The Arthur Morrison Mystery

by Arthur Morrison

  We were all standin’ round among the bottles and gadgets starin’ and tryin’ to think of some way to turn old Burridge’s jelly into the merry ha’pence, when I happened to peep over Crump’s shoulder into the outer office and there saw a lady. I dropped myxomycetes and skipped out for business.

  This looked more like progress. The lady was labelled money all over. Real lace, no less; diamonds at her neck; gold chain-purse in one hand; gold lorgnette in the other. Not young, no; and a bit severe to look at, especially when she popped up her gold lorgnette and stared at you through it.

  She came to the point straight away—she was ready to invest in anything she was satisfied with. What was this? And before I could begin to explain, there was that oily old flatterer, Bashford Keeble, wagging his venerable locks on the other side of her, and taking the words out of my mouth. Stibbins lay low. He was no society ornament, and he had the sense to know it.

  We pointed out the bricks, and old Bashford Keeble began to discourse at large on bricks as a moral institution. “Bricks, my dear madam,” he said; “bricks produced by this wonderful synthetic process add the advantage of great commercial possibilities to the universal higher significance of the brick in general. The thoughtless throng is apt to ignore the moral import of the brick. The brick in its multitudes gives shelter to the human race, supports the domestic hearth, has its part in the sanctity of the home. It is an inspiring thought—”

  “Yes, yes,” says the lady; “and do these bricks support the domestic hearth any better than the usual kind?”

  “Much,” says Keeble; “it’s one of their chief recommendations.”

  “Also,” I put in, “the whole scheme is more particularly calculated to support in opulence the domestic hearths of those investors who come in privately now—on the ground floor as we say in the City.”

  “Indeed?” she says; “and how do you make the bricks?”

  “By the process invented by our Mr. Burridge, whose name will resound throughout the ages when Newton’s is forgotten. You see, we take hydrated silica of ammonia and magnesia, and then, combining these ingredients with calcium, and adding the proper quantity of potash and free silica, we pass the whole through an intricate process of—er—synthesis, and what with the synthesis of the combination actin’ on the combination of the synthesis, and the consequent reaction on both—why, there you are, don’t you know!”

  “Dear me!” says she, looking hard at me through her lorgnette all the while. “So much simpler than baking clay! Show me something else!”

  Somehow I began to feel that the stroke hadn’t quite come off, but I dashed in on the wood tack.

  “Now, this timber,” I said, pickin’ up the specimen; “we’re anticipatin’ an enormous revenue from chemically produced timber. Quite indistinguishable from the natural article, and free from all knots and defects. Made in any length to order, at a price beyond the reach of competition with e-normous profits. To a lady of your educated intelligence, I need scarcely point out the enormous, the universal demand for timber.”

  “Timber,” says old Keeble, shovin’ in his oar from the other side, “hitherto only to be procured by the barbarous destruction of the fairest scenes of sylvan delight, will now be supplied to the crying needs of our fellow-creatures by an inexpensive but moral chemical process, placing it within the reach of the humblest.”

  “And what’s the inexpensive moral process?” asks Miss Gunter. She had a way of starin’ immovably at you through those frozen glasses all the while you were speakin’ with about as much expression on her face as the back of a tombstone, and then rappin’ out a question like an assegai.

  Old Bashford Keeble never could be sure of the scientific patter. He flourished his hands in a sort of general way and said it was done with lignum and cellulose, and synthetic combination, and other secret ingredients.

  “Oh!” says the lady, as though she hadn’t expected that. “Have you tried melting down sawdust?”

  Poor old Keeble waggled his hands feebly and said it seemed a good idea, and he’d mention it to the board.

  “Do,” says Miss Gunter; “it’s just the soft of thing that might interest a board.”

  Old Keeble and I looked across at each other pretty blank, but to hear her voice and look at her tombstone face it was hard to believe she was guyin’ us, even now. She reached over and took up the piece of leather.

  “And this is the synthetic leather, is it?” she said, turning it over. “Extraordinarily like the real thing, quite extraordinarily. If you were not so honest you might safely call it genuine. But it’s rather rudimentary. Why not synthetic boots? You’re more advanced with the glass, I see. Such a convenient shape, isn’t it? I suppose you’ll soon produce bottles ready labelled?”

