Into the Storm by Avi
Maura lifted her face. “Would that be Mr. Drabble?” she asked.
“Yes.”
The young woman hesitated, even blushed when she remembered how she had bid the actor leave her at the Boston wharf. “Laurence … you can tell Mr. Drabble … for friendship’s sake … I should like to see him.”
Promising to do so, Laurence dutifully set off for the Spindle City Hotel. When he reached it, he paused and looked for Jeb at his shoe-shine post. But other than a carriage stationed opposite the door, everything appeared exactly as when he left early that morning.
Within moments Laurence was in his room, where he discovered Mr. Drabble stretched out on his bed, reading his volume of Shakespeare. Mr. Grout was not there.
“Well, here you are,” exclaimed the actor. “I’ve been worrying about you. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” said Laurence.
“Truly, Master Laurence,” Mr. Drabble chided gently, “we must really keep each other better informed.”
Laurence was perfectly willing to tell the actor all that had happened regarding Patrick, including the news of Mr. O’Connell’s death. This he did at some length, mentioning but briefly the role of Jeb Grafton in the affair. He also told Mr. Drabble how he had gone to Maura and delivered Patrick’s message.
The thin man popped up like a drawbridge. “And … did Miss O’Connell ask … anything … about me?”
Laurence nodded.
Mr. Drabble closed his eyes and commenced to breathe deeply. “Pray tell, what … did she … say?”
“She said she’d like to see you.”
“Oh, my heart!” cried the actor, his face taking on a perfectly crimson hue of delight. Hugging his Shakespeare volume to his chest, he leaped to his feet. “I shall go to her immediately,” he announced.
“She’s working at a mill,” Laurence warned. “She won’t be going home until the work is over.”
“But I know where she works,” Mr. Drabble replied, full of trembling excitement. “I’ll wait at the gates.”
“Mr. Drabble, do you have any idea when Mr. Grout will be —,” Laurence began to say only to have the door burst open and Sir Albert Kirkle step into the room.
Laurence stood like a small animal trapped in surprise. Albert, leaning arrogantly against the door frame, grinned with glee.
“You wretched, insufferable thief!” he declared. “What do you say to my marking up the other side of your insolent face?”
Albert’s words jarred Laurence out of his shock. In its place, anger and hatred began to boil.
Mr. Drabble, though just as startled as Laurence, leaped forward to stand between the brothers. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he cautioned Albert. “This is a private room.”
“Keep aside, fellow,” Albert replied, flapping a dismissive hand in the actor’s face. “I have some matters — private matters — to discuss with my brother.”
This declaration of a family connection caused Mr. Drabble to look from one to the other hastily. There was — he now saw — a resemblance between the two.
“Laurence,” Mr. Drabble inquired, “is this young gentleman what he claims to be?”
“I hate him!” Laurence cried. “I hate him.”
Mr. Drabble drew himself to his full height. “Sir,” he declared to Albert, “considering what my young friend has said, I must ask you to leave.”
“He’s my younger brother, isn’t he?” Albert sneered. “And I’ve come a rather long way to give him the punishment he deserves.”
“Punishment? Pray tell, for what offense?” Mr. Drabble asked.
“That boy’s a thief,” the young lord drawled with contempt. “So stand aside and let me take him. He’s stolen something I want.” With that he made a sudden if clumsy grab at Laurence.
The boy leaped back upon Mr. Drabble’s bed.
“And what, sir,” Mr. Drabble persisted, “did Laurence steal?”
“Money,” gasped a frustrated Albert as he edged closer to his brother.
Laurence, who kept inching away, tried to defend himself by snatching up the pillow and holding it before him like a shield.
“How much, sir,” Mr. Drabble pressed, “did he take?”
“A thousand pounds.”
The figure, Mr. Drabble recalled, was the exact amount of money Mr. Grout admitted to taking from the boy. “But where,” he asked, “did Laurence get the money?”
“Look here,” said Albert, after yet another futile lunge at his brother, “don’t you know about this scamp? He stole it from my father, Lord Kirkle.”
Mr. Drabble’s eyes grew very round. “Are you asserting, sir, that this wretched boy is the son of Lord Kirkle?”
