The Arthur Morrison Mystery

by Arthur Morrison

  “O the trees are growing high, and the leaves are long and green,

  The time is past and gone, my dear, that you and I have seen!”

  And now it reached even the ears of Mrs. Finch; and she ran to the old man’s room, where he sat before the window that looked on to the old church.

  “Mr. Lea!” she cried. “There’s a fiddle!”

  But she got no answer.

  A PROFESSIONAL EPISODE

  Published in The Pall Mall Magazine, August 1913

  The man of middle age is stricken with a sense of odd surprise when he hears the sixties of the nineteenth century spoken of as years of a picturesque and romantic past; when he sees the costumes of those days worn at fancy-dress balls, and the brocades sought as examples of bygone art. But the error is his own. Let him consider the days of even a decade later in contrast with the present time, and he will perceive that in daily habit and environment the seventies of that century are as far from us as the beginning of any earlier century from its end.

  If you care to rake the newspaper files of the early half of those seventies, you will come on the report of the trial, at the Old Bailey, of James Renton for the murder of Solomon Creech, a tallyman; but it is a dull and commonplace report, not worth the dust of the hunt. The tallyman had wound Renton’s wife into his net of debt, where a hundred more were tied already, behind her husband’s back; and, confronted at last with the news in the shape of a hopeless judgment summons, the infuriated Renton had turned on the tallyman with what chanced to be in his hand—a shovel—and beat him about the head with it. The verdict was “Guilty,” and the sentence that which the law provides.

  So there came a certain Monday morning when a little crowd gathered on the pavement opposite Newgate jail to watch for the rise of the black flag. Another crowd, rather larger, stood by the rails of St. Sepulchre’s churchyard, with a backing of boys clinging to the rails themselves; for it was not so long since the last of the public executions, and popular interest in the hangman and his doings persisted. Still, it was not a murder of great popular repute, or the numbers would have been greater.

  A tallyman could expect little tenderness from such as stood in this crowd; and such languid sympathy as was going was on the side of the murderer. “Sarve ’im right—comin’ carneyin’ round a man’s wife an’ gettin’ ’im in debt,” was the average sentiment, expressed in slight variants of that formula. But a pieman and a hot-pea dealer from Smithfield market, being in trade themselves, maintained that he—the murderer being now understood—had no right to kill the man, all the same: and it was generally admitted, on reflection, that there was something in that, too; and, this equilibrium of opinion being established, the bell of St. Sepulchre’s broke in with its ominous toll.

  People began to watch the church clock, and the few who had watches pulled them out. James Renton’s life was counted out in minutes: fifteen, ten, five, four; then three, two, and one. The crowd was very quiet, and looked no longer at the clock, but at the flagstaff opposite. The halyard was seen to shake clear, and one or two of the older men, with the habit of public executions—one was the pieman—took off their hats; and with that the black flag broke out and rose, and James Renton’s last debt was paid. A curious sound, something of a loud murmur, but not unlike a cough, broke the silence, and a few boys shouted; and then parts of the crowd scattered, but slowly at first. A knot of women, voluble, with willing shudders, straggled into the nearest public-house to remedy the “turn” they had endured; the idle stood and stared at the black flag till the bell had ceased tolling, and afterward; and the rest drifted off a few at a time.

  Small trace of James Renton was left on the face of London, save in a little house of a row in a suburb; a row with little yards behind and long gardens in front, bright with hollyhocks and scarlet runners. One garden only looked neglected, as in fact it was; for it had lain untouched since James Renton was taken away from it; and the curtains of the little house were drawn close.

  In a grimy printer’s shop in Seven Dials a ragged chanter-cove, who reminded the shopman that a man was being hanged that morning, was told that no more last dying confessions would be printed, except possibly in some case of unusual popular excitement. “No good now,” said the shopman. “Look at all them left-overs from the last—dead loss they are. You can ’ave ’em at yer own price, an’ cut off the tops if you like.”

  But the speculation did not attract the chanter, so that even his commemoration was denied to James Renton; and the chanter’s voice was presently to be heard singing “Sweet Belle Mahone” in Castle Street.