  “And with whisky in ’em,” I said, with something as near a wink as I dared. For it was plain now we weren’t scorin’, and old Keeble was shakin’ his head and waggin’ his hands and tryin’ to look as though he wasn’t responsible for anything.

  “Yes, yes; very profitable to somebody no doubt,” says Miss Gunter. “Where’s your works?”

  “No works, as yet,” I said; “but we’ve a small laboratory here where Mr. Burridge works.”

  It struck me suddenly that we might do something after all, if we could impress her with the myxomycetes. So I said, very confidentially, “I don’t know if I ought to mention it yet, but as a matter of fact he really has made the most astounding discovery only just now. He has produced life by chemical means!”

  “Indeed? How wonderful!” says she calm and stony as ever. “Show me. ‘Let us come and see life—by chemical means.”

  We went into the back room, and she almost seemed to take to old Burridge, comparatively speaking. He was bubblin’ all over still, and he explained all about myxomycetes and the formic aldehydes and amino acids, and he did the experiments again with a larger piece of wood and a wet duster. Miss Gunter was so taken with it she forgot to say anything sarcastic, and old Keeble, findin’ her comin’ round a bit on this, butted in again, and poked his fingers and his whiskers into things and muddled up the explanations, and did all he could to shove himself in front of poor old Burridge, who was providin’ the show.

  I must say it was a fascinatin’ show, with its horrid, slobbery creepiness. To know that beastly jelly was alive, and to see it go reachin’ out over things and wrap ’em round and eat ’em up, and to see it rush ahead like lightning the moment it met any sort of moisture, as though a drink stimulated its appetite—well, creepy fascination was all you could call it; I found myself sort o’ dislikin’ the stuff more and more, as you might lookin’ at a worse than usual kind of reptile, and yet bein’ fascinated to see it. Miss Gunter, stony as she was, kind of stood off and pulled in her skirts, but couldn’t take her eyes off the stuff till the experiment was done, and the swelled jelly dropped into a jar.

  Then she said, “Thank you, Mr. Burridge; it is most interesting. This is one thing I can congratulate you on at any rate, and I really think I should like to come again!” Quite gracious to old Burridge.

  “Certainly—delighted, I’m sure,” says old Keeble, buttin’ in as usual and nubbin’ his hands. “I shall always be most pleased—”

  “Yes, yes,” says Miss Gunter, turnin’ on him stony again; “and what do you propose to produce from this discovery of chemical life? Synthetic menageries?”

  She’d got him fixed with her glasses, and old Keeble could only smile uneasily and shrug his shoulders and waggle his hands as though he’d lost a towel.

  Miss Gunter took a general look round and said, “Quite the most interesting afternoon! I really think I must come again. I’ve to see my broker tomorrow morning at eleven, and if there’s time, I might come then. It’s all so very original! Good afternoon!”

  With that she was gone, and in the next second old Keeble had bolted after her. I saw his game in a flash�
��treacherous old blighter. He was throwin’ us over—betrayin’ his pals. Here was a woman rollin’ in money, and—single; that was enough for him. He’d been sort of washin’ his hands of us in dumb-show ever since it was plain she wasn’t swallowin’ what we served her; and now he was off after her by himself. I saw at once it was a thing that must be seen to; and if the lady preferred a weddin’ to shares in a syndicate, what was the matter with me? I grabbed my hat and hooked it after Keeble.

  It’s a short court, and by the time I was out of the front door the lady was gettin’ into a spankin’ landaulette car waitin’ at the end of the court in Broad Street, and Keeble, with his beard all flyin’ and his shoulders bobbin’, was holdin’ the door and seein’ her in.

  There’s a tea-and-bun shop at the corner of the court, with an entrance in each street. So I just slipped in there till I saw Keeble retire and the car begin to move off, and then I dashed out of the front door and skipped on to the step.

  “Pardon me, ma’am,” I said; “one word in justice to myself!”

  She stopped the car. “Well,” she said, “and what do you want? I can’t wait here long.”

