‘Doesn’t seem to be here.’
Maudie answered, ‘What did we tell you?’
Even in his panic Ben was able to admire the way she concealed her surprise, for she must certainly have expected him to be here!
‘I suppose that third place was laid for the parrot?’
‘If you must know, it was laid by mistake.’
‘Oh! You forgot he’d gone? Force of habit?’
‘You’d have heard that, too, if you’d waited.’
‘Mind if I look in the other bedroom?’
‘A lot of good if I say no!’
‘But I think I’ll have a look in that cupboard first.’
To this Maudie had no immediate reply, and it did not come until the sergeant was crossing the room. Then she called, her voice now less confident:
‘And don’t forget the chimney afterwards!’
Ben’s heart thumped. Now he was dished proper! Pressing harder against the coat he found himself toppling through to the space at the side, now coming up against what appeared to be a skirt. He kept going—for why stop any movement that carried him farther from the door?—and passed beyond a succession of other suspended and unidentified garments. It was an amazing journey, on account of both its speed and its unexpectedness, and the end of it was even more amazing than the beginning. A breeze played against his nose. It came through a long vertical crack. Pushing with his nose in obedience to its desire for air, he opened a door at the end of the cupboard and swayed out into another bedroom. It was a larger bedroom than the one he had left, and it had two beds. He stood in dizzy wonderment.
This stroke of extraordinary luck would not have served him, however, but for another stroke which delayed his pursuer. On the point of looking into the cupboard, when Ben was merely at the commencement of his journey, the sergeant thought of the window, and decided to have a peep out there first. Changing his direction, he went to the window, saw the man on duty there, opened the window, exchanged a few words, and returned to the cupboard. By this time Ben had reached the adjoining room.
One further point militated in Ben’s favour. The sergeant was not enamoured of the unsatisfactory couple he had been interviewing and was very ready to conclude what appeared to be a fruitless call. He had ascended the stairs convinced that the wanted man was not on the premises, and he was not motivated by any hope of catching him here. His present actions were just a routine performance, enlivened by a certain satisfaction in giving annoyance to the unhelpful occupiers of No. 46, Jewel Street, and when at last he did open the cupboard door and look in, he did not consider it necessary to do more than grope to the wall behind the hanging coat and to the skirt at its side.
When he closed the cupboard door, satisfied, Maudie received her second surprise. She had believed the cupboard would reveal its secret.
‘So what?’ she jeered, concealing her astonishment.
‘We’ll just have a look in that other bedroom,’ answered the sergeant.
But they found nothing in the other bedroom. Ben heard them coming, and returned via the cupboard to the point he had started from, and he remained plastered to the coat while the sergeant thumped down the stairs again. Then, feeling very wobbly in the stomach, he came out and waited till the front door reawakened into welcome life and he heard the sound he wanted most of all—the glorious little plop of its closing.
‘Why ain’t I bein’ sick?’ he wondered.
To be on the safe side, he went to the basin and waited. He seemed to have spent most of the day waiting for this, that, or the other. When nothing happened it occurred to him that a basin had other uses, and that life having returned momentarily to semi-normal he might get on with it and wash his neck. He did so, and to his astonishment enjoyed it. He must do it more often. Then he lowered his head into the basin, and found that pleasant, too. ‘Nice,’ he thought, still immersed. He came up to breathe, and went down again. How peaceful existence had become, all of a sudden! A few moments ago it had been horrible. A few moments hence it might again be horrible. Life went up and down like a temperature chart. But at this moment it was cool and lovely. You could imagine the bottom of the basin was the bottom of a pool in fairyland. A sudden memory came to him as he rose to breathe and descended once more. Funny ’ow them memeries kep’ croppin’ up out of nowhere. Most were narsty, but some were nice, and this ’un was nice. When he was little, he used to lower his head in water and see how far he could get with Annie Laurie. ‘Wunner ’ow fur I could git now?’ he thought, and decided to have a try. But he found he couldn’t get anywhere, and he came up spluttering.
This little failure brought to an end his brief and somewhat unique respite. He could not remain in the room for ever, and difficulties would recommence the moment he went outside. If he did not descend to them, they would ascend to him. Heigho!
