Red Money Part 44

"It's a path of thorns just now," muttered Lambert moodily.

"Not for long, sir; not for long. I come to put the crooked straight and to raise a lamp to banish the dark. Very good this white satin is," said Mother c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l irrelevantly, and alluding to the gin. "And terbaccer goes well with it, as there's no denying. You wouldn't mind my taking a whiff, sir, would you?" and she produced a blackened clay pipe which had seen much service. "Smoking is good for the nerves, Mr. Lambert."

The young man handed her his pouch. "Fill up," he said, smiling at the idea of his smoking in company with an old gypsy hag.

"Bless you, my precious!" said Mother c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l, accepting the offer with avidity, and talking more in the Romany manner. "I allers did say as you were what I said before you were, and that's golden, my Gorgious one. Ahime!" she blew a wreath of blue smoke from her withered lips, "that's food to me, my dearie, and heat to my old bones."

Lambert nodded. "You hinted, in Devons.h.i.+re, that you had something to say, and a few moments ago you talked about putting the crooked straight."

"And don't the crooked need that same?" chuckled Gentilla, nodding.

"There's trouble at hand, my gentleman. The child's brewing witch's broth, for sure."

"Chaldea!" Lambert sat up anxiously. He mistrusted the younger gypsy greatly, and was eager to know what she was now doing.

"Aye! Aye! Aye!" Mother c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l nodded three times like a veritable Macbeth witch. "She came tearing, rampagious-like, to the camp an hour or so back and put on her fine clothes--may they cleave with pain to her skin--to go to the big city. It is true, rye. Kara ran by the side of the donkey she rode upon--may she have an accident--to Wanbury."

"To Wanbury?" Lambert looked startled as it crossed his mind, and not unnaturally, that Chaldea might have gone to inform Inspector Darby about the conversation with Garvington in the library.

"To Wanbury first, sir, and then to Lundra."

"How can you be certain of that?"

"The child treated me like the devil's calls her," said Gentilla Stanley, shaking her head angrily. "And I have no trust in her, for a witchly wrong 'un she is. When she goes donkey-wise to Wanbury, I says to a chal, says I, quick-like, 'Follow and watch her games!' So the chal runs secret, behind hedges, and comes on the child at the railway line making for Lundra. And off she goes on wheels in place of tramping the droms in true Romany style."

"What the deuce has she gone to London for?" Lambert asked himself in a low voice, but Gentilla's sharp ears overheard.

"Mischief for sure, my gentleman. Hai, but she's a bad one, that same.

But she plays and I play, with the winning for me--since the good cards are always in the old hand. Fear nothing, my rye. She cannot hurt, though snake that she is, her bite stings."

The young man did not reply. He was uneasy in one way and relieved in another. Chaldea certainly had not gone to see Inspector Darby, so she could not have any intention of bringing the police into the matter. But why had she gone to London? He asked himself this question and finally put it to the old woman, who watched him with bright, twinkling eyes.

"She's gone for mischief," answered Gentilla, nodding positively. "For mischief's as natural to her as cheating is to a Romany chal. But I'm a dealer of cards myself, rye, and I deal myself the best hand."

"I wish you'd leave metaphor and come to plain speaking," cried Lambert in an irritable tone, for the conversation was getting on his nerves by reason of its prolixity and indirectness.

Mother c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l laughed and nodded, then emptied the ashes out of her pipe and spoke out, irrelevantly as it would seem: "The child has taken the hearts of the young from me," said she, shaking her grizzled head; "but the old cling to the old. With them as trusts my wisdom, my rye, I goes across the black water to America and leaves the silly ones to the child. She'll get them into choky and trouble, for sure. And that's a true dukkerin."

"Have you the money to go to America?"

"Money?" The old woman chuckled and hugged herself. "And why not, sir, when Ishmael Hearne was my child. Aye, the child of my child, for I am the bebee of Hearne, bebee being grandmother in our Romany tongue, sir."

Lambert started from his seat, almost too astonished to speak. "Do you mean to say that you are Pine's grandmother?"

"Pine? Who is Pine? A Gentile I know not. Hearne he was born and Hearne he shall be to me, though the gra.s.s is now a quilt for him. Ohone! Hai mai! Ah, me! Woe! and woe, my gentleman. He was the child of my child and the love of my heart," she rocked herself to and fro sorrowfully, "like a leaf has he fallen from the tree; like the dew has he vanished into the blackness of the great shadow. Hai mai! Hai mai! the sadness of it."

"Hearne your grandson?" murmured Lambert, staring at her and scarcely able to believe her.

"True. Yes; it is true," said Gentilla, still rocking. "He left the road, and the tent, and the merry fire under a hedge for your Gentile life. But a born Romany he was and no Gorgio. Ahr-r-r!" she shook herself with disgust. "Why did he labor for gold in the Gentile manner, when he could have ch.o.r.ed and cheated like a true-hearted black one?"

Her allusions to money suddenly enlightened the young man. "Yours is the name mentioned in the sealed letter held by Jarwin?" he cried, with genuine amazement written largely on his face. "You inherit the millions?"