“The younger son,” Albert took pains to say as he made still one more ineffectual grab at Laurence. “To tell the truth, the governor don’t care a snap for him. All he wants is his money back. That’s why he sent me over.”
“Liar!” cried Laurence.
“Sir,” Mr. Drabble interjected, “I hasten to inform you that this boy has only a few pennies to his pocket.”
Worn out, Albert stopped trying to reach his brother. Perplexity gathered on his face. “Where’s the rest of the money then?” he asked.
“A man named Clemspool stole it!” Laurence shouted.
Albert, thinking he had caught Laurence in a lie, broke into a grin. “All right,” he said, “let’s ask the fellow directly.” So saying, he stepped to the door and made a beckoning gesture. Into the room walked Matthew Clemspool like a Roman general marching through a triumphal arch. His face fairly glowed with pleasure; a benign smile played upon his lips. His plump hands spread wide — as if ready to grasp the entire world.
“Well, young sir,” he said to Laurence, “I am — to make my point precisely — delighted to see you again. There is something about a hotel room…. Now then, if you would be so good as to give me —”
Mr. Clemspool did not finish the sentence. Laurence, seeing his two great enemies standing side by side, was now utterly inflamed with rage. So powerful was his anger that he hurled the pillow he was holding into his brother’s face with such force, it drove the young man back against the wall. Laurence followed up this blow by jumping from the bed and flinging himself upon Mr. Clemspool, knocking that gentleman to the floor. Even then Laurence did not stop but tore out of the room as fast as he could.
All this occurred so quickly that Mr. Drabble needed a moment to grasp what was happening. Once he did, he too hurried from the room.
“Laurence, wait!” he cried as he ran out of the hotel and saw the boy running pell-mell down the street.
Laurence looked back. When he realized that it was only Mr. Drabble trying to catch up to him, he halted.
“Where are you going?” Mr. Drabble demanded.
“To Patrick,” Laurence panted.
“Is that where Maura will be?”
“I think so.”
“Then I’ll go with you!” Without another word, man and boy rushed on toward Cabot Street.
Across the street, Jeb Grafton, wanting to take up his shoe-shine post again, watched Laurence run off. Ruefully, he wondered if the boy still had the key with him. Should he follow, Jeb wondered, as Mr. Clemspool had employed him to do? He was, he knew, a little frightened of the boy. He looked small, but he was fierce. And now there was a man with him too. Even so, Jeb decided he would hardly place himself in harm’s way if he followed at a distance to see where they were going. Perhaps if he told Mr. Clemspool where the boy was, he might yet get something. Jeb didn’t like Mr. Clemspool, but there was his mother’s illness. And if ten dollars could cure her … After all, he had been promised that amount to fetch the key.
In the hotel room it was Albert who recovered his composure first. He trudged to the room door and made a nervous check of the hallway. Neither Laurence nor Mr. Drabble were in sight.
“This has become an exhausting business,” he said, turning back into the room and shutting the door firmly behind him
A scowling Mr. Clemspool sat on the floor, methodically checking his bones.
“I say, Clemspool,” Albert complained, “have you noticed, every time you make a plan things go smash?”
Mr. Clemspool darted a wrathful glance up at the young lord. “You, sir,” he sneered, “are nothing more than an insufferable buffoon.” With much groaning and moaning, he got up and brushed himself off. Then he looked at his pocket watch.
Albert cracked his knuckles. “What are we to do now? Does the boy have this bank key or not?”
“He must.”
“Don’t you think we should pursue him?”
“How do I know where he’s gone?”
“Then what are we to do?”
“You just told me, sir, that everything I plan goes badly. Now you presume to ask my advice. I can see why your father prefers his younger son to his elder. At least he’s got some pluck. Are you not capable, sir, of any thoughts on your own behalf?”
“Look here, Clemspool,” Albert protested, “the boy said you took the money. Did you?”
“I had it,” Mr. Clemspool snapped, “but I put it in a bank vault to keep it safe for you. Then Laurence stole the key. That’s what we need. It may yet be here somewhere. He left quickly.”
The two began a frenzied search, turning over the beds, stripping them of blankets, even flipping through the pages of Mr. Drabble’s Shakespeare.
