And John Timmons walked out of Welbeck Place, and took his way eastward.
CHAPTER XXXII THE MORNING AFTER
On the ground floor of Timmons's premises there was no such thing as a chair. He looked on a chair in a marine store as a token of dangerous softening of manners. If a man allowed himself a chair in his place of business why not also a smoking-cap and slippers?
But Timmons had a high office stool, which was a thing differing altogether from a chair. It was of Spartan simplicity and uncomfortableness, and besides, it gave the solvent air of a counting house to the place. It had also another advantage, it enabled you to sit down without placing your eyes lower than the level of a man of your own height standing.
On Saturday morning about nine o'clock Timmons was reposing on the high stool at his doorway, if any part of this establishment may be called a doorway, where one side was all door and there was no other means of exit. He had bought a morning paper on his way to business, and he now sat with the advertising sheet of the paper spread out before him on his knees. Sometimes articles in which he dealt were offered for sale in that sheet, and once in a way he bought a paper to have a look at this sheet, and afterwards, if he had time, scan the news. He made it a point never to look at the reports of the police courts or criminal trials. Every man has his own feelings, and Timmons was not an exception. If an inquiry or trial in which he took interest was going on in London he was certain to know more of it than the newspapers told. He avoided the accounts of trials that did not interest him. They had as damping effect on him as the sight of junk had on some of his customers.
Beyond the improvement of his mind gathered from reading the advertisement columns of things for sale, he got no benefit out of the advertising sheet. None of the articles offered at a sacrifice was at all in his way. When he had finished the perusal of the marvellous miscellany he took his eyes off the paper and stared straight at the brick wall before him.
He turned his mind back for the twentieth time on the events of yesterday.
There was not in the whole list of what had occurred a single incident that pleased him. He was a clear-headed man, and prided himself on his brains. He had neither the education nor the insolence to call his brains intellect. But he was very proud of his brains, and his brains were completely at a loss. As with all undisciplined minds, his had not the power of consecutive abstract thought. But it had the power of reviewing in panoramic completeness events which had come within the reach of its senses.
The result of his review was that he did not like the situation at all. There was a great deal about this scheme he did not understand, and with such minds not to understand is to suspect and fear.
It was perfectly clear that for some purpose or other, Leigh hung back from entering upon the matter of their agreement, and now it seemed as though there might be a great deal in what Stamer feared, namely, that Leigh might have the intention of betraying them all into the hands of the police. Stamer had told him that in the talk at the Hanover, the night before, the landlord had informed the company under the seal of secrecy that Leigh on one occasion entrusted the winding up of the clock to a deputy who was deaf and dumb, and not able to write. That, no doubt, was the person they had seen in the clock-room the evening before, and not the dwarf. Leigh had not taken him into confidence respecting this clock, or this man who wound it up for him in his absence, but Leigh had taken him into confidence very little. It was a good thing that Leigh had not taken the gold from him. Of course, he was not such a fool as to part with the buttons unless he got gold coins to the full value of them, but still they might, if once in the possession of the little man, be used in evidence against him. The great thing to guard against was giving Leigh any kind of hold at all upon him.
He did not know whether to believe or not Leigh's account of the man in Birmingham. It looked more than doubtful. His talk about telegraphing and all that was only bunkum. The whole thing looked shaky and dangerous, and perhaps it would be as well for him to get out of it.
At all events he was pretty sure not to hear any more of the matter for a week or so. He should put it out of his head for the present.
He took up the newspaper this time with a view to amusement not business.
He glanced over it casually for a time, reading a few lines here and there. He passed by columns of parliamentary reports in which he took no interest whatever. Then came the law courts which he shunned. Finally he came upon the place where local London news was given. His eye caught a large heading, "Fire And Loss Of Life In Chelsea." The paragraph was, owing to the late hour at which the event took place, brief, considering its importance. It ran as follows: -
"Last night, between half-past twelve and one o'clock, a disastrous and fatal fire broke out in the bakery establishment of Mr. Forbes at the corner of Chetwynd Street and Welbeck Place, Chelsea. It appears from the information we have been able to gather, that the ground floor of the establishment is used as a baker's shop and the floor above as a store house by Mr. Forbes. The top floor, where the fire originated was occupied by Mr. Oscar Leigh, who has lost his life in the burning. The top floor is divided into three rooms, a sitting-room, a bed-room, and a workshop. In the last, looking into Welbeck Place, the late Mr. Leigh was engaged in the manufacture of a very wonderful clock, which occupied fully half the room, and which Mr. Leigh invariably wound up every night between twelve and half-past twelve.