Ernest Bramah - The Bravo of London - And ‘The Bunch of Violets’

‘Well, well; we need not lose our tempers, Mr Fank; that isn’t business,’ he said smoothly and without betraying a shadow of resentment. ‘If you are really stoney up—I’m not always very quick at catching the literal meaning of your picturesque expressions—I don’t mind risking—shall we say?—one half a—or no, you shall have a whole Bradbury.’

‘Now you’re talking English, sir,’ declared the mollified Fank (perhaps a little optimistically), ‘but couldn’t you make it a couple? Yer see—well’—as Mr Joolby’s expression gave little indication of rising to this suggestion—‘one and a thin ’un anyway.’

‘Twenty-five bobs,’ conceded Joolby. ‘Take me or leave it,’ and since there was nothing else to be done, this being in fact quite up to his meagre expectation, Chilly held out his hand and took it, only revenging himself by the impudent satisfaction of ostentatiously holding up the note to the light when it was safely in his possession.

‘You need not do that, my young fellow,’ remarked Mr Joolby, observing the action. ‘I know a dud note when I see it.’

‘Oh I don’t doubt that you know one all right, Mr Joolby,’ replied Fank with gutter insolence. ‘It’s this bloke I’m thinking of. You’ve had a lot more experience than me in that way, you see, so I’ve got to be blinkin’ careful,’ and as he turned to go a whole series of portentous nods underlined a mysterious suggestion.

‘What do you mean, you rascal?’ For the first time a possible note of misgiving tinged Mr Joolby’s bloated assurance. ‘Not that it matters—there’s nothing about me to talk of—but have you been—been hearing anything?’

It was Mr Fank’s turn to be cocky: if he couldn’t wangle that extra fifteen bob out of The Toad he could evidently give him the shivers.

‘Hearing, sir?’ he replied from the door, with an air of exaggerated guilelessness. ‘Oh no, Mr Joolby: whatever should I be hearing? Except that in the City you’re very well spoken of to be the next Lord Mayor!’ and to leave no doubt that this pleasantry should be fully understood he took care that his parting aside reached Joolby’s ear: ‘ I don’t think!’

‘Fank. Chilly Fank,’ mused Mr Joolby as he returned to his private lair, carrying the newly acquired purchase with him and progressing even more grotesquely than his wont since he could only use one stick for assistance. ‘The last time he came he had an amusing remark to make, something about keeping an aquarium …’

Won Chou was still at his observation post when the door opened again an hour later. Again he sped his message—a different intimation from the last, but conveying a sign of doubt for this time the watcher could not immediately ‘place’ the visitors. These were two, both men—‘a belong number one and a belong number two chop men,’ sagely decided Won Chou—but there was something about the more important of the two that for the limited time at his disposal baffled the Chinaman’s deduction. It was not until they were in the shop and he was attending to them that Won Chou astutely suspected this man perchance to be blind—and sought for a positive indication. Yet he was the one who seemed to take the lead rather than wait to be led and except on an occasional trivial point his movements were entirely free from indecision. Certainly he had paused at the step but that was only the natural hesitation of a stranger to the parts and it was apparently the other who supplied the confirmation.

‘This is the right place by the description, sir,’ the second man said.

‘It is the right place by the smell,’ was the reply, as soon as the door was opened. ‘Twenty centuries and a hundred nationalities mingle here, Parkinson. And not the least foreign—’

‘A native of some description, sir,’ tolerantly supplied the literal Parkinson, taking this to apply to the attendant as he came forward.

‘Can do what?’ politely inquired Won Chou, bowing rather more profoundly than the average shopman would, even to a customer in whom he can recognise potential importance.

‘No can do,’ replied the chief visitor, readily accepting the medium. ‘Bring number one man come this side.’

‘How fashion you say what want?’ suggested Won Chou hopefully.

‘That belong one piece curio house man.’

‘He much plenty busy this now,’ persisted Won Chou, faithfully carrying out his instructions. ‘My makee show carpet, makee show cabinet, chiney, ivoly, picture—makee show one ting, two ting, any ting.’

‘Not do,’ was the decided reply. ‘Go make look-see one time.’

‘All same,’ protested Won Chou, though he began to obey the stronger determination, ‘can do heap wella. Not is?’

A good natured but decided shake of the head was the only answer, and looking extremely sad and slightly hurt Won Chou melted through the doorway—presumably to report beyond that: ‘Much heap number one man make plenty bother.’

‘Look round, Parkinson,’ said his master guardedly. ‘Do you see anything here in particular?’

‘No, sir; nothing that I should designate noteworthy. The characteristic of the emporium is an air of remarkable untidiness.’

‘Yet there is something unusual,’ insisted the other, lifting his sightless face to the four quarters of the shop in turn as though he would read their secret. ‘Something unaccountable, something wrong .’

‘I have always understood that the East End of London was not conspicuously law-abiding,’ assented Parkinson impartially. ‘There is nothing of a dangerous nature impending, I hope, sir?’

‘Not to us, Parkinson; not as yet. But all around there’s something—I can feel it—something evil .’

‘Yes, sir—these prices are that.’ It was impossible to suspect the correct Parkinson of ever intentionally ‘being funny’ but there were times when he came perilously near incurring the suspicion. ‘This small extremely second-hand carpet—five guineas.’

‘Everywhere among this junk of centuries there must be things that have played their part in a hundred bloody crimes—can they escape the stigma?’ soliloquised the blind man, beginning to wander about the bestrewn shop with a self-confidence that would have shaken Won Chou’s conclusions if he had been looking on—especially as Parkinson, knowing by long experience the exact function of his office, made no attempt to guide his master. ‘Here is a sword that may have shared in the tragedy of Glencoe, this horn lantern lured some helpless ship to destruction on the Cornish coast, the very cloak perhaps that disguised Wilkes Booth when he crept up to shoot Abraham Lincoln at the play.’

‘It’s very unpleasant to contemplate, sir,’ agreed Parkinson discreetly.

‘But there is something more than that. There’s an influence—a force—permeating here that’s colder and deeper and deadlier than revenge or greed or decent commonplace hatred … It’s inhuman—unnatural—diabolical. And it’s coming nearer, it begins to fill the air—’ He broke off almost with a physical shudder and in the silence there came from the passage beyond the irregular thuds of Joolby’s sticks approaching. ‘It’s poison,’ he muttered; ‘venom.’