He went down quietly.
No need to proclaim yourself before you were there! And perhaps a spot more listening—he had done plenty lately—might come in handy?
The parlour door was ajar, and while still standing on the bottom stair he could hear Ma and Maudie talking, though their voices were subdued. They were evidently in a mood for quietness, too.
‘I don’t understand it!’ Ma was saying.
‘You’ve only said that five times,’ came Maudie’s answer.
She was not made up of sweetness, though she could smile like sugar when she wanted to.
‘Well, I don’t! How could he have not been there?’
‘Don’t ask me! All I can say is that he wasn’t, and that it was a damn good thing! What did you let that policeman go up for?’
‘Don’t talk nonsense, and don’t snap. If you couldn’t stop him, how was I to? As soon as he’s finished asking me questions, up he goes—’
‘Yes, it was a pity he didn’t begin with you!’
‘Well, dearie, who kept him at the door?’
‘You know why I did it! I thought I could make him leave without coming in at all! The way he tackled you, when he did, about why Oscar went, and why you didn’t find out, and if it was sudden or if you’d known he was going yesterday! He must have thought you every sort of a fool—or lying!’
‘He caught you lying at the door—’
‘I know he did, I know he did! Lies to the police are one thing, but there’s no need for ’em between you and me! Is it the truth you don’t know why Oscar left?
‘Maudie?’
‘Yes?’
‘I only lost my temper with your father once—’
‘What of it?’
‘I never had to lose it again. I don’t know why Oscar left. He didn’t tell me. I don’t know any more than you do. I don’t know where he’s gone, or what he’s done, or what the police want him for. Perhaps it’s just as well. But I know this! It’s a good thing he’s gone, and you’ve done as much for him as is good for you, and you can be thankful the police aren’t after you! Yes, and it’s a good thing that other one’s gone, too, though if I were you I’d run up again yourself to make sure, and then we can heat up our meal again and eat it!’
‘What’s the good of going up?’ retorted Maudie. ‘There’s only the two rooms, and he’s not in either of them. Don’t mind about my legs! I haven’t been on them behind a counter all day, have I?’
Then something happened which caused Maudie to change her tone, though Ben had no idea what it was.
‘Oh, all right, all right, I’ll go!’ she muttered.
Ben twisted round, leapt up half a dozen stairs, and then descended them heavily. He had just got to the bottom again when Maudie’s head appeared from the parlour, and she stared at him in stupefaction.
9
Ben v. Maudie
‘Wozzer matter, miss? Yer ain’t seein’ no ghost,’ said Ben, responding innocently to Maudie’s astonished gaze.
‘Then—you haven’t gone!’ she gasped.
‘Gorn? It don’t look like it! But I ’ope that copper ’as?’
‘Where hav
e you been?’
‘Eh? Hupstairs. I’ve jest come dahn.’
She shook her head incredulously. ‘You—you couldn’t have been upstairs, it’s impossible.’
‘The himpossible ain’t nothink ter me.’
‘You weren’t there when the sergeant and I went up. He looked in both rooms! I know he did because I was with him—’
‘Yus, but ’e didn’t look in ’em both at the same time. When ’e looked in one I was in t’other, and then when ’e looked in t’other I was in the one. But I don’t git yer? Yer must know ’ow I done it?’ This time Ben spoke genuinely. People know their own cupboards, and he didn’t see why Maudie hadn’t guessed. ‘Are yer pertendin’ or somethink?’
Before she could respond, Mrs Kenton’s head appeared in the doorway behind her daughter’s. She had got over her first moment of shock on hearing Ben’s voice, and she was frowning.
‘Don’t stay out there talking!’ she ordered shortly. ‘Come in, and keep your voices down—for all we know there may be policemen around yet!’
Back in the parlour, where a cooling meal for three still waited to be eaten, Ben informed them how he had performed his vanishing act, and after the two women had exchanged perplexed glances Maudie turned suddenly towards the door.
‘Yes, and have a look out of the windows at the same time,’ said Mrs Kenton.