  Over Newgate prison the black flag fluttered its hour, and came down almost unnoticed. The traffic in the Old Bailey grew thicker, and wagons clustered about the carriers’ yards. The streets were filled with the day’s business, and the thought that a man had been hanged that morning was wiped from the passer’s mind. A person familiar with the routine might have noticed the coroner’s jury as it filtered in, and, later straggled away; but, as a fact, nobody did notice, except perchance a loafing errand-boy.

  The jury had been gone an hour or nearly when a solitary man slipped quietly away from the same door—more quietly and unobtrusively than the jury’s meekest member. Small, mild, and insignificant in the scurry of the roaring street clad in rusty black, with an ill-kept tall hat on his head and a carpet bag in his hand, he passed on his way, the unnoticed picture of dismal commonplace. Yet here was the angel of death as it had met the bodily eye of many men; and James Renton not four hours ago.

  A small mongrel dog that had been running about uneasily among the legs of the people at the court-house and in the street came after the man at a bolt, caught him short of the corner of Ludgate Hill, and pawed joyfully at his legs and his carpet bag. The man stopped, surprised, and glanced furtively up the street behind him. Then he gave the dog a word and a rub of the head and went on, with the dog now trotting at his heels.

  Across Ludgate Hill, down to the Circus and up Fleet Street, the hangman went unobserved and unobservant, till, a little way beyond Bonverie Street, he turned through the doorway of a public-house and made for the innermost snuggery at the back. He carefully held the door to admit the dog, and was greeted by three customers already seated near the bar.

  These three presented a great contrast in appearance and manner with the hangman. They were well dressed in their different ways, and clearly were of a class little to be suspected of personal acquaintance with him. But they had their own contrasts, also, though all three were young men. One, quiet in dress and manner, with a keen and inquiring eye, would have seemed well in place in any chambers of the adjoining Temple or in one of the larger number of clubs in Pall Mall. The second, of about the same age, might also have been seen in the Temple, but would have been less conspicuous in a rat-pit. He wore a short drab overcoat, bound in very wide and shiny braid, a plaid tie, and a horse-shoe pin a little short of natural size, and a harassing check suit was visible beneath the coat. The third was a very young man, obviously under the tutelage of him of the plaid tie, and anxious to see life in a modest copy of his mentor’s apparel.

  “Ha! Old cockalorum at last,” said the man of the plaid tie. “We’d begun to think the jury ’d done the right thing after all and made it ‘Wilful Murder’ against you, and you’d gone and tied yourself up, as was right and proper. What’s the gargle? The usual, or something short this time?”

  The hangman stopped, looked thoughtfully at the bar and then quickly back to the speaker. “Thankee, Mr. Crick,” he said, “I think I will ’ave somethin’ short this time. Mild an’ bitter’s my ’abit, as you know, but this time—rum cold.”

  “Done with you,” said Mr. Crick, lugging out a large cigar-case; “and a smoke? No? Rather have your pipe? Very well. Warren?” The quiet young man lifted the cigar already in his hand. “No? Then you, Mellor. Don’t all insult ’em.”

  The callow youth, smil
ing rather uneasily, took a very black and deadly cigar, and lit, it resolutely.

  “This is my friend Mellor,” proceeded the loquacious Crick, with a wave of his hand between the two. “Take a good look and tell us how much rope you’d give him. He’s got the measure of all his friends, you know,” he went on, with a wink and a jerk of the band toward the hangman, “and I was quite flattered when I knew I should get a foot more drop than Warren. Hullo, whose dog? Yours?”

  “Why, no, sir,” answered the man in black patting the dog, “not my own; b’longs to a friend. ’E followed me—’e ’a done it afore, though not as far from ’ome as this. Animals takes to me, in a way; cats do. The cat in Newgate’s a great pal o’ mine.”

  “He’s scarcely a pal to be proud of,” Crick observed, with a critical eye to the mongrel’s lack of points. “Pure pedigree tripehound, with a doormat cross, I’d guess. Well, and where’s your news? You’ve hit somebody under the ear with a piece of string this morning, they tell me, and we’ve come to hear about it—Mellor especially. Did he take it game?”

  “Oh, pretty well, as you might say, sir—pretty well. Nothin’ to grumble about, considerin’.”