  “My dear madam,” says I, “I am ashamed positively ashamed, to have appeared wanting in respect for the intelligence of a lady of your incisive intellect. I wish to be allowed to warn you against the nefarious designs of the Commercial Syntheses Syndicate. As to my own seeming part in their scheme, if you will allow me a few minutes’ explanation—”

  “Oh,” says she. “Another penitent, is it? I can’t wait now. I’ve just sent the other away. He’s to be here at the entrance of the court tomorrow morning at half-past ten to catch me before I go in, and explain everything. You’d better come too. Good afternoon!”

  I skipped off the step with the best bow I could muster, and the car sailed off. It was a bit awkward. To begin with, I wasn’t altogether sorry to be cut off just then because, as a matter of fact, I hadn’t any particular explanation ready, and it might have been a bit awkward to invent as I went along.

  On the other hand, old Keeble and I were to weigh in our explanations in a blessed chorus.

  As I turned it over, the humour of the thing came uppermost, and it gradually presented itself in the light of a prodigious lark. Old Keeble would know nothing about the arranged chorus, and when I turned up, all ready for the fun, he would be rather off his game. I spent half the night thinking out my part.

  But it wasn’t needed—not a line. I got to the office pretty early in the morning, but only just before old Keeble; and when he came in, he came like a firework, and he was bald as a coot, head and chin and all! All his wavy locks and every hair of his beard was gone, and anything less like Moses you couldn’t invent. You’d only have known him by his clothes.

  “Look at this!” he blared. “I’m ruined! I can’t show myself for half a year! This is what comes of that old fool’s experiments! I must ha’ got some of the spores or something out of that stuff of his into my beard yesterday. I thought I felt something gummy in it, and as soon as I began to wash, it was all a mess of that infernal jelly, and the more I washed the worse it went, till it was all over my head and I could feel it gnawing into my skin! I thought I was goin’ stark ravin’ mad! I rolled over in the bedclothes and wiped it off on the sheets, and I got up like this! Not a hair on my head—not a hair! I rubbed it all over with vaseline and stopped the gnawing, or I believe it would have eaten my head off! And while I was doin’ that it ate the bed-clothes, and I left it comin’ downstairs, gobblin’ up the stair carpet!”

  He fell back into a chair for a moment, blown; and then he jumped up and went for the back room. “I’ll exterminate the stuff and Burridge too!” he yelled.

  Poor old Burridge was busy with his jim-jams, and wasn’t prepared to receive cavalry so to speak. Old Keeble burst in on him like a bomb-shell, and before I could interfere, he’d swept off a whole tableful of retorts and things, and whacked the jar of myxomycetes into the fireplace. It smashed into fifty thousand bits, and Burridge set up a howl like a tortured soul.

  “The spores’ll be everywhere,” he yelled scrapin’ at the stuff with the fire-shovel.

  “Yes—have some of ’em!” bawls Keeble firin’ another jar at his head.

  It hit the wall and scattered everywhere and then I grabbed Keeble, and Stibbins and Crump came in and pacified him with office-rulers. Stibbins had paid hard money for the stuff in the office, and he was sensitive about it.

  Presently I left them trying to clean up and slipped out to keep my appointment with Miss Gunter. I hadn’t to wait long at the end of the court before I saw the spankin’ landaulette sailin’ up.

  “Well,” says Miss Gunter, “and where’s the other penitent?”

  I explained the accident. “It’s a most unfortunate occurrence,” I said, “and I expect it’ll be a long time before he’s visible. Some might call it a judgment!”

  “So they might,” says she. “And where’s your judgment?”

  “That,” I said, “I am content to leave in your hands. At any rate, this unfortunate accident gives me the opportunity of expressing, unheard but by you, my gratitude for the angelic influence—yours, Miss Gunter—which has made another and a better man of me. Partly in my innocence, led away by evil persons—older men I may say, much older—and partly, let me confess it with a new heart, tempted by the prospect of gain held out to me, I was about to engage—had begun to engage, in fact—in an enterprise of questionable probity; when suddenly, by the magic of your presence, your manner your words, your better, nobler influence, for which, if I may offer the devotion of a lifetime—”

  “Why, bless me,” says Miss Gunter, “Ido believe you’re making love to me; nobody ever did that before. I thought your venerable friend was beginning yesterday, and I was so sorry I hadn’t time to let him go on. But don’t you stop, on any account. Come inside the car—it’s beginning to rain!”

