The Lost Naval Papers Part 22

As soon as I had settled myself in London I took the earliest opportunity of calling upon Dawson at the Yard. He was absent, but his Deputy, who knew my name, received me kindly. He explained that it would not be easy to find Dawson. "We never know where he is or what he is doing. I suppose that the Chief knows; certainly no one else.

How can one be Deputy to a man who never tells one what he is doing or where he may be found?" I agreed that the post seemed difficult to fill adequately. "I wish I could chuck it as Froissart did when he went back to Paris. Have you ever seen Madame Gilbert?" he inquired eagerly. I observed that Madame did me the honour to be my friend. "So you know her, do you? She's a clinker of a woman. Hot stuff, but a real genuine clinker. She could do what she pleased with old man Dawson; make him fetch and carry like a poodle. She's the only woman born who ever turned Dawson round her fingers." I observed rather stiffly that Madame Gilbert was a lady for whom I had a very high regard, and that the expression "Hot stuff" was hardly respectful.

"Hum!" said the Deputy, eyeing me with interest. "So she has made a fool of you like she has of the rest of us. Even the Chief gets down on his rheumaticky old knees and kisses the carpet of his room after she has trodden on it."

The Deputy tended to become garrulous, and I cut him short with an inquiry for Dawson's exact address. He lived in Acacia Villas, but I was without the precise number. The Deputy told me, and promised to inform Dawson of my visit at the earliest moment. "It may be to-day, or next week, or next month. It may not be till the War is over"--an expression which has come into colloquial use as a synonym for the Greek Kalends. I thanked the officer, and withdrew somewhat annoyed.

It appeared that Dawson was not far away, for a letter from him reached me two days later at my club. It was an invitation to visit his home and to dine with him on the following Sunday at one o'clock.

Enclosed was a plan designed to a.s.sist me in penetrating the mazes of Tooting. That Sunday was a beautiful day in May, and I wandered down with plenty of time to spare to provide against the danger of being "bushed." But with the aid of Dawson's thoughtful plan I found Primrose Road without difficulty. The hour was then 12.15, and the house deserted. Dawson and his family were at chapel. I had forgotten what I had heard months before of Dawson's fervour as a preacher upon Truth until reminded of it by a constable whose beat pa.s.sed the house.

"If you are looking for Chief Detective Inspector Dawson," said he, "I can show you where to find him in chapel. He will be holding forth just now." The opportunity of seeing Dawson as he really was--known certainly only to his wife and to G.o.d--and of seeing him as a preacher, spurred me into active interest. "My relief is coming now,"

said the constable; "as soon as I have handed over I will show you the way."

As we walked together the policeman revealed to me the admiration inspired by Dawson in his humble subordinates. "There is nothing that man can't do," said he. "He is a skilled mechanic, a soldier--some say he has a general's uniform hid away in his house--an electrical engineer, and a telegraph operator. He has been all over the world in the Royal Navy, and could if he liked be commanding a s.h.i.+p now. He's the friend of Ministers and Secretaries of State. He's the best detective that the Yard ever knew, and he preaches to folk here like--like the Archangel Gabriel come to trot 'em off to h.e.l.l. I'm a Wesleyan, myself, but I often go to hear the Chief Inspector. He makes one come out in a cold sweat, and gives a man a fine appet.i.te for dinner. He shakes you up so that you feel empty," he explained.

I observed that if Dawson were so great a stimulus upon appet.i.te, he would not be popular with the Food Controller. The policeman, though he had heard of the Food Controller, was unconscious of his many activities, which shows how little the world knows of its greatest men. It also suggests that police constables do not read newspapers.

The chapel was a building ill.u.s.trative of the straight line and plane.

It was fairly large, and so full that the crowd of wors.h.i.+ppers bulged out of the doors. Though we could not force our way inside, we could hear the booming of a voice which was scarcely recognisable as that of Dawson. Waves of emotion ran so strongly through the congregation that we could feel them beat against the fringes by the doors. "The Chief Inspector is on his game to-day," whispered the constable. "He's. .h.i.tting them fine." From which I judged that the constable had in his youth come from the north, where golf is cheap. It was a disappointment that I could not get in, but perhaps well for the reader. The temptation to record a genuine sermon by Dawson might have proved too much for me. Presently the voice ceased to boom, the congregation squeezed out hot and oily, like grease from a full barrel, and I waited for Dawson to appear. "Don't speak to him now,"

directed my guide. "Let him get up to his house. He can't talk for half an hour after holding forth; there's not a word bad or good left in his carcase."

