The Arthur Morrison Mystery

by Arthur Morrison

  “No, no; that’s absurd,” replied Flack, with some alarm. “You’d get nothing like that.”

  “Well, perhaps not,” the painter admitted, judicially. “But I could try.”

  “No, no; play the game now. You must admit it was I who put you on to this. Come, I’ll meet you handsomely. I’ll give you a hundred and fifty for these two on condition that you let me have the next half-dozen I select, of this size or larger, at the same price. Surely that’s good enough?”

  “Well,” the artist replied, with some show of thoughtful reluctance, “perhaps it is. It’ll save trouble, I suppose. All right.”

  Stanley Ulbster was a successful painter already. He sat down and made a little calculation that by the aid of his mirror, an almost infinite variation of colours, and the use of canvases of different shapes and sizes—upright, oblong, sideways, upside down—he could evolve some hundreds more Postprandial masterpieces from the three already in existence. He took a walk round the Post-prandial Symbolist show before closing time, and triumphed to perceive that he—or his “ghost” for him—was the equal of the great Croutier at his best, and by far the superior of Fumiste de Boulemiche and his colleague de Boue. He had a dinner that night that made the recollection of yesterday’s seem poor; but it did nothing to improve his night’s sleep. He was excited and restless, and slept in snatches; and in the early morning he arose with a definite purpose in his mind.

  His natural curiosity could be stifled no longer. Prudence bade him leave well alone, but, as everybody knows, only let the fight last and curiosity must beat prudence at some time. He oiled the key of his studio, and regretted that he had not thought to oil the lock also, before he had left. There was always a creak, but perhaps oil on the key would overcome that; at any rate, he was resolved to enter the studio early and quietly. He started at seven o’clock, vastly to the amazement of the little servant-maid who was already busy on the front steps of the Bloomsbury lodging. He found himself in some trepidation as he mounted the stairs, and near the door he absolutely stopped in doubt. What he was doing might spoil the run of luck; but, after all, he could surely acquire the trick himself in time, and meantime there was the looking-glass dodge. He must penetrate the mystery before him. He insinuated his oiled key and began to turn it very slowly.

  The oil was useless. There was a check in the turn and then the lock squeaked as loud as ever. With that he snapped it back and dashed in at the door. There was a crash, a bounce, and a strange, inhuman squeal; the screen went over, some dark brown thing dashed up the easel and through the skylight, and the easel rocked and fell; and there, grinning and jabbering through the opening of the skylight, was a large and angry monkey. He had barely seen it when his palette came hurtling at his head, struck the wall, and, falling face down on the floor, deposited there yet one more Post-prandial Symbol. Then the skylight shut with a slam and the spirit of Post-prandial Symbolism vanished from above it.

  For one dumbfoundered moment Stanley Ulbster stood and stared about him. Then he realized that a fortune was escaping him over the tiles. He dashed to the window, flung it open, and gazed downward. Hand under hand, with waving tail, his brownie was retreating by way of a water-pipe, gnashing its teeth as it went. Ulbster whistled and snapped his fingers invitingly, as one does to a dog; but the Artist Unknown misunderstood his advances and chattered more savagely than ever. Springing from the water-pipe, the last of the Post-prandial Symbolists alighted on a low roof, whence he continued his retreat toward the bird and beast shops of St. Andrew’s Street, turning to face Ulbster from time to time, and reviling his fellow-craftsman with bitter gibberings.

  Since blandishments would not draw the fugitive, Ulbster resolved to watch the direction of his retreat, with a view to the purchase of so valuable an auxiliary. Plainly he was making for the largest of the dog and poultry shops, at the corner of a narrow alley leading into the main street; and presently, at a trap-door in the roof of that same shop, a man became visible, peering anxiously, and seeking concealment behind a chimney-stack. The Symbolist drew near the trapdoor, and the man craned his neck eagerly—too eagerly, in fact, for, with a sudden leap aside and a fresh burst of angry chatter, the nameless rival of Arsène Croutier made for an adjoining roof by way of another water-pipe.

