The light was a great relief, for it revealed the fact that at least the place was free from visible insects. He could see now that his cell was wooden—top, bottom, and sides; and then came burned fingers and sudden darkness. He lit another match, and satisfied himself that there was no cranny, nor even a keyhole, through which peeping was possible; then he lit another to pick up those remaining, and another after that.
“Now then!” came the voice again. “Leave off strikin’ them matches!”
Johnson stopped, bumped his head again, and scrambled to his seat. Then he found courage to speak. “I say—” he began.
“You stow that row, d’y’ear? Shut up.”
The prisoner said no more, but waited. Strange noises reached his ear from some faraway part of the building, and a little nearer there were subdued creakings. He began to remember stories of mysterious rooms that closed up and crushed men imprisoned in them; of weighted ceilings that fell; of chambers slowly filled with poisonous gas. As he sat he began to tremble; and as the minutes passed he felt himself growing desperate with fear. He wished he had allowed himself to be handed to the police, for at least he knew what that meant. But now—he could not endure much longer. He had made up his mind, come what might, to shout his loudest for help; when, as he stood feeling the hundredth time for the door-fastening, he was suddenly flung backward and down, confusedly realizing that the cupboard was shooting upward bodily. Was the thing a lift?
It stopped with a jerk, and the prisoner, recovering his legs, was aware of a loud and now familiar voice. There was a tap on the door, and a click; and instantly it flew open, and Johnson was blinded by a flood of light and deafened by a roar of sound.
Hundreds of faces stared at him from a great hall, as many voices shouted a delighted greeting, and twice as many hands clapped loud applause. The cupboard stood open on a brilliantly lighted stage, and by it stood the sardonic stranger in evening dress, with a black wand in his hand; while Johnson, gasping and dishevelled, blinked and cowered helplessly.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” cried the conjurer, “I have the honor to introduce Mr. Johnson, alias Jones, alias Barker, alias Jenkinson, the eminent pickpocket. You will remember that when I enclosed the lady in the cabinet I promised you quite a new and original dénouement to the performance—something never before attempted. I think I have fulfilled my promise. Not only has the lady disappeared, but by an extraordinary application of occult natural forces I have brought into her place a pickpocket snatched this moment from his nefarious practices in Oxford Street. You observe his confusion? What more natural? But two minutes ago his hand was in the pocket of an eminent and distinguished gentleman, much like myself in appearance, seeking that gentleman’s purse. In an instant—whist! he finds himself placed before you on this stage, half a mile off. Ladies and gentlemen, it is just possible that some among you suspected the lady who disappeared of being a confederate of mine; but I defy any one of you to call this man a confederate. Does he look like it? Does he look as though he came here on purpose? Has he the calm, self-possessed, happy, smiling appearance natural to any man who has the good fortune to be in my employment? Look at him. Some gentleman who has ever had his pocket picked may remember him; if any of you are connected with the police you are sure to know him. He has been brought up at half the police-courts in London and has been convicted at the Old Bailey and the Sessions House over and over again. He has just completed nine months’ board and residence at this country’s expense, under the name of Jenkinson; if he hadn’t changed his name he’d have got more. Are you quite convinced, ladies and gentlemen, that he is not a confederate? Any test you like to suggest will be applied. Is there any lady present he has ever robbed who would like to stick a bonnet-pin into him? No? Don’t hesitate—you are quite welcome, I assure you. Come now, I wish you would. You see, under the Employer’s Liability Act I am liable for any injury occurring to people I employ, but I don’t care what happens to this chap. Come now, let me persuade you. Isn’t there any dear, kind lady present, who will oblige me by sticking a bonnet-pin into this criminal, just to oblige me? It doesn’t matter whether he has robbed you or not—I don’t mind. He’d rob you if he could, you know. Here he is.” He seized the wretched Johnson by the collar, and thrust him forward. “I always find ladies very obliging,” he went on. “Surely you won’t all be so unkind as to refuse just to stick him with a bonnet-pin while I hold him? Just to help me convince the company, now?”