  So it was. It was ploppin’ heavily on my new hat and all over the best suit of clothes I ever had. So I nipped inside, and went on.

  “Your woman’s heart,” I said, “your divine instinct has told you the truth. Agatha! If I may call you so—I saw the charming name on your card—Agatha—”

  “Why, what’s the matter with your hat?” she said, suddenly, staring at it through her glasses.

  I whipped it off, and there, in great blobs, was that unholy jelly—myxomycetes! The stuff and its spores had flown everywhere in the scrimmage, and now the rain had finished the job, and the blobs were running together in masses! And even while I stared, fascinated and horrified, a great dollop fell flop on Miss Gunter’s dress and began to spread! More, I was coming out in great spots of jelly all over my clothes, my boots—everywhere!

  A full comprehension of the state of affairs struck Miss Gunter in a flash. She sprang up with a yelp I shouldn’t have expected of her and shoved me out into the street.

  The unspeakable jelly was climbing all over me, but I gasped “Agatha! Agatha!” and I heard her scream to the chauffeur, “Home! Home! As fast as you can go! Never mind the speed limit!”

  It was the end of love’s young dream. What happened to that dear lady in that expensive car I never knew, though I often try to imagine. There was nothing in the carriage part of the car that myxomycetes wouldn’t eat, except the metal fittings, and it depended entirely on an uncertain equation of distance home, blocks in traffic, and speed of car, whether or not that stony maiden lady arrived home on a bare iron chassis, clad in a mass of jelly.

  But for the moment my business was to get into the office, and I ran, with my clothes and boots melting off me as I went. I rushed up the stairs and into the office. And there the sight was appalling. Myxomycetes was crawling everywhere and eating everything, and nothing stopped it but the stone passage at the outer door. Carpet, chairs, tables, wainscot—everything. It was the most unholy scrape I ever was in. I got home s
omehow, in five bob’s worth of rags from Houndsditch; and we left that office with nobody but myxomycetes to settle with the landlord.

  SPORTS OF MUGBY

  First published in The Strand Magazine, June 1912

  I.

  Mr. Samuel Potter, cheese-monger and provision merchant, looked out from his shop-door and surveyed High Street, Mugby, on the morning of the day of Mugby Races with a pleasurable internal thrill, not unqualified by a certain flutter of trepidation; it was the thrill, in fact, of the unaccustomed plotter, the flutter of the beginner in secret adventure.

  Mugby High Street was the picture of tradesmanlike respectability, and in all Mugby there was no milder pattern of respectability in appearance, than Mr. Samuel Potter himself; which is as much as to say that there was no milder pattern in the world. For the world contained no duller place than Mugby where, if dullness were not always respectability, at any rate respectability was always dullness. Such a pattern was Mr. Potter—in appearance; and his visible ambitions went not a yard beyond the border of Mugby. But if you could have read the ambitions that were not visible, if you could have plumbed the imaginings of his inmost soul—why, then you would have been surprised as no doubt you would be if you could similarly penetrate anybody else.

  Mugby Races were a nuisance—that every respectable tradesman in Mugby agreed. True, they were at Mugby Heath, three miles off, with a separate railway-station; but Mugby itself and all its tradesmen were so very respectable that they felt a contamination of rowdiness even three miles off, and as a matter of fact, the three miles precluded any benefit to Mugby trade. It was a fool of a distance altogether.

  Mugby Races always fell on early-closing day, and the Mugby shops closed on that day even a little earlier than usual, to emphasize the general disapproval of the anniversary. This morning Mr. Potter surveyed successively the shop-fronts of Cripps the greengrocer, Hopkins the undertaker, Tubbs the chemist and Dodson the draper, and wondered vaguely which would be most horrified could he have guessed at the desperate project slumbering in the brain of himself, Potter the cheesemonger.