When she had departed and was heard racing up the stairs—this was the third time she had been up them since Ben’s arrival, and for a young woman who complained that she had been on her feet all day behind a counter she was still amply active—Ben turned to Mrs Kenton and asked:
‘Yer don’t mean yer didn’t know them cupboards ’adn’t no wall atween ’em?
‘There is a wall between them,’ replied Mrs Kenton. ‘Or there was!’
Then they fell silent, each busy with thought, till Maudie’s racing steps were heard again and she returned breathless.
‘It’s gone—the partition!’ she exclaimed. And then realising the loudness of her voice, she lowered it almost to a whisper, and repeated: ‘It’s gone!’
Mrs Kenton received the news grimly, and addressed Ben in a tone of accusation.
‘That would be your friend Mr Blake’s doing,’ she said. ‘It was only a thin partition. He must have got it down one day while Maudie was at work and I was out—and it must have been quite recently. Yes, yesterday, I shouldn’t wonder, when I was out in the afternoon to tea with my sister.’
‘What sauce!’ muttered Maudie. ‘I expect he did it in case he had to play the trick you did—Eric! You knew, of course? He told you, didn’t he?’
Ben shook his head. ‘As far as I was concerned,’ he admitted, ‘it was jest a bit o’ luck, but it orl goes ter show, don’t it, as ’e hexpected the pleece might come ’ere lookin’ fer ’im?’
‘Do you think we needed any proof of that?’ snapped Mrs Kenton. ‘Did you remember the windows, Maudie?’
‘Yes. I took a squint out of both …’
‘Well?’
‘There’s somebody back and front. I couldn’t see them very clearly, the fog’s getting thicker, but they’re there all right, so isn’t that nice for us!’
Ma Kenton threw up her hands. ‘I’ve had about enough of this!’ she cried. ‘Why did you ever bring that man here? I didn’t bargain for more than just …’ She broke off, at a sharp look from her daughter. ‘What’s he done this time?’ she demanded fretfully. ‘Killed someone?’
Ben hesitated for an instant, realising that he ought to have come downstairs armed with a policy and that he had wasted valuable time up in the bedroom trying to gargle tunes in a basin of water. Cautiously he answered:
‘S’pose ’e ’as?’
Both women sat very still. The temperature of the room seemed suddenly to have dropped several degrees.
‘I didn’t say ’e ’ad,’ went on Ben. ‘I sed s’posin’?’
A heavy little silence was broken by Mrs Kenton. She spoke with decision and determination.
‘I don’t want to hear anything,’ she said. ‘Not anything at all. He’s gone, and the sooner you follow him the better pleased I’ll be. We’ll have our supper now before it’s quite stony!’
‘Well, I’m ready fer a bite, wotever the temperchure,’ said Ben, as they took their seats round the table. The parrot had been relegated to a space on the sideboard. ‘But I ain’t doin’ no follerin’ while there’s coppers waitin’ ahtside.’
With her fork suspended, Mrs Kenton asked: ‘Does that mean you’re wanted for something, too?’
‘Never mind wot it means,’ replied Ben, ‘not till I’ve got somethink inside me.’
It was an uncomfortable meal from every angle. If the food was cold the atmosphere was colder, and not a single word was spoken until the unsocial business was over. Ben always disliked silent meals when he was eating in company, though meals at which he participated were never completely silent, and it was because of the noise his food made when it went down that he welcomed drowning conversation. It wasn’t his fault. His tubes were twisted or somethink.
At last the gloomy meal ended, and Maudie started the ball rolling again with a sarcastic laugh.
‘Time to get ready for our film, Eric?’ she inquired.
‘That’s orf,’ replied Ben. ‘If it was ever hon!’
‘Oh, it was on all right, but the weather’s turned a bit nasty, hasn’t it?’
‘Yer don’t say!’
‘So now what I want to know is—where do we all go from here?’
Mrs Kenton fixed Ben with a compelling eye.
‘I don’t know where you’re going from here—all I know is that you’re going!’
‘Yer wouldn’t like that no more’n I would,’ answered Ben darkly.
‘Why not?’
‘I thort yer didn’t want ter ’ear nothink? Do I ’ave ter tell yer?’
