The Arthur Morrison Mystery

by Arthur Morrison

  At the close of a warm autumn day Luke Roddy stood by his garden gate and scowled on all of the world that he could see. The sinking sun flung red gold along the fields and against the trees and hedges, and a little child sat to view the marvel, and to think wonderful things that it would long to recall in after life, and fail. But old Hoddy hated all the gold in the world that was not in his own pocket, where there was very little, and that little the only thing he loved. Children also he detested, for they were human beings. A stout, round-faced woman went down the path, with a baby on one arm and a basket on the other, and as she passed she called good-night. Luke flung back a savage growl, for this woman was a great aversion of his, being always happy, and all her life persistently sending more children to play on Cock-a-Bevis Hill. Then a girl came, driving cows, and a brown lad with her, and neither of them saw Luke Hoddy at all, because they were looking at each other. Luke positively snarled; and such a villainous twist remained on his face when they had passed, that a very small boy, who was coming hopefully up with a halfpenny gripped in his fist, greatly desiring an apple, turned and ran, and never stopped till he reached the goody-shop in the village; so that old Hoddy was the poorer by one halfpenny, and I am sorry it was no more.

  The day waned, and people went on their way to rest from their work, old and young, men and women, and old Hoddy saw the world in little pass before his gate, and he hated it at large. Then there went the carrier, and after him Paigles, the farmer, on his cob.

  Paigles was a notoriously poor farmer, and backward with his rent; it was more than believed, in fact, that his landlord would be glad to sell the farm and that way be quit of him, since he shrank from turning Paigles away from the land his great-grandfather had farmed a hundred years before him. Luke Hoddy grinned savagely at Paigles’s back as it merged in the shadows of the trees. If only he had the money he would buy the farm, sell up Paigles, and fling him out, neck and crop. He would buy other people’s houses, too, and treat them likewise. They hated him now, and if he had money, how he would grind their faces! He would grind their faces off their heads, if only he had the money.

  It was at this favorable moment that the devil ventured out on Cock-a-Bevis Hill. He did not come flaming and raging, in a way to frighten folk, for tonight that was not his business; he came dressed very well and neatly, like a gentleman of those days, and it struck Luke Hoddy at the time that he looked rather like the lawyer at Witham. He wore trousers a little tighter than was usual—skin-tight, in fact—with straps. His swallow-tailed coat was pinched in very elegantly at the waist, and his beaver hat was broad in the crown and wide in the brim. He carried a quizzing-cane, and his black stock looked as though it must have gone a dozen times round his neck, on a collar that was halfway up his head behind. Still, notwithstanding this very respectable appearence, you must not suppose that Luke Hoddy mistook his visitor. Indeed, he recognized him at once; his beautifully varnished boots looked empty at the toes, and from time to time something vaguely disturbed the points of his elegant coat-tail: moreover, his eyes would have been enough, glowing there in the dark like dull coals.

  “Good evening, Mr. Hoddy,” said the visitor, pleasantly.

  “Gr-r-r-umph!” replied Luke—as near as I can spell it. He was no great conversationalist, finding a growl express the most of what he had to say.

  “I’m very glad to meet you,” the visitor went on. “I think we should know each other, Mr. Hoddy.”

  “Gr-r-r-umph.”

  “It might lead to business, I think.”

  “Gr-r-r-umph?”

  “Yes. You will find me an excellent customer. My command of money is unlimited—I handle most of what exists, at some time or other—and expense is no consideration, so long as I get what I want. I am prepared to pay, Mr. Hoddy; heavily.”

  “Gr-r-m.” It was a slightly different growl this time. Old Hoddy was conscious of a possible opportunity. He did not care what he sold, if only it would fetch enough money. “I should want a lot,” he said, “a plenshus lot. Money down.”

  “You shall have it.”

  “An’ I won’t sign—no, not nothen’—not till I get it, every farden.”

  The devil laughed—quite a gentlemanly laugh, with nothing offensive in it. “You are misunderstanding, Mr. Hoddy,” he said. “I believe—I really do believe you have the absurd old notion I hear of so often. Do you think I want to buy your soul?”