After all the wors.h.i.+ppers had gone there issued forth a party of three: a man, a woman, and a little girl. "There he is," said the constable, nudging me. "Who?" asked I. "The Chief Inspector. There he is with Mrs. Dawson and their little girl." I stared and stared, but failed to recognise my friend of the north. I was too far away to see his ears, and his face was quite strange to me.

"I hope," I whispered primly to the constable, "that Mrs. Dawson is sure he is her husband."

"She ought to be. Aren't you sure?"

"Not yet; I am not near enough to see properly. That Dawson, is not a bit like those others whom I know."

"That Dawson! Those others! Is there more than one Chief Inspector Dawson?" asked the man, wondering.

"I should say about a hundred," replied I, and left him gasping. I fear that he now thinks that either I am quite mad or that Mrs. Dawson is a pluralist in husbands.

I gave the Dawson family sufficient time to reach their home, and to recover the power of speech, and then walked gravely to the door as if I had just arrived. One becomes contagiously deceptive in the vicinity of Dawson.

The stranger, who was the real undisguised Dawson, welcomed me to his home. The house was a small one and the family kept no servant. I do not know what income the Chief Inspector draws from the Yard, but am sure that it is absurdly inadequate to his services. The higher one rises, the less work one does and the more pay one gets--provided that one begins more than half-way up the ladder. For those like Dawson who begin quite at the bottom, the rule seems to be inverted: the more work one does, the less pay one gets. I should judge my own ill-gotten income at twice or three times that of Dawson--which even that cautious judge, Euclid, would declare to be absurd.

He led me to the parlour, which was well and tastefully furnished--Dawson has seen good houses--and we waited there while Mrs.

Dawson dished up the dinner. "Please sit there, Dawson, facing the light," said I. "Let me have a good look at you." He complied smiling, and I examined his features with grave attention. Dawson, the real Dawson as I now saw him for the first time, is a very fair man. His pale sandy hair can readily be bleached white or dyed a dark colour.

He uses quick dyes which can be removed with appropriate chemicals.

His hair and moustache, he told me, grow very quickly. His complexion, like his hair, is almost white, and his skin curiously opaque. His blood is red and healthy, but it does not show through. His skin and hair are like the canvas of a painter, always ready to receive pigments and ready also to give them up when treated with skill. I began to understand how Dawson can make to himself a face and appearance of almost any habit or age. He can be fair or dark, dark or fair, old or young, young or old, at will. He carries the employment of rubber and wax insets very far indeed. His nose, his cheeks, his mouth, his chin may be forced by internal packing to take to themselves any shape. I made a hasty calculation that he can change his appearance in seven hundred and twenty different ways. "So many as that?" said Dawson, surprised when I told him. "I don't think that I have gone beyond sixty." I a.s.sured him that on strict mathematical principles I had arrived at the limiting number, and it gave him pleasure to feel that so many untried permutations of countenance remained to him. In actual everyday practice there are rarely more than six Dawsons in being at the same time. He finds that number sufficient for all useful purposes; a greater number, he says, would excessively strain his memory. He has, you see, always to remember which Dawson he is at any moment. When he was pulling my leg, or that of his brave enemy Froissart, the number multiplied greatly, but, as a working business rule, he is modestly content with six. "I suppose," I asked, "that here in Acacia Villas you are always the genuine article."

"Always," he declared with emphasis. "Once," he went on, "I tried to play a game on Emma. I came home as one of the others, forced my way into the house, and was clouted over the head and chucked into the street. When I got back to the Yard to alter myself--for I had left my tools there--Emma had been telephoning to me to get the wicked stranger arrested for house-breaking. I never tried any more games; women have no sense of humour." He shuddered. Dawson is afraid of his wife, and I pictured to myself a great haughty woman with the figure and arms of a Juno.