  The dashing Mellor, with a somewhat glary eye, inwardly much concerned with the black cigar, was helping himself through with cold brandy. “Say anythin’ to you?” he managed to ask with some appearance of interest.

  “You don’t ’appen to ’a’ known ’im, sir, I s’pose?” asked the hangman, turning to Mellor quickly.

  “Know him? No—of course not; didn’t know him,” replied the gallant youth, coughing at a gulp of brandy and regarding the cigar with growing apprehension.

  “Ah, well, there wasn’t much about ’im,” commented the hangman, with an odd air of relief. “Nobody don’t seem to ’a’ took much interest in ’im, else there’d ’a’ been two or three more o’ you gents ’ere to see me. Now, the day when I ’tended to Cracknell for the Mile End case, the bar was pretty-nigh full. ’E was a rum ’un, was Cracknell. I told you about ’im afore, but this genelman ain’t ’eard. Cracknell was a man very much o’ your size an’ appearance, sir,” he went on, turning again to the now thoroughly unhappy Mellor. “When I comes up to ’im with the straps, as it might be to you, ‘Oh,’ says ’e, ‘you’re the bloke, are you?’ he says. ‘Why,’ says he, ‘I’d make a better ’angman out o’ putty.’ he says; an’ then—beg pardon, Mr. Crick, the genelman don’t seem very well.”

  The completely disorganized Mellor, as pallid a figure as ever stood before the man in black, gulped behind his hand, and murmured: “Bit off color; eggs for breakfast; always disagree; think I’ll go outside.”

  “That so?” queried Crick, taking his friend by the arm. “Come along, then—a whiff of fresh air in the Temple. That’ll put it right.” And the hangman watched the aspiring youth go much as he had often seen a white-livered patient going, supported by a turnkey.

  “Young gent tried hisself a bit too high with that cigar, I think,” he commented, turning to Warren. “I didn’t say nothin’ to offend Mr. Crick, did I, Mr. Warren?”

  “Why, no,” replied the quiet young man. “What makes you think so?”

  “Well, I was a bit close about this mornin’s job, an’ I meant to be. I’ve got to be careful about that—an’ there was that noo young gent, too. I didn’t know ’im so well, you see. I should be very sorry to offend genelmen as take an interest in me, but I’ve a very nice little ’ouse just now, with a garden, an’ I don’t want to ’ave to move. I’m partial to gardenin’, you see, sir, and particular interested in clove-pinks; an’ the ground suits clove-pinks wonderful. I ’ave to be very careful, comin’ an’ goin’; and, if you’ll allow me, sir, you’re about the only genelmen I know as I’d let into the secret. Most of ’em’s all right, I know, but they talk an’ go on, and—well, any accident might let it out. I’ve ’ad to move once, because of a pliceman’s wife lettin’ on, an’ I don’t want to move again; besides the garden, the part suits the missis, an’ my darter’s goin’ out teachin’ the pianner, an’ we’re settled very comfortable and friendly with the neighbors—under a special name, of courss. That’s the great advantage of private executions, you see. Now, everybody knew Calcraft, through bein’ seen always in the public jobs. ’E ’ad no peace of ’is life—always movin’. I’ve known ’im ’ooted in the street. I could never ’a’ stood it, bein’ a man as must ’ave peace an’ quiet. It ’ud ’a’ broke my ’art. So I’ve been very worried over this mornin’s job, for that reason. It’s a little awk’ard.”

  “What? This man Renton?”

  The mild little man nodded, and pushed his glass across the bar. “You see,” he explained, “he was the man next door.”

  “What? Your next-door neighbor?”

  The man in black nodded again, thoughtfully. Warren sat up and stared at him, with a faint whistle.

  “That’s ’is dawg,” observed the hangman, with a third nod toward the animal, which pricked an ear and wagged its tail as it caught his eye.

