The Arthur Morrison Mystery

by Arthur Morrison

  There was nothing else to be done. He must approach the back way to the select boarding establishment, and take one of the servants, who might recognize him, into his confidence. He would promise anything—a sovereign, five pounds, whatever the girl asked—to be smuggled in during the absence of his family. It was a difficult expedient, but the only one. And with this last resort in view Mr. Bostock began his nine miles’ tramp.

  He went with the greatest caution till he was well clear of Beachpool, and even then only ventured to walk his best—which was not very good, for he was mightily tired already—when nobody was in sight. Twice he stopped to extract small pebbles from the “jemimas,” which had cracks convenient for their admission; and then, as he approached the confines of a village, he stopped for a more peremptory reason still. For there was a bounce from the hedge behind him, a pair of stalwart arms clasped him round, and a loud voice shouted by his ear: “Here he be, sergeant! I got him! Sergeant!”

  Struggles were unavailing, for the arms clipped him firmly just above the elbow, and the affrighted Mr. Bostock perceived that they were encased in blue sleeves, with an armlet; at the same moment a hatless policeman came running from a cottage by the wayside and seized him in front.

  “Get the handcuffs, sergeant! He be a desprit char’cter!” bawled the voice in the captive’s ear.

  “All right—we won’t stand to none of his despritness here,” replied the sergeant, dexterously seizing Mr. Bostock by the wrist and collar. “Come along, you!”

  “I—I—I’ve had my clothes stolen!” gasped Mr. Bostock.

  “Had yer—ha! ha! That’s a good ’un,” cried the sergeant. “Had his clothes stole!”

  “Ha! ha!” echoed the other captor, catching Mr. Bostock’s other arm; “that be a moighty good ’un, sergeant!”

  “But I have, I tell you!” desperately wailed the victim.

  “All right, me fine feller,” grimly responded the sergeant; “you needn’t make a song about them clothes. ‘We’ve got ’em ’ere for ye all right. Come along!”

  A flash of perplexed hope confused Mr. Bostock’s faculties, and then, as he was led toward the cottage, a slatternly old woman appeared at the door.

  “Yes!” cried the old woman shrilly, “that’s the blaggard right enough. That’s my shawl over his ’ed! An’ my other frock! An’ my boots! An’—an’ what ha’ ye done with my bonnet, you low thief? Sergeant, he’s been an’ sold my best bonnet!”

  “What?” cried Mr. Bostock. “Are these things yours?”

  “Course they are, impidence! Comin’ into people’s ’ouses a-night an’ stealin’ wittles, an’—’’

  “Then I give that woman in charge!” interrupted Mr. Bostock. “She’s stolen my clothes, and ten pounds, and a pocket-book, and my watch and chain!”

  At this the old woman spluttered with rage, and the two policemen guffawed aloud. “You’re a gay ’un, you are! There ain’t no watch-pocket in them clothes! You shall have ’em, my boy—we’re a-goin’ to put ’em on ye afore we take ye back. Here y’are!”

  With these words Mr. Bostock was forced in at the door of the cottage, and so to a room at the back.

  “Here’s yer clothes, my hearty,” proceeded the sergeant; “and precious glad you’ll be to get into ’em again, I don’t think. Come along!”

  With that he shut the door behind them, and presented to Mr. Bostock’s astounded eyes—a suit of drabbish yellow, decorated with black “broad arrows!” Nothing but the uniform of the convict prison!

  Mr. Bostock stared wildly. Was this some frenzied nightmare, or was he really stark mad?

  He gabbled incoherently. “No, no—stole my clothes—bathing—not them—name of Bostock—refer to my bankers—no—it’s all a mistake!” And then he stopped, with open mouth, as the state of the case dawned on him slowly.

  Some wretched convict had escaped and left these things. He had entered the cottage in the night for food, had gone off disguised in the only clothes he could find, and had wandered, hiding in lonely paces, till he had reached the sea-shore. And then he had made another change, at Mr. Bostock’s expense!

  And, indeed, that was exactly what had happened. And the curiosity of the police at Beachpool, the chase, and now the final capture—all were due to that invaluable invention, the telephone.

  “Come along—into ’em!” urged the sergeant, with the horrible clothes in his hand. “You was precious anxious about ’em just now. Or shall we shove ’em on for ye?”