“What about this?” Albert asked, finding a piece of paper, the one on which Mr. Drabble had written:
Where Maura O’Connell lives:
87 Cabot Street
Mr. Clemspool snatched at the paper, considered it momentarily, then flung it away with indifference. But though the two searched thoroughly, they found no key.
Exasperated, Mr. Clemspool sat upon one of the now righted beds and pondered what they might do next.
“That boy you had in the carriage,” Albert suggested, “do you think he knows more than he said?”
“Now how would I know that?” Mr. Clemspool replied.
“He just might be worth trying,” Albert offered.
“You simpleton! I don’t know where he is either!” cried Mr. Clemspool, reaching out as if to find some answer in the air. There was none.
But outside the door there were footsteps. In the next moment the doorknob rattled. Startled, Mr. Clemspool looked up. Sir Albert’s face paled like a boiled potato.
“Hide yourself behind the door!” Mr. Clemspool hissed. Hardly had Albert done so than the door swung open and into the room stepped Mr. Grout.
It was with considerable and mutual surprise that Toby Grout and Matthew Clemspool gazed at each other.
Mr. Clemspool affected a sickly smile. “Ah, Mr. Grout, sir,” he exclaimed, his bald head sweating profusely. “How very pleasant indeed it is to see you again.”
Mr. Grout fixed his glittering eye upon his former partner. “Wot yer doin’ ’ere, Clemspool?”
“Why, good sir, having learned that you were in town, I decided to make a social call in hopes that we could let bygones be bygones.”
“Clemspool! Where’s the money yer took from me?” was the rejoinder. “I wants it back.”
“Sir,” Mr. Clemspool protested, “I will swear upon my immortal soul that I have not so much as one penny at my disposal.”
Mr. Grout raised his massive fists and took a step forward.
Retreating in haste, Mr. Clemspool crashed against a bed and sat down.
“You took that money from me!” Mr. Grout roared.
“Let me merely say …,” Mr. Clemspool cast about for a reply. Then remembering that Albert was hiding behind the door, he said, “Mr. Grout, sir, back on the ship you expressed your desire to return the money to the esteemed Kirkle family. Did you not?”
“I said it when I thought the laddie was dead. Only ’e’s alive so it’s to ’im I’ll be givin’ it back.”
“Well now,” said Mr. Clemspool, doing his best to feign surprise, “I am truly delighted to learn the boy is alive, especially since you informed me you’d seen his ghost. But if he is alive, I rejoice and will work to restore the money to the family directly. Happily we are well served. For here, sir,” he said with a flashing smile, “is the very one to receive it. Will you come forth, sir?”
With some uncertainty, Albert emerged from behind the door.
“May I introduce Sir Albert Kirkle,” Mr. Clemspool said sweetly. “Laurence’s elder, affectionate brother. He came all the way from London to rescue the boy and return him to his loving home, where he is deeply missed.
“Sir Albert, this gentleman is Toby Grout, a man, I assure you, of the highest moral values and the will — not to mention the strength — to put them into effect. He worked with me” — he gave a knowing wink — “on many projects.”
Albert nodded curtly. “Pleased to meet you, sir.”
Toby Grout considered Albert with suspicion. “Yer really the laddie’s brother?” he asked.
“I am.”
“And did Clemspool ’ere give yer the money ’e prigged from me that I prigged from yer brother?”
“Mr. Grout, I have received nothing. But it has been promised.”
“Promised! By ’im? And are yer really thinkin’ the villain will give it to yer?”
“I believe Mr. Clemspool to be an honorable man,” Albert avowed.
“Then yer the biggest block’ead in the world,” said Mr. Grout, leaning suddenly over Mr. Clemspool. That gentleman leaned away. It was not far enough. The one-eyed man clamped his hands on Mr. Clemspool’s shoulders and dragged him up.
“Sir!” cried Mr. Clemspool.
“Yer a villain!” cried Mr. Grout. “A liar! Yer came ’ere lookin’ for somethin’. Wot is it?”