  “’E’s a knowin’ dawg—knowin’, ain’t ye, Billy?” Billy rose and planted his forefeet on the hangman’s leg. “A rare un for findin’ ’is way about. ’E’s often ’ad a run out with me—ain’t ye, Billy? ’E come up to the Old Bailey for the trial—follered Renton’s missis. And he follered her again each time when she went to see Renton after the sentence, with the kids. There was no keepin’ ’im indoors. I reckon he pretty well figured it out to hisself that that was where the guv’nor was, although he couldn’t get in. And so it seems he’s been goin’ up there since, on his own, and today he spotted me comin’ away, an’ was after me like a shot. Felt a bit lonely, did ye, old chap? Ah, you’re a knowin’ card, Billy, but you don’t know all of it, do ye? Or you mightn’t be sich a pal. ’Ere, give ’im a biscuit.”

  The hangman rose, shifted his carpet bag against the side of the bar, and tapped with a coin for the biscuit.

  “So you see,” he resumed. “I’ve been a-thinkin’ about it ever since the trial. I didn’t want to ’ave to move, you see. I’d been great pals with Jimmy Renton—he grew clove-pinks that beat anythink I ever see—and it was on his account I ’ad rum today instead o’ beer; I felt I ought to celebrate it a little, you see. Well, yes, sir, you’re very good. I will ’ave just one more. Best respects. Yes; I felt a bit sentimental about Jimmy Renton, bein’ a pal. His clove-pinks was best part o’ two inches across. I never could find out where he got his roots. He used to say ’e’d give me cuttin’s, but I never could grow ’em like his. He must ’a’ took ’em off his worst plants.”

  Warren had been staring blankly at the other’s face all through these remarks. Now, after a pause, he spoke. “My eyes, man!” he said. “What a situation! Do you mean to say that the poor wretch never suspected who you were till—”

  “Not till I come to ’im this mornin’ with the straps, sir; no. I’d been thinkin’ about it for a week before. I’d been wonderin’ if they’d mind my askin’ him where he got them roots. I thought he wouldn’t mind tellin’ me then. But they’re very particular now, all of ’em, Guv’nor and sheriffs and all, and they might ’a’ said something about it. But, Lor’! I never got a chance. Jimmy went on like Bedlam, the moment he see me. ‘Beck!’ he screams out—Beck’s my private name, sir. You won’t mention it, will you?”

  “Of course not. Go on.”

  “‘Beck!’ he screams out, as if I was a ghost. ‘You’re not Beck?’ And he went back three steps as though I’d pushed him. ‘Good-mornin,’ I says, friendly as I could. ‘No ill-feelin’, I ’ope?’ and puts out my hand. But he stares all round at ’em wild, and he says, ‘Who’s this man?’ he says. ‘Ain’t it Beck?’ And they all crowded in an’ began to ask questions; so I told ’em. The sheriff went white as paper and begun talkin’ to the Guv’nor. But the Guv’nor says to me, ‘Come, you must do your duty’ ‘Yes, sir,’ says I; ‘that’s what I’ve come for. Here�
��s the straps.’ But poor old Jimmy, he was quite broke up. ‘You never told me, Beck!’ he says. And then, ‘Don’t do it, Beck!’ he says, ‘don’t do it!’ while I was strappin’ his arms.

  “I made it as quick a job as I could, and the warders hurried him off, smart. It ain’t very far, but all the way he was callin’ out, ‘Don’t do it. Beck! Don’t do it!’ while the chaplain was readin’ the service.”

  “Ugh!” ejaculated Warren, with a shudder. “Poor, poor devil!”

  “I did my best for ’im,” said the little man in black. “I never spoilt a job yet, but I took double care this time, knowin’ who it was for. I ’tended to the machine a quarter of an hour sooner, so as to get more time, and I went all over everythink a dozen times with a oil-can, and worked the drop till it went with a touch. There wasn’t a thing I could think of I didn’t do, and I got it over as neat and quick as any job I ever did. I couldn’t do less, could I?”

  “And now will you go home and face the man’s wife?”

  “Well, I dunno about facia’ her. She ain’t been showin’ much, and I expected she’d ’a’ cleared out afore now; but she ain’t. We’ll be neighborly, o’ course; anyhow, the missis will.”

  “And what if that woman finds out who you are?”

  “Well, I ’ope not. You see, we don’t want to move. My missis is a bit uneasy about it; ’as been all along.”

  Warren looked thoughtfully in the hangman’s face for a few seconds. Then he said, “Of course the family’s hard up?”

  “I’d say as ’ard up as never was.”