  “No, no, I tell you—it’s a mistake. Take me to Scarbourne—no, wire to Cornhill! I’ll give you five pounds—ten—fifty!” Poor Mr. Bostock struggled to his feet and feebly made for the door.

  The succeeding quarter of an hour is too painful for description. But at its expiration Mr. Bostock was led forth in convict garb—it was very tight, but in the flush of their triumph the village police force of two suspected nothing from that—and pushed into a light cart with a fast horse, in presence of the whole population of the village. All that his struggle had gained for him was the distinction and interest, in the popular eye, of being very firmly handcuffed.

  * * * *

  The horse was whipped up and the village was left behind, which at any rate was some relief. Twenty minutes’ smart drive brought the party within distant sight of Scarbourne, and within very near sight of an open carriage, which they rapidly overtook. Mr. Bostock’s disorganized faculties were barely beginning to rearrange themselves, but he did recognize that carriage, and the people in it. With a gasp he slid off the seat, to hide himself in the bottom of the cart.

  “Hold up!” exhorted the constable, hauling at his arm. “Sergeant! he’s tryin’ to hide from them ladies in the carriage! P’r’aps he’s had somethink o’ theirs!”

  The sergeant gazed down on the cowering form, and then gave the horse an extra flick. “P’r’aps he has,” he said. “We’ll ask ’em.”

  And thus it came about that Mr. Bostock, grimy, bruised, handcuffed, and bedizened with broad-arrows, was hauled up from the bottom of the cart and presented for identification to the horrified gaze of Mrs. Bostock, Miss Bostock, Miss Julia Bostock, Mrs. Berkeley Wiggs, and the coachman on the box.

  After that nothing mattered. The handsome apologies of the prison governor were a mockery, for Mr. Bostock would have preferred to stay with him.

  THE HOUSE OF HADDOCK

  Roboshobery Dove hauled at the twist-knotted cord by his side till his enormous silver watch emerged from its fob. According to immemorial ritual he banged the long-suffering timepice three times edgewise on the socket of his wooden leg, clapped it to his ear, and finally looked at the face, comparing it with that of the old sun-dial over the church door behind us.

  “’Taren’t to be judged the sun’s nigh two hours out, so ’tis like it may be the watch,” he said. “An’ none so much out, nayther, considerin’. ’Tis a wunnerful good watch for all its an oad ’un.”

  “Your father’s, wasn’t it?” I asked, indolently.

  “My father gave fi’ pun’ for that watch, sir, at foulness, before eighteen hundred,” for this conversation took place a good many years ago, when I was a very young person and Roboshobery Dove was not so many years short of ninety, tough old fellow as he was. “He gave fi’ pun’ for it of a man whose father had been a genelman once.”

  We were sitting on the tombstone before the church door; the tombstone that had served so many purposes since it had ceased, by reason of illegibility, to keep its charge as a memorial. For it was scored and worn by scythe-blades, it made a convenient waiting-place opposite the church door and the dial, and, if you turned your back on the church, as we had done, you looked out upon what always seemed to me the most wonderful view on earth; over the tumbling roofs of the little town below and so across the five miles’ width of sea that makes the outer gate of the Thames. It was said that the level stone had had other use
s too; it had been found adapted to certain profane games, in which buttons and halfpennies had their parts; but that was in the old days, before people were all good.

  “Ay,” repeated Roboshobery Dove, “his father had been a genelman once, an’ his father before him, in foulness, like others I could tell.”

  “The Doves, eh?” I suggested.

  “That I won’t say, sir, though true ’tis I was christened after Roboshohery Dove as fit for King Charles agin Crom’ell. ‘’Tis arl a possibility,’ says the parson to my father, ‘that you be descendants, an’ ’tis a fine handsome name.’ An’ so he christened me. That were Master Ellwood. He were a parson o’ th’ oad sort, were he. Wore silver buckles to his breeches, an’ slep’ in his wig; an’ his walkin’ stick were five foot long.”

  I had heard Roboshobery so describe Parson Ellwood more than once before; and experience told me that the old seaman was groping his mind for a story. So I waited.

