery and crouching in a corner.
It was a horrible place.
A thin woman nursing a baby was standing at the door of No. 11. I asked her was anyone of the name of Abbott living there and she glanced me up and down.
“Have you come from his brother?” asked she.
“Yes,” I said, “I’ve come from Captain Richard Abbott.”
She led the way into the passage, opened a door, and showed me into a room where a man, fully dressed, was lying on a bed smoking a pipe and reading a sporting paper.
A typical lounger and ne’er-do-well, unshaved, and with his collar and tie on the chair beside him, this chap gave me pause, I can assure you.