When Ghost Meets Ghost

by William De Morgan

OF A WATERSIDE PUBLIC-HOUSE, AT CHISWICK, AND TWO MEN IN ITS BACK GARDEN. HOW THE RIVER POLICE TOOK AN INTEREST IN THEM. A TROUBLESOME LANDING AND A BAD SPILL. HOW FOUR MEN WENT UNDER WATER, AND TWO WERE NOT DROWNED. OF THE INQUEST ONE OF THE OTHERS TOOK THE STAR PART IN. A MODEL WITNESS, AND HIS GREAT-AUNT

Just off the Lower Mall at Hammersmith there still remains a scrap of the waterside neighbourhood that, fifty years ago, believed itself eternal; that still clung to the belief forty years ago; that had misgivings thirty years ago; and that has suffered such inroads from eligible residences, during the last quarter of a century, that its residuum, in spite of a superficial appearance of duration, is really only awaiting the expiration of leases to be given over to housebreakers, to make way for flats.

Fifty years ago this corner of the world was so self-reliant that it was content—more than content—to be unpatrolled by police; in fact, felt rather resentful when an occasional officer passed through, as was inevitable from time to time. It would have been happier if its law-abiding tendencies had always been taken for granted. Then you could have drunk your half a pint, your quart, or your measurable fraction of a hogshead, in peace and quiet at the bar of the microscopic pub called The Pigeons, without fear of one of those enemies of Society—your Society—coming spying and prying round after you or any chance acquaintance you might pick up, to help you towards making that fraction a respectable one. If it was summer-time, and you sat in the little back-garden that had a ladder down to the river, you might feel a moment's uneasiness when the river-police rowed by, as sometimes happened; only, on the other hand, you might feel soothed by their appearance of unconcern in riparian matters, almost amounting to affectation. If any human beings took no interest in your antecedents, surely it would be these two leisurely rowers and the superior person in the stern, with the oilskin cape?

It was not summer-time—far from it—on the day that concerns this story, when two men in the garden of The Pigeons looked out over the river, and one said to the other:—"Right away over yonder it lies, halfway to Barn Elms." They were so busy over the locating of it, whatever it was, that they did not notice the police-wherry, oarless in the swift-running tide, as it slipped down close inshore, and was abreast of them before they knew it. Perhaps it was the fact that it was not summer, and that these men must have left a warm fire in the parlour of The Pigeons, to come out into a driving north-east wind bringing with it needle-pricks of microscopic snow, hard and cold and dry, that made the rowers drop their oars and hold back against the stream, to look at them.

Or was it that the man in the stern had an interest in one of them. An abrupt exclamation that he uttered at this moment seemed, to the man rowing stroke, who heard more than his mate, to apply to the thicker and taller man of the two. This one, who seemed to treat his pal as an inferior or subordinate, met his gaze, not flinching. His companion seemed less at his ease, and to him the big man said, scarcely moving his lips to say it:—"Steady, fool!—if you shy, we're done." On which the other remained motionless. What they said was heard by a boy close at hand; but for whose version, given afterwards, this story would have been in the dark about it.

The two rowers kept the boat stationary, backing water. The steersman's left hand played with the tiller-rope, and the boat edged slowly to the shore. There was a grating thrown out over the water from the parapet of the river-wall, to the side of which was attached a boat-ladder, now slung up, for no boat's crew ever stopped here at this season. The boat was nearing this—all but close—when the bigger man spoke, on a sudden. But he only said it was a rough night, sergeant!

It was a rough night, or meant to be one in an hour or so. But it was impossible for an Official to accept another person's opinion without loss of dignity. Therefore the sergeant, always working the boat edgewise towards the ladder, only responded, "Roughish!" qualifying the night, and implying a wider experience of rough nights than his hearer's. If impressions derived from appearance are to be relied on, his experience must have been a wide one. For one thing, he himself seemed a dozen years at least the younger of the two. He added, as the boat touched the ladder, bringing each in full view of the other, and making speech easy between them:—"A man don't make the voyage out to Sydney without seeing some rough weather."

A very attentive observer might have said that he watched the man he addressed more closely than the talk warranted, and certainly would have seen that the latter started. He half began "Who the Hell...?" but flagged on the last word—just stopped short of Sheol—and the growl that accompanied it turned into "I've never been in those parts, master."

"Never said you had. I have though." One might have thought, by his tone, that this officer chuckled secretly over something. He was pleased, at least. But he gave no clue to his thoughts. He seemed disconcerted at the height above the water of the projecting grating and slung-up ladder. An active man, unencumbered, might easily enough have landed himself on it from the boat. Yet a boy might have made it impossible, standing on the grating. A resolute kick on the first hand-grip, or in the face of the climber, would have met the case, and given him a back-fall into the boat or the water. A chilly thought that, on a day like this. But why should such a thought cross the mind of this man, now? It did, probably, and he gave up the idea of landing.

Instead, he felt in his pocket, and drew out a spirit-flask. "Maybe," said he, "your mate would oblige so far as to ask the young lady at the bar to fill this up with Kinahan's LL? She won't make any bones about it if he says it's for me, Sergeant Ibbetson—she'll know." He inverted it to see that it was empty, and the man who had not spoken accepted the mission at a nod from his companion, whose social headship the speech of the policeman seemed somehow to have taken for granted.