And then, all at once, he decided that he would. It might be wise, it might be not, but the situation was getting beyond him, that was a fack, so he’d spit it aht and see wot ’appened.
‘Them bobbies was ’ere on a murder job,’ he said.
The effect was electrical. Mrs Kenton, who had just begun to rise from her chair, remained suspended. Maudie gasped: ‘My God!’
‘Yer’ve sed it,’ agreed Ben.
‘You—you don’t mean—?’
‘I mean they wanter arsk ’im questions abart it, but whether ’e done it or not—well, we can leave that fer a bit. But there’s one thing we won’t leave so’s ter git that stright at the start—I ain’t done no murder, and that wasn’t wot I was dodgin’ the pleece for—’
‘I won’t hear any more, I won’t hear any more!’ interrupted Ma Kenton in a rasping voice, now completing her movement of rising and pushing her chair back. ‘It’s no concern of ours who did it, no concern at all! Maudie, I’m going into the kitchen and I’ll be waiting for you there to bring me the things for washing up, and when we come back I want to find you gone. Do you hear? Don’t let me have to say it again! As far as we are concerned, you have never been here at all!’
‘It ain’t as easy as that,’ returned Ben. ‘I’d wait afore goin’ inter the kitchen, if I was you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I ’ave bin ’ere.’
‘No one will know, if no one mentions it.’
‘But ’ow do yer know I won’t menshun it? That’d git yer inter a bit o’ trouble, p’r’aps?’
‘Wouldn’t it get you into more, Eric?’ interposed Maudie, her mother momentarily speechless.
‘I ain’t worryin’, lied Ben, ‘and even if I was, miss, trouble loves company. Yer ma sez orl this ain’t no concern o’ yourn, but wot’d the pleece think if they ’eard I was ’ere, bringin’ yer a messidge from the bloke they was arter, and nobody sed nothink abart me or the messidge? And lettin’ me alone, s’pose they ketches the bloke they’re arter, you’ve worked with ’im, aincher? But p’r’aps yer wouldn’t mind orl that comin’ a
ht?’
‘Is—is this blackmail?’ demanded Mrs Kenton, in a splutter.
‘Now, there’s a narsty word!’ complained Ben. ‘I’d call it more like orl stickin’ tergether—yus, and with a nice little nest-hegg at the hend of it, p’r’aps, if we orl keep steady.’
‘That’s right, ma,’ said Maudie, suddenly taking control, and speaking sharply. ‘We mustn’t lose our wool! Let’s get rid of these things, and afterwards see what. I’ll clear away if you’ll make a start in the kitchen.’
Mrs Kenton wavered, then gave a helpless shrug and left the room. Maudie followed, to reappear a few moments later with a tray.
‘Ma’s proper upset over what you’ve told us,’ she remarked, as she began clearing the table. ‘You’ll get something if you’re playing a game!’
‘Wot’d I do that for?’ demanded Ben.
‘How do I know? Everything’s phony from the word go! What about lending a hand instead of just looking ornamental?’
He helped with the tray. Queer girl, this. She’d need a bit of handling unless you got her on the hop. Had he been wise to let out about the murder so soon? Well, it was too late to retract now.
‘We’ll have the parrot back,’ said Maudie, when the table was clear.
‘Don’t it never say nothink?’ inquired Ben, as he lifted the cage across.
‘Only once in a blue moon,’ replied Maudie; ‘but when it does it’s good. Wait till I come back—next time it’ll be for keeps.’
She went out again with the tray, was absent a little longer this time, and returned as Ben was coming away from the parlour window. The room was in darkness.
‘I wouldn’t show myself,’ she commented.
‘Teach me somethink I don’t know,’ replied Ben. ‘I know orl abart winders.’
‘Well, I see you had the sense to switch off the light.’
‘I got sense, miss, as yer’ll find aht.’ Mustn’t let this girl get on top of him.
‘Did you see anything?’
‘Yus.’
‘What?’
‘Fog.’
‘And that’s supposed to be funny—’
‘Well, wotcher hexpeck me ter see through pea-soup? Churchill shavin’?’
Ben on the Job Page 7