  “Course,” answered Luke. “What else?”

  “Really, really! I don’t wish to say anything unkind, but is it likely? As I have told you, I have unlimited command of money, and I spend it freely for purposes of business. But I don’t absolutely pitch it away, Mr. Hoddy! I don’t pay for what is as good as mine already, for nothing! No, no. You are persisting in a very common and vulgar error. I may have entered into such a transaction as you indicate, now and again, but then the circumstances were exceptional. As a rule such an arrangement with anybody willing to enter into it, is altogether unnecessary, as in your case. No; I come to buy something else!”

  “What’s that?” demanded Hoddy, with suspicion. For his wits were not quick, and he knew he was dealing with a cunning customer. “Gr-r-r-umph! What’s that?”

  “Hate! I want to buy hatred, wholesale. I am the largest dealer in that line in existence, and I pay top prices. I do not ask lower terms in consideration of a big contract—I will even pay a specially high rate to a large producer like yourself; it saves trouble, and I want to have a substantial stock ready to hand. I sow it about all over the world, you see, and it is most annoying to find oneself in some happy, contented community, and the stock of hatred completely out. So I am here to buy all you can sell.”

  “How much?” asked Luke Hoddy, still suspicious.

  “Oh, we shall never quarrel about terms, I promise you. You shall make a fortune out of it. Of course, there are plenty of people who throw their hate about so that I could pick it up for nothing, but the quantities are comparatively small; and really, you know, a gentleman can’t go raking about in gutters for remnants and scraps, like some starving blackguard after crusts. Wouldn’t do at all, you know. So I prefer to buy wholesale, and you are a perfect quarry—a mine. I am ready to take your whole stock.”

  “How much?” asked Luke Hoddy, again.

  The visitor grinned quietly. “I do believe,” he said, “that if I wished to drive a hard bargain I could swindle you, Mr. Hoddy. You are so very anxious about the money, and I’m sure you don’t really guess what a stock of the goods you have in hand. I could make quite a bargain for the lot, I’m certain, and you’d be surprised at the amount you had sacrificed. But, as I have told you, money is no object with me, though I am not, at present, urgently needing the stock. I have been to a Philanthropic Congress lately, where everybody exuded it, wallowed in it, and pelted everybody else with it to such an extent that I couldn’t resist the temptation to gather it in, though I really attended with the idea of sowing some I already had in hand. I am quite well provided for a time, but as a prudent man of business I like to look ahead and make engagements in advance. You want to know what I will pay. Well, I am ready to accept bills as often as you like to draw them, each for anything up to five thousand pounds. Will that suit you?”

  Luke Hoddy gulped and gasped. This was tremendous. He had been thinking of fifties and hundreds, and here were thousands—and thousands over and over again, indefinitely. It was wonderful—too good to believe all at once. Perhaps it would turn out a swindle after alla trick to rob him of the precious hate he had cherished so long, and which now seemed a more valuable possession than ever. Old Hoddy did not understand the acceptance of bills, and he resolved to question a little more.

  “It seems a pretty good deal o’ money,” he admitted grudgingly. “Anyhow, a good deal for you to want to pay as can pick the stuff up. I should count there was plenty of hate about, too. It aint’ a rare stuff.”

 
“No, it isn’t. But, considering the plenteousness of the commodity, it’s wonderful how little I get of it. People seem to want it for each other, you see. People talk a deal about hating me, but they hate each other so much more that it’s very rarely I can get anybody’s hatred without paying for it. And that is why I am here for yours.”

  “Gr-r-r-umph! Well, I’ll sell. But none o’ yer bills an’ ’ceptances an’ that. I want money down. See?”

  “You shall have the money before I receive the goods. Will that suit you?”

  Luke thought that would do, and growled to indicate as much.