  “Speakin’ o’ oad families come down, an’ likewise speakin’ o’ Crom’ell,” he said at length, “folk’ll tell ’ee mostly, when things is broke in a church, as ’twere Crom’ell’s sogers did it. Leastways that’s what ye hear in these parts. But ’taren’t so—not allus. You know the Haddock monument in the church, with the head off? Well I count they’ll lay that to Crom’ell’s sogers, but ’tweren’t. I knew the oad soger as did that, an’ he were none o’ Crom’ell’s; far from a soger at all, sarten to say. I’ll tell ’ee his courtin’ tale, if you like.”

  “A courting tale? That’s new. You never told me one of your own.”

  Roboshobery Dove closed one bright blue eye for a full quarter of a minute. “Bin a bacheldor all my life,” he said. Then he opened the closed eye and shut the other.

  “Very well,” I said. “Go on.”

  “The Haddock as that monument was to,” Dove proceeded, “was him as built the almshouses. It were a big family once—admirals an’ knights an’ what not: but the one as left the alms-houses were nayther, though a rich man, ’tis doubtless. I dunno how many years ’tis since they were rich, but I count it’s hundreds; an’ now there’s none on ’em, rich or poor.” So much I had myself read in the county history, where the family, once the greatest in these parts, was noted as extinct.

  “There’s no more of ’em,” the old man pursued, “an’ I knowed the last. He were a long way from knight or admiral, or even rich man, though he were a bit of a miser in his way. Jim Haddock were his name—oad Jim Haddock, as mostly called—an’ he got his livin’ one way an’ another with a bit o’ field-work here an’ there an’ a bit o’ higglin’ in between, him keepin’ fowls. His father before him had been a hedger, and his gran’father too, like as not; but oad Jim couldn’t forget as the family had been gentry once, an’ he didn’t let nobody else forget it, nayther. The taproom weren’t good enough for he; he’d sit in the parlor o’ the Ship here, or the Castle, up at Hadleigh, an’ wait to be asked to drink. If nobody offered him rum, he’d take sixpenny ale—nothin’ lower. An’ he’d sniff over the pot an’ screw his mouth, like as ’twere an insult he were swallerin’.

  “‘’Tis a wicked thing to think on,’ he’d say, ‘me here drinkin’ six-ale as was born by rights to be drunk on port wine every night o’ my life, like any other genelman. Ah well! Human greatness be a passin’ show!’ But he’d go on a-sniffin’ an’ drinkin’ the sixpenny just as long as you’d go on payin’ for it, an’ longer. An’ the next man ’ud hear a deal of his mighty grievance agin you, because ’tweren’t better drink.

  “When he sold ten eggs once an’ got threepence for ’em, same as any other man was glad to get in them days, he went half round the parish with the money in his open hand before him, callin’ the world to witness his hainish afflictions, whereby he’d a-bin give only three dirty coppers for ten eggs, like any common feller. He would ha’ gone all round ’stead of half, but the half-way came down on Leigh Strand there, an’ a chap three sheets in the wind fetches him a lift under the hand with a boat-stretcher as sent the coppers flyin’ across the quay, an’ he never found more’n one of ’em.

  “He never complained in that exact way afterwards, but he complained just as much. He got back that twopence an’ a deal more, one way an’ another. He used to forget to give change whenever you’d let him, an’ talk wide an’ noble about the word of a genelman if you tried to putt it right. His idea of a share in a harvestin’ job was to draw summat on account, an’ then sit on a beer-barr’l an’ tell the master how the work ote to be done, very condescendin’.

  “But the wust of all his troubles, the most hainish grievance oad Jim Haddock ever had, were the alms-houses. It grieved him sick to see a bit o’ freehold ground an’ twelve cottages as had belonged to some great gran’ father of his, about ten times removed, bein’ lived in by other parties, an’ him a-looking on an’ gettin’ nothen’ out on’t. He thote over it an’ he grieved over it, an’ he thote over it again, till at last he went to the rector. ’Twere the rector and churchwardens, you understand, as had the management of the alms-houses, by will of oad Jerry Haddock. ’Twere a huntin’ day when oad Jim went to the rectory, an’ the rector were waitin’ for his hoss to be brote round, an’ gettin’ impatient.

  “‘Good-morning sir,’ says oad Jim. ‘I been a-thinkin’ over the matter o’ them almshouses.’

  “‘Oh, you have, have you?’ says the rector, cockin’ his eye.

