Willis Pule and Bill Kraken: Deception, Coercion, and Rivalry over the Box and Jewels

Willis Pule and Bill Kraken’s relationship is a brief, unstable alliance formed around the Keeble box and the emerald hidden inside it. Pule first treats Kraken as an opportunity: he feigns sympathy to draw out the box’s value, then plans to take the treasure for himself. Kraken, increasingly aware that the box may bring him to the gallows, accepts Pule’s offer of help. But the apparent rescue becomes another betrayal, and Ignacio Narbondo’s intervention turns their contest into shared captivity and mutual suspicion.

An encounter built on opportunity

Pule notices Kraken sleeping beneath a broken stone projection on the embankment, clutching an object partly concealed in a pillowcase. He recognizes the man as Bill Kraken and the object as a Keeble box from Ignacio Narbondo’s sketches. The carved dancing apes on its lid and the grinning face of a clothed hippopotamus confirm its identity. Pule does not know Kraken personally, but judges that he knows enough about him to profit from the chance encounter.

Before approaching Kraken, Pule sends a costerlad to buy heated brandy and two glasses, paying him three shillings and promising another on his return. The errand gives Pule time to attend to the sleeping man and begins a performance of solicitude. When the sunlight wakes Kraken, he first pushes the box away and then pulls it back to his chest, as though unable to decide whether to reject or protect it. Pule, bent over a barrow of carp, is there when Kraken notices him.

Sympathy as a means of extraction

Pule presents himself as a sympathetic listener rather than a rival. He fills Kraken’s glass and frames the conversation as an inquiry into human sorrow, suggesting that he understands a broken heart. The pose works: Kraken responds by treating Pule as a philosopher and asks whether he has read Ashbless. Pule claims familiarity he does not possess, extending the disguise to make Kraken feel understood rather than interrogated.

The box remains the center of Kraken’s attention. Pule first minimizes it as a child’s toy and advises Kraken to return it to his employer and confess. Kraken answers that it is not a toy but the instrument of his ruin: he expects to be hanged if he is caught. Pule presses him to explain why the box is so dangerous. Kraken then reveals that it contains a great emerald, Jack Owlesby’s inheritance, which he has stolen. He blames drink and a recently healed cut on his forehead for his actions. What Pule has drawn from an apparently despondent stranger is not merely the box’s identity but the specific prize that makes it valuable.

A rescue concealing a second betrayal

Once he learns about the emerald, Pule’s interests shift decisively. He thinks the stone is worth more than Ignacio Narbondo’s scientific work and relishes the prospect of depriving Owlesby of it. He considers luring Kraken into an alley and killing him, while also managing the practical problem of the costerlad and the carp destined for Narbondo. His friendly manner has concealed a willingness to use violence as well as deceit.

Pule instead tells Kraken that he sees a way to resolve the difficulty and urges him to come along, warning him not to release the box because criminals would kill for it. Kraken, still under the influence of drink and reassured by the offer, follows him. Pule sends the costerlad toward 266 Pratlow Street with the carp, telling him that Narbondo will pay if the fish arrive alive. As the boy goes on ahead, Pule imagines how he might kill Kraken and take the emerald before the older man sobers up. The promise of help is therefore not a change of heart; it is a way to keep Kraken moving while Pule seeks a more favorable moment.

Narbondo’s intervention and Kraken’s captivity

The scheme is interrupted when Narbondo encounters them. He immediately suspects that Pule is trying to hand Kraken over while making off with the box, and rebukes him for leaving his employer to manage alone. Pule denies the accusation, claiming that he was leading Kraken back to Pratlow Street because the woman on the slab might benefit from being reorganized. When Narbondo asks what the box contains, Pule answers plainly: the emerald.

Kraken, who had been following Pule obediently, now appears to recognize the danger and begins to speak. Narbondo produces a revolver, silencing him. At the doctor’s direction, Pule hauls Kraken into the wagon; Kraken stumbles against its side but keeps hold of the box. Pule climbs in beside him and takes the pistol from Narbondo. The wagon sets off with Kraken and the emerald still together, while the costerlad and his barrow of carp are left behind. Their forced cooperation is practical, not trusting: Narbondo supplies the weapon and destination, while Pule helps move the prisoner and takes possession of the gun.

Betrayal, fear, and the unequal bond

Later, Kraken’s judgment of himself is shaped by a much wider sense of betrayal. He reviews the ways he has lived by theft and precarious trades, but concludes that none compares with what he has done in the preceding forty-eight hours: he has sold out everyone who befriended him, and received nothing for it. This remorse places his dealings with Pule inside a broader collapse of trust. Pule has treated him as a source of information and a route to the emerald; Kraken, by contrast, is left confronting the consequences of having betrayed others without even gaining money.

In Narbondo’s laboratory, the balance remains coercive. Pule and Narbondo leave Kraken locked inside, with the Keeble box nearby and a body on a slab in the room. Kraken knows they intend to return with a body to vivify, and understands that either he or Pule might be selected as the donor if they cannot find someone else. His fear of what may happen does not restore any confidence in Pule; the earlier offer of protection has ended in confinement beside the very object that brought them together. The relationship’s defining pattern is thus repeated at different scales: Pule offers an appearance of help, but his aims are governed by advantage, while Kraken moves between dependence, suspicion, and belated recognition of betrayal.