  The devil stooped in the shadow of the fence, and produced a box, which old Hoddy had not noticed before. It was a chest of some hard wood, bound and cornered with iron, and as soon as it rested on the fence-rail Hoddy grabbed it eagerly. As a box, it was heavy, but not so heavy as it should have been if it were full of money. In fact old Hoddy judged it empty.

  “There ain’t no five thousand pun’ in that!” he snarled.

  “Quite so; I never thought of pretending it. This is a little arrangement of my own invention, which I will explain.” The night was full dark by now, but a dull red light fell on the chest wherever the devil pointed, and so Luke understood all he said.

  “You perceive that the box is locked. I shall keep the key, and I advise you, for your own sake, not to meddle. It is a dangerous thing to open, if you don’t understand it. The lid, you see, is a deep one. That is because it contains a separate chamber, into which you slip your bills for acceptance. There is a narrow slot, you perceive, just under the upper edge. Whenever you wish to do business, you will fill in one of the forms I shall leave you, with the amount of hate you wish to sell in money, up to five thousand pounds, and sign it. Then you will slip the paper in at the slot, and go to bed. That is all. In the morning you will receive the money. But, meantime, you must sleep; otherwise the sale cannot be completed. Take the box, and remember what I say. I shall not call again till I want some of the goods. Then I shall take away the box and leave a fresh one. Do you know, I’m rather proud of the invention of that box. Some day, if I have time, I intend to adapt the idea to other purposes. It might be made to work with pennies, for matches and lollipops and such things. Good notion, eh? But here are your bill-forms; if you want more you can copy one of them. And remember, no more than five thousand pounds at one time, if you please. That is the price of the largest quantity of hate the machine is able to compress in a day. That is all, I think. Good evening, Mr. Hoddy!”

  And with that he was gone, vanishing in a very low and courtly bow, which somehow slid away backward into the shadows; leaving Luke Hoddy standing there with a bunch of papers in his right hand while he balanced the box on the fence with his left.

  Old Hoddy stared for a minute and a quarter, and then, convinced that he really was alone, he picked up the box and carried it indoors. He lit a candle, put on his spectacles, and began to spell out one of the papers. Thus it read:—

  Date——

  On presentation pay to me the sum of £__ for hate received.

  That seemed simple enough. Luke Hoddy sat in a chair, and stared, now, at the box. Having done that for a little while he turned to the paper again, and stared at that. And at last, when he found his faculties shaking down into their proper places, he got ink and pen, and filled in the topmost form. He filled it in for the full five thousand pounds, having a natural desire for as much as he could get. Then he signed it, slipped it into the slot, and went to bed.

  In the morning he woke feeling particularly well—uncommonly well. As he got out of bed he caught sight of his face in the jaggy piece of looking-glass that stood on the mantel-piece and saw a positive smile on it. He sat for a moment to wonder at this, and presently broke into a laugh. He remembered a ridiculous dream about the devil and a chest.

  Sunlight came in at the poky little window, and the sound of a thousand birds. The light fell on the corner of a deal table, and there lay a little bundle of papers. There was no mistake—they were the blank bills. Luke Hoddy rubbed his fist over his head to clear his thoughts. The thing would seem to have been no dream after all. But as he pulled on his clothes he remembered the attorney at Witham. No doubt this was some joke of his—Luke had noticed the extraordinary likeness from the first. But why should he take all this trouble to put a sell on a stranger? Luke Hoddy floundered into the only other room of his cottage, and there saw the iron-strapped box standing against the wall. Truly it was no dream. There, along the slot in the lid, lay the white edge of the paper, which he had thought he had pushed well in. Or at any rate it was some paper, or papers. What was it? He reached and pulled out—not one paper, but five; and each was a thousand-pound bank-note!

  It was true then—quite true; neither dream nor sell, but simple fact. Here was the actual, indubitable money. Luke Hoddy sat for a while in the blankest of brown studies and then began to chuckle. Chuckling, he went out into the open and looked across the fields, lusty and sparkling in the fresh morning. A little child, carrying a basin in a blue handkerchief, stood in amaze to see old Hoddy so merry: whereupon he gave the child an apple for nothing, and sat down to laugh at the strangeness of things.