But when Clara--who asked kindly after my little Jane--had summoned us to the dining-room, I was presented to a small, quiet mouse of a woman whose head reached no higher than Dawson's heart. This was the redoubtable Emma! "Did she really clout you over the head and chuck you into the street?" I whispered. "She did, sir!" he replied, smiling. "She threw me yards over my own doorstep."

Between Dawson and his little wife there is a very tender affection.

In her eyes he is not a police officer, but an inspired preacher. She knows nothing of his professional triumphs, and would not care to know. She, I am very sure, will never trouble to read this book. To her he is the lover of her youth, the most tender of husbands, and a Boanerges who spends his Sabbaths dragging fellow-creatures from the Pit. The G.o.d of Dawson and of his Emma is a pitiless giant with a pitchfork, busily thrusting his creatures towards eternal torment; Dawson, in Emma's eyes, is an intrepid salvor with a boat-hook who once a week arduously pulls them out. Dawson married Emma when he was a sergeant of Marines, and I think that he has shown to her his uniform with the three captain's stars. To me she always spoke of him as "the Captain," though I could not be quite sure whether she meant a Captain of Marines or a Captain in the Army of Salvation. Dawson, his Emma, and Clara are very happy, very united, and I am glad that I saw them in their own home. I am helped to understand how tender is the heart which beats under Dawson's a.s.sumed cloak of professional ruthlessness. At first I wholly misjudged him, but I will not now alter what I then wrote. My readers will learn to know their Dawson as I learned myself.

Whenever in the future I wish to hear from Dawson of his exploits I shall not seek him at his own house. He is an artist who is highly sensitive to atmosphere. In Acacia Villas the police officer fades to shadowy insignificance, even in his own mind. Then, he is a husband, a father, and a mighty preacher. He will talk of his disguises, and in general terms of his work, but there is no fiery enthusiasm for manhunting when Dawson gets home to Tooting. I shall seek him at the Yard, or upon the hot trail; then and then only shall I get from him the full flavour of his genius for detection. Dawson, away from home, is so vain as to be unconscious of his vanity; Dawson at home is quite extraordinarily modest. He defers always to the opinion of Emma, and she, gently, kindly, but with an air of infinite superiority, keeps his wandering steps firmly in the path of truth. He is, I am told, a most kindling preacher, but it is Emma who inspires his sermons.

Once only during my visit did I see a flash of the old Dawson, the Dawson of the _Malplaquet_, and of the War Committee, and that was just before I left. We were in the parlour smoking, and I was getting rather bored. Conjugal virtue, domestic content and happiness, are beautiful to look upon for a while, but I confess that in a remorseless continuous film ("featuring" Dawson and Emma) I find them boresome. There is little humour about Dawson and none at all about his dear Emma. I would gladly exchange fifty virtuous Emmas for one naughty Madame Gilbert. We had been talking idly of our sport together and of his different incarnations. Suddenly he sprang from his chair and his pale face lighted up. "Now that I have you here, Mr.

Copplestone, I shall not let you go until you tell me by what trick you can always see through my disguises. Would you know me now as Dawson?"

"Of course," said I. "There is no difficulty. If you painted your face black and your hair vermilion, I should still know you at once."

"You have promised to tell me the secret. Tell me now."

I considered whether I should tell. It was amusing to have some hold over him, but was it quite fair to Dawson to keep him in ignorance of those marks of ear by which I could always be certain of his ident.i.ty.

He had been useful to me, and I had made free with his personality.

Yes, I would tell him, and in a few sentences I told.

He gripped his ears with both hands; he felt those lobes so firmly secured to his cheekbones, and those blobs of flesh which remained to him of his wolfish ancestors. He fingered them carefully while he thought. At last he made up his mind. "It is the Sabbath," said he, "but when I am on duty I work ever upon the Sabbath day. It is now my duty to--" He reached for the telephone book, took off the receiver, and called for a number.

"What are you doing?" I asked, though I ought to have known.

"I am making an appointment with a surgeon," said Dawson.

THE END