  “‘I have,’ says oad Jim, very firm an’ decided. ‘I’ve been a-considerin’ the matter very deep. It seems to me as how my fam’ly has been out o’ that there property long enough. I don’t want to be hard on nobody, but the circumstances o’ the fam’ly ain’t what they was! so I’m compelled to give notice. I’ll thank ’ee to clear out all them oad parties, parson, by quarter day.’

  “What the rector said ain’t quite sarten. I’ve heard different accounts, an’ none of ’em ain’t what you might expect from a parson, these here days. But that rector were one o’ th’ oad sort, an’ anyhow what he did is sarten. He took oad Jim by the scruff o’ the neck an’ he runned him out o’ the rectory garden that fast that he den’t stop till he hit up agen this here churchyard fence.

  “Oad Jim Haddock took it bitter unkind o’ the parson, an’ complained most touchin’ to everybody as ’ud listen. ’Tweren’t the way for one genelman to treat another, he said; the proper way, when two genelmen couldn’t agree on a matter o’ business, was to split the difference; an’ he’d a been very well satisfied with half the alms-houses.

  “Well, he went on complainin’ very woeful; but seein’ he couldn’t do no better he settled with hisself at last to get one o’ the houses in the reg’lar way. You know what it says—it’s up in the church—about the alms-houses bein’ for decayed parishioners, men an’ women, married an’ single. Well, oad Jim were pretty sound an’ able for work, an’ not quite what you might look for in an alms-house, but he reckoned his fam’ly claims ’ud get over that. The houses were allus full, but there were one poor oad chap named Styles in one, about eighty-five, with a stroke down one side an’ a cough that joggled him to bits, an’ oad Jim counted his house as good as took, in a month or two. He went in, most wonnerful affectionate, every day, to see how poor oad Styles were a-gettin’ on, an’ to slap him very hard on the back when he coughed, an’ tell him how much wuss he was a-lookin’.

  “Oad Styles lasted about a month longer than Jim expected, but he went arter all, an’ then there was another disappointment, for instead o’ oad Jim they putt a widder into the house. Not so partic’lar oad a widder, neither; but she’d had two husbands, an ’tis like they counted she wouldn’t easy get a third. But anyhow oad Jim Haddock went half-cracked. He said a mort of unrespectful things about oad Jerry Haddock wasting the family substance in riotous almshouses, an’ then he went to the rector again. The rector den’t run him out this time; oad Jim runned hisself when the parson grabbed his walkin’-stick. So when he
found it was no good tryin’ that way, he set out to see the widder herself.

  “‘Good-morning, Mrs. Bartrip,’ say he, sniffin’ an’ snuffin’ an’ screwin’ his nose. ‘Umf! umf! Be you decayed?’

  “‘What?’ says the widder, lookin’ very hard at him.

  “‘I were only makin’ inquiration,’ says he, a bit milder. ‘The rules o’ the will says decayed parishioners, an’ I felt a bit anxious about ’ee. If so be you ben’t decayed I doubt the parson’ll be after turnin’ ’ee out. He be terr’ble strict, the parson. An’ the churchwardens too. ’Tis a very serious punishment, by Parliament act, for livin’ here if you ben’t decayed. But there—I make no doubt you be ’cordin’ to rules, Mrs. Bartrip.’

  “‘I be ’cordin’ enough to rules to stay where I am,’ says the widder.

  “‘Ah, no doubt,’ says oad Jim. ‘The pity is ’tis knowed all over the parish. Can’t help it, ye see, livin’ here, ’cordin’ to rules. Though ’tain’t what a party ’ud like knowed an’ talked about. Still, no doubt ’tis what parties come to, gettin’ so far on in years.’

  “‘Is’t, indeed?’ says the widder, liftin’ her chin.

  “‘Ah, they do. Not that there’s anythin’ to be ashamed of in a few years more or less, for a sensible woman. When you get to sixty, ten years here or there don’t make much difference.’

  “‘What do I know about sixty?’ says the widder.

  “‘Oh, I’m not tryin’ to bind ye to sixty, Mrs. Bartrip; far from it. Sixty or seventy makes nothen’, as I said, an’ some decays later’n others. Poor oad Styles, now, he were late. Some thote ’twere the house bein’ unhealthy; an’ sarten to say he were terr’ble bad toward the end. But he lasted fair well, did poor oad Styles. He were over two year here, an’ I count ye might last quite as long as that, if the house don’t get no damper. An’ that wouldn’t seem easy possible, ’tis sarten.’