  He sobered down after a little, and wondered at the impulse that had led to the gift. That apple was the first thing he had ever given away in his life, and it seemed a foolish thing to do. Especially—and the thought came like a grip at the throat—especially if the thing was a sell after all, and the notes spurious.

  This was a matter that must be settled at once. So he watched for the carrier’s cart that morning, and went by it to Witham, to the bank. Here his spirits rose again, for the cashier made no difficulty about the notes, but opened an account with them, and old Hoddy left the premises with a pass-book of his own, containing an entry of five thousand pounds to his credit.

  He resolved to see about Paigles’s farm without delay, and to that end called on the attorney. Hoddy observed the lawyer pretty closely, and was relieved to find that although he was smartly enough dressed, he was not so very much like the visitor of last night, after all. The lawyer promised to make discreet inquires as to the price of the farm, and Luke Hoddy left him.

  That night he filled in another bill for the full five thousand, and in the morning drew out another bunch of notes. Then he went out and caught the children going to school and distributed apples among them, till nothing remained on the tree but leaves; laughing so much at the fun that rumors arose that old Hoddy was gone mad. The bank-cashier was a little surprised to see him again with precisely the same amount, and the lawyer was also a little surprised to have another visit, and instructions to look out for a few more freehold investments, in addition to Paigles’s farm. But that mattered nothing, and the next day old Luke Hoddy banked five thousand more.

  Paigles’s farm was for sale, and at a moderate price; also there was a deal of other eligible property to be had in the neighborhood, and as the money rolled in Hoddy took the first steps toward becoming a landed proprietor of no small consideration.

  But lawyers have their fees to earn, and between the first steps and the last there are a great many more, and in those days there were more than there are now; and every step took time. So that it came to pass that, before the last seal was pressed and the last fee earned, old Hoddy, rising one morning very merry, turned to pull out his customary notes from the box, but instead of five, found only one piece of paper, and that not a bank-note. It was, in fact, his own bill of exchange, just as he had drawn it the night before; except that there now appeared across it, in the blurred capitals of a roughly-inked stamp, the words REFERRED TO DRAWER.

  Luke Hoddy had grown so used to drawing his money regularly and making his daily trip to Witham, that he went through some minutes of dumb amazement before he realized that his stock of hate was at last absolutely exhausted, and no more bank-notes were to be expected from the box. At first his smi
le faded and his face lengthened; but it was not for long. Indeed he was a very rich man, and he had of late begun to wonder what he should do with all his money. For the credit of human nature I shall not tell the precise figure of old Hoddy’s riches; and very few would believe in the existence of such a stock of hate as it would imply, if I did. But he was a very rich man, and was putting money into other securities beside land. So his face soon broadened again into the grin it had worn since he had stripped his apple-tree. He would not need to go to Witham today, and he would have leisure to think things over.

  He was still in the little cottage on Cock-a-Bevis Hill—indeed there had scarce been time for a change. He used to detest the place, but now that all his hate was sold, he rather liked the situation. He had a design of building a house close by, some day, but meantime the cottage did very well, and he resolved in any event to leave it standing, and use it sometimes.

  He went out into his garden and beyond the fence, whistling. Presently he saw the girl coming, driving her cows out to the meadow, and the brown lad with her, just as they had passed, in the opposite direction, on the evening when Hoddy had received the Owner of the Box. But this time they could not help seeing him, for he called to them gaily, with questions about banns and a wedding-day, and a promise of a silver tea-pot when the day should come. And when they had passed he was reminded to fill a basket with eggs and carry them down to the cottage of the round-faced woman who had so many children. After which, finding his experience in generosity such novel fun, he got five shillingsworth of pennies at the Crown and Cushion and gave one to every child he could catch. Some of them wanted a deal of catching, for it was not easy for people to understand this change in old Hoddy’s habits. The fact was that not only had he got rid of all his old hatred, but when he remembered it he felt a little ashamed, and had a great desire to make amends.