  Seeing he was discovered, the man abandoned his concealment, and with affectionate greetings offered nuts from his pocket, and a banana. The Symbolist was sorely tempted, and paused in his flight; but an incautious movement on the man’s part alarmed him afresh, and off he went on a headlong scamper over the adjoining roofs.

  The man disappeared down the trap-door, and Ulbster saw that he must join the chase from the street or lose his colleague altogether. He ran his best, and when he reached St. Andrew’s Street he found that the hunt was up, and already many men and boys were scuttling up by-streets, scaling ladders, climbing scaffold-poles, scrambling over roofs, and dodging about chimney-stacks with shouts and chevyings that had already converted the evasion of the fugitive into a desperate and frenzied flight. Over roofs, across brick precipices, down pipes, up poles, along parapets he went, a dazzling and unapproachable example to all Post-prandial Symbolists; and Ulbster, having ascertained that his owner was the man of the corner shop, left the crowd and returned to his studio.

  Late in the afternoon he descended into St. Andrew’s Street, and made inquiries at the dog-fancier’s shop. The shopkeeper shook his head mournfully, and his partner said, solemnly: “Gawn. Fell a victim.”

  “Pore old Pongo,” the shopkeeper explained; “they frightened him fair off ’is ’ead, that silly, ’owlin’ crowd. After about an hour and a ’alf’s chase, he got into that big brewery over there past the Dials. He dodged ’em this way an’ ’e dodged ’em that, an’ at last he got into the settlin’-’use, and ran round the edge of the vats till he got bosky in the ’ead with the smell o’ the beer an’ tumbled in.”

  “Drowned?” queried Ulbster.

  The shopkeeper nodded gloomily.

  “No money would ha’ bought him this time yesterday,” he said. “He was a genius, was that monkey, and we was trainin’ him to do the Consul business. There was a fortune in Pongo at the ’ails. I can’t make out now how he got out; but he was equal to any door or winder or skylight as you could name, was Pongo; an’ I got a sort of idea he must ha’ been out once or twice lately, ’cos he’d got paint on him from somewhere—blue an’ yaller. We’ll never see another like Pongo.”

  “No,” agreed the partner, “that we won’t. But lor,” he added, with a brighter look upward, “wot a glorious death!”

  But Stanley Ulbster’s success was great and immediate. His show came quick on the heels of the great one of the works of Arsène Croutier and his disciples, and his puzzles were better than theirs. The popular papers printed photographs, and gave prizes to readers who guessed which was she right way up, and he was famous. So that, if he had only fully understood his public, he would have troubled himself no more, but would have painted what he pleased with perfect applause from everybody who can criticize a picture once he knows the name of the artist. But he would seem to be still a little uneasy, for he is quite recently reported to have been trying to buy a monkey.

  AS FAR AS THEY HAD GOT

  by E. Phillips Oppenheim, W. Pette Ridge, Arthur Morrison, Horace Annesley Vachell, Barry Pain, Charles Garvice, and Richard Marsh

  First published in The Strand Magazine, Aug 1911.

  CHAPTER I

  by E. Phillips Oppenheim

  The two young men, complete strangers to one another, exchanged during those few moments a gaze whose intentness seemed to possess some hidden and mysterious quality. Spencer, in flannels and canvas shoes, bare-headed, his sunburnt face streaming with perspiration, paused for a moment, still gripping the pole with which he was propelling his somewhat clumsy craft. The man, a few yards away, who had attracted his attention seemed to have very different ide
as of pleasure. Dressed in a spotless suit of white flannels, he was lounging in a wicker chair on the smooth-shaven lawn of a bungalow hung with flowers, whose garden, with its little stone terrace, fronted the stream. He, too, was young and good-looking, but of another type. His lips parted in a faint, good-humoured smile, as Spencer once more raised his pole.

  “Hot work, isn’t it?” he remarked, lazily.

  “Beastly,” Spencer replied.

  The young man on the lawn touched a glass jug by his side, a jug whose frozen sides suggested ice, and in which green leaves were floating about.

  “Care for a drink?” he asked.

  Spencer shook his head. “We’ve sworn off, my pal and I, till we get her into the broad,” he answered. “You haven’t a cigarette to spare, I suppose?”