There were laughs and titters, and the conjurer whispered from behind: “All right, you fool, they won’t do it.” Then he proceeded, aloud: “You won’t? Not one of you? Then I shall have to try something else. I’m always glad to introduce a novelty into my performance, and I’ll think you’ll admit that this is the first time a real live pickpocket has ever been brought upon the stage in this extraordinary manner. Having got him here it would be a pity to waste him, wouldn’t it? Very well. I will proceed to try a little experiment with a view to showing how dishonesty would be dealt with in this country, if I were Prime Minister. Will any ladies and gentlemen in the company oblige me by the loan of a few small articles of value? A few rings, a watch, a gold pencil-case—anything of that sort, you know. I’m sure I shan’t have to wait long for things like that with such a high-class audience as this. Come now—thank you, sir; a ring; a valuable diamond ring from a gentleman in the second row. Yes? Thank you, madam—a locket. A gold watch? I should like a gold watch—and so would Mr. Johnson, I am sure. Here it comes—thank you, sir. A gold pencil-case—two more rings, a chain, and a silver match-box; thank you—thank you. I think that will do; we mustn’t risk too much on a first experiment, you know. Now I should like some gentleman from the company to assist me by placing these articles in Mr. Johnson’s pockets, in full sight of the house. Will you, sir? Thank you; just step up here. Now, will you please take the articles one by one from the table, and place them separately in any of the criminal’s pockets you choose. Well in sight of the company, mind. Stand a little aside—that’s it—so that everything shall be perfectly clear. I need hardly assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that this gentleman is no confederate of mine. I do not invite you to test it by sticking a bonnet-pin into him—he is a good deal bigger than Johnson, and it might not be safe. I am sure you will accept his word of honor from a gentleman of his size.”
The gentleman approached Johnson and followed the conjurer’s instructions, and the conjurer, from a little way off, reported the bestowal of each article aloud. “Gold watch in right-hand waistcoat-pocket; diamond ring in left-hand waistcoat-pocket; chain in inside coat-pocket;” and so forth. As for Johnson, he began to feel a good deal happier. He resented the indignities to which he had been subjected, of course, but, after all, he had expected something much worse than this. All the bewilderment and anxiety of the earlier part of the adventure were at an end now, and all was plain enough. The conjurer had scored heavily, it was true, and the effect of Johnson’s appearance in the cabinet, aghast and panic-stricken, was something altogether beyond the possibilities of ordinary preparation and rehearsal. But Johnson’s relief was immense, and now the novel experience of having his pockets voluntarily stuffed with valuables was rather pleasant than otherwise. Johnson was himself again, and vastly on the alert for fresh moves in the game.
The gentleman descended from the platform, and the conjurer came forward. “Now, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “you have seen the articles safely—or shall we say unsafely?—placed in the thief’s pockets. But to make everything perfectly plain, and to identify the owner of each, I will just rapidly run over them again. This ring, sir—you see it? You are sure you identify it? It is your property, and you will remember that it is in the left-hand waistcoat-pocket, where I carefully replace it, as you see. The watch—that is yours, sir; you may examine it again, if you please. No? Well, you will bear in mind that it is in the thief’s right-hand waistcoat-pocket. There it is. This chain—the owner of this chai
n may see that no substitution has been made—is in the inside coat-pocket, on the left. Remember that, please.”
The company, vastly interested, watched the apparent return of each trinket, but Johnson knew better. Nothing but the conjurer’s fingers entered each pocket in turn, and nothing remained there at all. Somewhere within the breast of the conjurer’s coat was a spot over which his fingers flickered instantaneously after each pocket was done with; and when at last he turned away, ostentatiously dusting his fingers with his pocket-handkerchief after the contamination of Johnson, the handkerchief also flickered over that same spot. So much Johnson observed with eyes trained by use in all matters concerned with pockets.
The conjurer stepped between Johnson and the company, putting his pocket-handkerchief into his coat-tail pocket; and Johnson saw that something black went with it.
“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” said the conjurer, “the experiment I am about to make is one of the greatest interest to every law-abiding person. I propose to show you how, by proper scientific precautions known only to myself, all theft, all dishonesty, may be rendered ineffectual and useless.”
Gesticulating and bowing elegantly as he spoke, the conjurer stepped so closely before Johnson that only one thing could happen, and that was inevitable. Johnson had nothing but one small talent, as I have said; he could pick a pocket very well indeed—probably better than the conjurer. He picked one now. The black thing was a little velvet bag, soft and flat, as Johnson felt when it was safely in his own pocket. And the conjurer, with all eyes on him, went on.