“Sir, you are quite mistaken. And, to make my point precisely —”
“I’m sick of yer persnickety precisely points!” yelled Mr. Grout, shaking Mr. Clemspool so hard, the man’s teeth clicked like a baby’s rattle. “I wants to know where the money is!”
“Sir Albert,” bleated Mr. Clemspool. “Get some help!”
Albert took a step toward the door only to be stared into stopping by the force of Mr. Grout’s look.
The onetime prizefighter now transferred his large hands to Mr. Clemspool’s neck. “Clemspool,” he threatened, “tell me where that money is or yer won’t be able to manage one more lyin’ breath.”
“I don’t have it,” the man gasped. “I don’t!”
“But yer were lookin’ for somethin’, and that tells me yer knows somethin’. Tell me now or —” His hands squeezed.
“I don’t know!” Mr. Clemspool screamed.
Mr. Grout squeezed even tighter.
“It’s in the bank!”
Mr. Grout released his grip slightly. “Wot’s in wot bank?”
“The money is in the Merrimack Valley Consolidated Bank and Land Company. Here! In Lowell!”
“Get it,” Mr. Grout said.
“I can’t!”
“Why?”
“It requires a key. I thought it might be here.”
“Did yer find it?”
Mr. Clemspool managed to shake his head.
“Where is it then?”
Mr. Clemspool coughed. “Unhand me, and I’ll tell you what I know.”
Mr. Grout loosened his grip. Mr. Clemspool promptly subsided onto the bed and worked his fingers about his neck as if to make sure his head was still attached in proper fashion.
“The truth is, sir,” he began through heavy breathing, “I was informed Laurence had it.”
“Laurence! Yer lyin’!”
“It’s true!”
“Empty yer pockets,” Mr. Grout demanded.
“Sir!”
“Do it!”
Mr. Clemspool did so. Nothing but coins.
“Yers too,” Mr. Grout said to Albert.
“I say …”
“Do it!”
Albert’s poc
“And yer sure yer don’t know where the key is?” Mr. Grout said to Mr. Clemspool.
The man lifted his hand as though in court. “I swear.”
Stymied, Mr. Grout backed away from the bed, perplexed about what to do next. He wished Laurence or Mr. Drabble was there so one of them could tell him. All he could think of was to say, “Get out! The both of yer. And don’t let me see yer ’ere again, Clemspool. Ever. It’ll go much worse, I warn yer.”
Mr. Clemspool picked himself up and walked hastily to the door. “I wish you much luck, sir. Truly.” And he fled the room. Albert scurried after him, slamming the door.
Mr. Grout, much troubled, thought he should at least put the chaotic room in order. It was while doing so that he found Mr. Drabble’s note.
Where Maura O’Connell lives:
87 Cabot Street
Too impatient to struggle through the words, Mr. Grout stuffed the paper into his pocket.
When the room was at last more or less in order, the big man turned his mind to Mr. Jenkins. The reason he was working for the American was to find the whereabouts of Mr. Clemspool, but — by heaven — he had done that himself. There was no more reason to seek Jenkins out. Hastily, Mr. Grout rebuked himself: Hadn’t he told the man he would help in his demonstration? He had! And wasn’t part of his reformed character the keeping of vows? It was! Knowing he would be the better man for keeping his word, Mr. Grout resolved to do as he had promised.
But, oh, how he wished Mr. Drabble and Laurence would return! This matter of the money, a bank, and a key was all much too confusing!
Keeping a careful distance, Jeb followed Laurence and the man until they reached their destination. The place took Jeb by surprise. It was the same house Mr. Jenkins had pointed out to him, the one owned by that hateful Irishman, James Hamlyn.
Sitting on the front steps was a girl. Laurence and his friend spoke to her, then knocked upon the door.
The door opened and a woman looked out. Jeb watched as Laurence and the man disappeared inside, leaving the girl on the steps.
What would Laurence have to do with Mr. Hamlyn? Jeb wondered. He waited and waited only to realize that the boy, for whatever reasons, was staying inside. With a shrug, he turned and headed back into the middle of town. If he could find Mr. Clemspool, he could at least report the boy’s whereabouts. He paused to memorize the address. “Eighty-seven Cabot Street,” he said out loud to make sure he remembered it.