  The young man rose from his seat and strolled gracefully down the lawn to the river’s edge.

  “Catch,” he said, and threw the box which had been standing by his side into Spencer’s outstretched hands.

  “Awfully good of you,” the latter declared. “Sure you can spare them?”

  The young man nodded.

  “Plenty more here,” he said. “Good day.”

  Spencer sighed a little enviously as he settled down once more to his task.

  “I never, in the whole of my existence,” he exclaimed, “saw a fellow who seemed so jolly well satisfied with life!”

  * * * *

  Across the cowslip and buttercup-starred meadows, now knee-deep in the mowing grass, now forcing his reckless way through a clump of bushes, a man was running as one might run behind whom came hot-footed all the strange and terrible shapes begotten of a Dantesque nightmare. Terror, livid and appalling, was in his face. Not all the burning heat could bring a spot of colour to his cheeks. Even his parted lips, through which his breath came in gasps and groans, were white. Once he fell, but rose without pausing, heedless of the blood which dripped from his hand and knee. Spencer paused once more with the pole in his hand.

  “What, in Heaven’s name, is this coming across the coming across the meadow?” he exclaimed.

  “It’s a madman!” his companion cried. “Look! look!”

  The man who approached was running now in circles. His hands were raised to the skies, his head thrust forward. Once more he fell, but picked himself up without a moment’s hesitation. Nearer and nearer he came to the river bank.

  * * * *

  “My God!” Spencer faltered. “It’s the man from the bungalow—the man who gave us our cigarettes!”

  The yawl was on the far side of the stream. Between it and the opposite bank the stream, which had widened considerably, was now about fifteen yards wide. The man who had been running paused for the first time as he reached the brink, but only for a second. Without any attempt at diving he simply threw himself in, face downwards. With a dull splash he disappeared under the green weeds. Spencer, who had been stupefied with amazement, hauled up his pole and stepped on to the side of the boat, prepared to dive. His companion stopped him.

  “It’s all right, Spencer!” he cried. “He’s here.”

  They dragged him on board—a dripping, wild-looking object. They thrust him into their only seat. He cowered there, gripping its sides, and in his face were the unutterable things. Spencer and his companion, who stood staring at him, felt suddenly that the sun had left the heavens. The pleasant warmth was gone, the humming of insects and the singing of birds had ceased. It was another world from which this creature had come. They both shivered.

  “What, in Heaven’s name, has happened?” Spencer demanded. “What is the matter with you, man?” There was no answer. Spencer caught up his pole.

  “Let`s have her round,” he cried. “We’ll get back to the bungalow.”

  Then the stranger broke his silence. He shrank back in his place like some stricken animal. In his eyes the terror blazed forth, a live and awful thing.

  “No!”

  CHAPTER II

  by W. Pette Ridge

  “Very well, then; we’ll take you in to the bank.”

  “Not there!” he screamed, piteously. “Anywhere else, but not there.” He seemed to make a determined effort to pull himself together.”Give me something to smoke. It will compose what I call my brain.”

  “One of your own cigarettes?”

  He seized the box eagerly, and, turning aside, made a scoop through the contents.

  They lound a clumsy suit of overalls and, landing farther down, he changed rapidly, throwing the damp suit of flannels into the hollow of an old tree.

  “Fix up here,” he urged, “and let’s stroll across to the town, and you give me an opportunity of repaying your kindness by standing you both tea. My story is in many respects a strange one.”

  They exchanged a perplexed look as he washed his hands in the stream. The three strolled along the path, that went by the side of a field.

  “You think I’m a gentleman, he went on, volubly, and, of course, I want people to think so. I dress well, and I aspirate my aitches to such an extent that I deceive a lot of people. As a matter of fact, before I came into my fortune I was a clerk. That was why,”—he beamed, excusingly—“why I was so upset when you talked about taking me in to bank.”

  “How did you come by your money?” inquired Spencer, interestedly.

  “It was at Folkestone I met her,” he went on, mopping his forehead, “whilst I was on my holidays.”

  “Met who?”