“Just consider, now, how valuable my process would be to the Government of this country. Half the police force might be disbanded, and most of the magistrates pensioned off. People like our friend Johnson, alias Jones, alias Barker, alias Jenkinson, would have to turn honest, or starve. Now for the experiment.”
He turned and caught Johnson once more by the collar. “Here you see, is the pickpocket whom I brought straight out of Oxford Street by the exercise of the wonderful scientific law to which I have alluded. Here he is, with your valuables in his pockets, as you have observed with your own eyes. Now I shall send Johnson away—turn him out, kick him out—from this place, and let him run where he likes; and when he is gone I shall endeavor, by my scientific process, to bring your valuables back here, just as I brought Johnson himself, and restore them to you in a way that I hope will surprise you. Now Johnson, alias Jones, alias Barker, alias Jenkinson, out you go, and keep what you’ve got if you can! Ladies and gentlemen you will agree that I could not afford to kick a confederate—he would give me away. So as a guarantee of good faith I kick Johnson off the platform. Hall-porter! Run this man off the premises, and never let him come here again!”
He swung Johnson to the end of the platform, thrust him over the edge with hand and foot, and stood bowing and waving his wand as the porter bundled the victim out. “Good-bye, Mr. Johnson!” cried the conjurer; “good-bye! Run as hard as ever you can!”
As soon as Johnson reached the street he obeyed this order with all the strength of his legs, barely observing from the corner of his eye that the front of the hall was covered with posters announcing afternoon and evening performances by the great Lucifo, the Wizard of Andalusia. And when he had run some distance he turned into a dark entry and there disentangled from the velvet bag the gold watch, the three rings, the chain, the gold pencil-case, and the silver match-box.
“He was mighty anxious,” reflected Johnson, “for some proof that I wasn’t his pal. Well, he’s got it now, and I hope he’s satisfied.”
For some days Johnson never ventured out till after dark; but his days at home were not dull, for he had bought a small collection of newspapers; wherefrom he derived solace and chuckles, as he read and read again under the headings: “Riotous Scene at an Entertainment,” “Extraordinary Occurrence at St. Basil’s Hall,” “Serious Attack on a Conjurer”; and, in the case of an irresponsible halfpenny evening paper, “Lucifo Lamentably Left.”
ARTS AND CRAFTS
In the early fifties a stranger in the parlor of the Castle Inn at Hadleigh was rarity enough, but a stranger sleeping in the house for two nights was almost beyond precedent. But at the time of this tale the stranger was there, visible at a great distance because of his size and the redness of his face, and audible farther because of a very assertive and persistent voice, too large even for the man. The man was Mr. Peter Fossett of Kelvedon, who had come to take over a stock of sheep; and on the evening of his arrival the parlor at the Castle was so full of Mr. Peter Fossett that the more regular company seemed to be squeezed into the corners. Even Abel Pennyfather was less noisy and less boastful. Old Harry Prentice and Banham the carrier were much impressed, but the waggish sparkle of Dan Fisk’s squint waxed as the evening wore on.
The stranger (“foreigner” was the word among the older Hadleigh people) was a farmer exceptionally well-to-do by the merit of his fathers before him. He had ridden the thirty miles on a handsome mare, with a man to drive the sheep back, and while the master took his ease with brandy-and-water in the parlor, the man took beer and dispensed information in the taproom. It was not so much of his possessions and his prosperity that Mr. Peter Fossett talked in the parlor—that matter expanded freely enough from the man in the taproom—but of his most amazing sagacity and unbounded smartness; whereof he had many anecdotes, not always clear in front, though all unfailingly satisfactory to Mr. Fossett, and mightily redounding to his glory and triumph.
“I ha’n’t been a-nigh Hadleigh afore in my life,” said Mr. Fossett, unflaggingly providing the conversation and keeping it to the same subject. “Never before, though I’m turned o’ thirty. I’m a Kelvedon man, an’ I’ve took a rise out o’ some of ’em in most parts of Essex—ah, an’ London too, once or twice—an’ now I’ve come here. You’ve got an oad chap here I mean to have a look at, ’fore I go back. I’ve heard a deal of him here an’ there about Essex; him they call Cunning Murrell, I mean.”