Mother c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l wiped her eyes with a corner of her shawl and chuckled complacently. "It is so, young man, therefore can I take those who hold to my wisdom to the great land beyond the water. Ah, I am rich now, sir, and as a Gorgious one could I live beneath a roof-tree. But for why, I asks you, my golden rye, when I was bred to the open and the sky? In a tent I was born; in a tent I shall die. Should I go, Gentile, it's longing for the free life I'd be, since Romany I am and ever shall be. As we says in our tongue, my dear, 'It's allers the boro matcho that pet-a-lay 'dree the panni,' though true gypsy lingo you can't call it for sure."

"What does it mean?" demanded Lambert, staring at the dingy possessor of two millions sterling.

"It's allers the largest fish that falls back into the water,"

translated Mrs. Stanley. "I told that to Leland, the boro rye, and he goes and puts the same into a book for your readings, my dearie!" then she uttered a howl and flung up her arms. "But what matter I am rich, when my child's child's blood calls out for vengeance. I'd give all the red gold--and red money it is, my loved one," she added, fixing a bright pair of eyes on Lambert, "if I could find him as shot the darling of my heart."

Knowing that he could trust her, and pitying her obvious sorrow, Lambert had no hesitation in revealing the truth so far as he knew it. "It wasn't a him who shot your grandson, but a her."

"Hai!" Gentilla flung up her arms again, "then I was right. My old eyes did see like a cat in the dark, though brightly shone the moon when he fell."

"What? You know?" Lambert started back again at this second surprise.

"If it's a Gentile lady, I know. A red one large as a cow in the meadows, and fierce as an unbroken colt."

"Miss Greeby!"

"Greeby! Greeby! So your romi told me," shrieked the old woman, throwing up her hands in ecstasy. "Says I to her, 'Who's the foxy one?' and says she, smiling like, 'Greeby's her name!'"

"Why did you ask my wife that?" demanded Lambert, much astonished.

"Hai, she was no wife of yours then, sir. Why did I ask her? Because I saw the shooting--"

"Of Pine--of Hearne--of your son?"

"Of who else? of who else?" cried Mother c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l, clapping her skinny hand and paddling on the floor with her feet. "Says Ishmael to me, 'Bebee,' says he, 'my romi is false and would run away with the golden rye this very night as ever was.' And says I to him, 'It's not so, son of my son, for your romi is as true as the stars and purer than gold.' But says he, 'There's a letter,' he says, and shows it to me.

'Lies, son of my son,' says I, and calls on him to play the trustful rom. But he pitches down the letter, and says he, 'I go this night to stop them from paddling the hoof,' and says I to him, 'No! No!' says I.

'She's a true one.' But he goes, when all in the camp are sleeping death-like, and I watches, and I follers, and I hides."

"Where did you hide?"

"Never mind, dearie. I hides securely, and sees him walking up and down biting the lips of him and swinging his arms. Then I sees--for Oliver was bright, and Oliver's the moon, lovey--the big Gentile woman come round and hide in the bushes. Says I to myself, says I, 'And what's your game?' I says, not knowing the same till she shoots and my child's child falls dead as a hedgehog. Then she runs and I run, and all is over."

"Why didn't you denounce her, Gentilla?"

"And for why, my precious heart? Who would believe the old gypsy? Rather would the Poknees say as I'd killed my dear one. No! no! Artful am I and patient in abiding my time. But the hour strikes, as I said when I spoke to your romi in Devons.h.i.+re no less, and the foxy moll shall hang. You see, my dear, I waited for some Gentile to speak what I could speak, to say as what I saw was truth for sure. You speak, and now I can tell my tale to the big policeman at Wanbury so that my son's son may sleep quiet, knowing that the evil has come home to her as laid him low. But, lovey, oh, lovey, and my precious one!" cried the old woman darting forward to caress Lambert's hand in a fondling way, "tell me how you know and what you learned. At the cottage you were, and maybe out in the open watching the winder of her you loved."

"No," said Lambert sharply, "I was at the cottage certainly, but in bed and asleep. I did not hear of the crime until I was in London. In this way I found out the truth, Mother!" and he related rapidly all that had been discovered, bringing the narrative right up to the confession of Silver, which he detailed at length.

The old woman kept her sharp eyes on his expressive face and hugged his hand every now and then, as various points in the narrative struck her.

At the end she dropped his hand and returned back to her chair chuckling. "It's a sad dukkerin for the foxy lady," said Gentilla, grinning like the witch she was. "Hanged she will be, and rightful it is to be so!"

"I agree with you," replied Lambert relentlessly. "Your evidence and that of Silver can hang her, certainly. Yet, if she is arrested, and the whole tale comes out in the newspapers, think of the disgrace to my family."

Mother c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l nodded. "That's as true as true, my golden rye," she said pondering. "And I wish not to hurt you and the rani, who was kind to me. I go away," she rose to her feet briskly, "and I think. What will you do?"

"I can't say," said Lambert, doubtfully and irresolutely. "I must consult my wife. Miss Greeby should certainly suffer for her crime, and yet--"