  “House property she’d got, so far as I could gather, Brondesbury way. The agent was making up to her, but she said she believed in love at first sight, or else not at all. The next morning I had the letter from the lawyers, and, believe me or believe me not—” he raised his bandaged hand impressively—“but since that time she’d gone clean out of my head, until a chance remark of yours brought her back again. ‘Awfully good of you,’ you said to me, and those were the very words she passed when I paid for her to go down the lift. And now,” he shouldered open a gate for them,” now I’d give every shilling of my twenty thousand pounds to see her again. Every penny.”

  “Braddell,” remarked Spencer, excitedly, to his friend, “this is something in your line.”

  “Tell me,” said Braddell, “do you know her name and address?”

  “You’re cold.”

  “Do you know the agent’s name and address?”

  “Very warm,” he commented, approvingly. “I made a note of that at the time, and placed it in the cigarette-box I gave you. Having secured possession of it, our task now is an easy one.”

  “Your task, you mean.”

  “You can understand my excitement, at any rate. If I’d lost sight of you, my last chance of finding her would have gone. And if you’ve suffered, as I have, from mothers with daughters who only want a chap because he’s come in for a bit of cash, you’ll realize, first, why I came down here for quiet; second, why I’m so anxious to find her. If she did love me, undoubtedly she loved me for myself alone. I’ll make it worth your while to assist me,” he promised. “I sha’n’t begrudge a thousand or two.”

  The two gave a gasp in duet.

  “Here we are!” as a lane took them into the main street. “You go on to the Unicorn and order tea and toast for three, whilst I pop in here and buy a hat.”

  Spencer and Braddell obeyed, consulting eagerly as they went. Coming a few minutes later from the outfitter’s shop in a sou’-wester that went well with his suit, the tenant of the bungalow crossed to the clematis-covered house which bore the words: “POLICE STATION.” He spoke sharply.

  “We’ve met before, perhaps. I am Inspector Wilmerson, of the C.I.D. Very well, then!” without waiting for an answer. “Two sunburnt young men in flannels and canvas shoes are wanted for the Moorgate Street bank robbery. They’re about here somewhere. Keep a sharp look-out for them. Good day!”

 
; “Why,” cried the young constable, “dang my eyes if I ain’t just seen two answering to that yer description making their way ’long to the hotel. And ain’t yours a clever disguise too, sir? I reckon I sh’d do pretty well at the Yard myself.”

  “Go and arrest them,” he ordered, “and bring them here. Take handcuffs!”1

  CHAPTER III

  by Arthur Morrison

  Meantime, left together, Braddell stared at Spencer, and Spencer lifted his eyebrows and laughed.

  “What have we found now?” Spencer remarked. “A madman, an actor, or what? First, on the lawn by his bungalow, a particularly easy-going man of good manners—a gentleman, in two words; then a wild, dancing dervish; and now a very common sort of bounder, who talks about ‘repaying’ us for hauling him out of the water and putting him into dry clothes by ‘standing’ us tea—like a bean-feaster!”

  “Odd enough,” replied Braddell; “but, actor or lunatic, I should say he was a pretty genuinely frightened man when he came bolting across the field. Why, he might have been bitten by the what d’ye call—the Italian spider.”

  “Tarantula?”

  “Yes. It’s a nuisance to be stuck here like this, but I’m rather interested, and there may be fun in seeing it through. We must, in fact, if we want those overalls back—he’s pitched his flannels away!”

  The coffee-room of the Unicorn had a small window looking over a corner of garden, and a bagatelle-table stood in the light of this window. Spencer took a cue and drove a ball or two idly up the board, while Braddell watched him.

  “He’s slow in his choice of a hat,” said Braddell, presently. “I’ll stroll out and look for him.”

  By the door of the tap-room the landlord stood in whispered consultation with a policeman. Braddell unsuspectingly sought to pass between them, and instantly felt himself seized from both sides—and handcuffed!

  “What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded, with some difficulty, in his blank astonishment.

  “All right, all right,” replied the young policeman, grinning and winking; “sort of thing they allus say. You ain’t obliged to say nothin’, but what you do say’ll be took down an’ used in evidence. Come along!”