“Ah, Cunning Murrell, eh?” interjected Dan Fisk, scenting amusement. “If you’ve come here to take a rise out o’ he, you’d better stop a bit an’ rent a house.”
Mr. Fossett turned his beefy face slowly toward Dan Fisk’s corner. “Ho!” he said, with a voice of vast scorn, “you’re one o’ them as believes in him, I count?”
Dan beamed gently. “Ay, sarten to say,” he admitted, “Cunning Murrell be a monsus clever man.”
“Herbs an’ cures an’ surveyin’,” murmured Banham.
“Witchcraft an’ things stole,” Prentice added, with a shake of the head.
“Fortunes in the stars,” added Jobson.
“An’ visions in a pail,” said another. “Sayin’ nothen’ o’ warts cured overnight.”
“Ah! fortunes in the stars an’ visions in a pail!” blared the stranger contemptuously. “A monsus clever man, sarten to say—for Hadleigh!”
“Cunnin’ Murr’ll be knowed arl over Essex an’ farther,” maintained Jobson.
“Ay, true enough. Fools an’ their gammick go everywhere. Your oad Murrell may be mighty clever for Hadleigh, but he wouldn’t do for Kelvedon—not he! Not with me at home, he wouldn’t! ’Tis sarten he seems to come it over you mighty easy, but I hoad a pound he can’t come over me! Not he! I’m going to have a look at this oad curiosity with his fortun’-tellin’ an’ wisions in buckets. He don’t come over me with such truck!”
“Ay, I count you be a man not easy took in, Master Fossett, sir,” cooed Dan Fisk, in honeyed tones, whereat anybody who knew Dan would have taken warning. But the stranger knew not Dan, and went on vaingloriously.
“Ay, I count I be,” he said. “You needn’t take it from me—ask anywhere I’m knowed. Lord, I dunno where I’d be if I weren’t. Why I’d ha’ bin married, for one thing, long afore this. But I ain’t!”
“Ah,” murmured Dan, “I count there be a mortial great competition.”
“Ay, mayhap,” answered Mr. Fossett, complacently, “though ’taren’t my ways to talk o’ that. But I ain’t met man or woman yet as could get the better o’ me, an’ I’ve a-been about the world a bit, too—twice in Lon-don, an’ Ipswich an’ Colchester—an’ I’ve larned a sight too much to be took in by such oad fellars as this here Murrell o’ yourn.”
“Well,” observed Prentice, “he ha’n’t tried to take you in yet.”
“True ’tis,” replied Fossett, “though I most mighty wish he would! Ay, I count I’d like him to try!”
“’Tis easy enough to let him try,” remarked Dan Fisk; “easy enough if you ben’t afeared of him.”
“Afeared of him! Do I fare afeared of him? An—oad—oad—why, I’ll show him up afore ye all! I’ll make ye laugh at him, here in Hadleigh, that I will! If he ben’t afeared to face me, that is!”
“Oh, he’ll see ye, if ye go businesslike in the mornin’. He’s not to know his mortial danger. ’Tis a cur’ous venture!”
“I’ll go! I’ll hev a joke on oad Murrell!”
And so between the doubts of the rest and the careful management of Dan Fisk, alternately flattering and challenging, Mr. Peter Fossett was brought to promise a vast exposure of Murrell on the morrow. And by the time he had gone to bed he had been brought to hint darkly at schemes of preternatural sagacity whereby the whole Murrell superstition should be exposed to the eternal derision of Essex, beginning at Hadleigh itself; and generally to proclaim Cunning Murrell already a vanquished humbug.
Nevertheless he went to bed far fuller of brandy-and-water than of schemes, and woke in the morning with no schemes at all. Indeed, Mr. Fossett was not a man of invention, though he was none the less self-confident on that account. He finished his large breakfast, stretched his large limbs, and rolled out into Hadleigh street resolved to gratify his curiosity by a call on Cunning Murrell, and in no sort doubtful of his ability to put the wise man’s inventions to rout. His scheme should come, he promised himself, when he heard what Murrell had to say. And so it did.
The Arthur Morrison Mystery Page 165