The Arthur Morrison Mystery

by Arthur Morrison

  Mr. Septimus Deacon always took a philanthropic delight in the Whit-Monday fair on the common, though it was not often that the weather permitted him so thorough an enjoyment of its cheerfulness. He was called accurately enough, an old bachelor, though he had few or none of the characteristics of the conventional bachelor type; it was, in fact, merely by accident of sex that he was not an old maid, as perhaps he should have been. He had been coddled at home as a boy, and remained his mother’s companion when he grew up; and now that he was alone and had never had to work, or rub against the rude world, he coddled himself, and would have been happier, perhaps, and busier if Miss Wicks, the old maid next door, had taught him wool-work.

  Mr. Deacon, short-sighted, benevolent of aspect, wrapped about the neck—for one is liable to a chill in the brightest of weather—and carrying an umbrella—for showers come very suddenly, no matter how close home one may be—stared through thick spectacles at everything in the fair, and benignantly approved of it all.

  “Fine, hearty, wholehearted enjoyment,” he said to himself, smiling at a game that looked like football with no ball, wherein the sons and daughters of toil exchanged hats and thumped each other, hard, between the shoulder-blades, with howls of laughter.

  “Healthy, unrestrained merriment,” he added, brushing vaguely at his ear, and there encountering a long feather “tickler,” extended from the hand of a thick-set damsel with a still longer feather in her hat. He turned quickly, and met a sharp squirt of chilly liquid, which for a moment wholly blinded him to the charms of the thick-set damsel’s two companions, who danced off with jubilant shrieks, leaving him hurriedly intercepting the streams that ran down his neck. He wondered rather at the smell, as he would not have done had he been out early enough to see the “tormentor” merchant filling his “scent-fountains” at the ditch across the common.

  Mr. Septimus Deacon occupied some few minutes in adjusting his wrappers and reconciling his adventure with his general delight in the proceedings, and then found himself politely begging pardon of a solitary son of toil, very husky, who ran into him sideways and hung heavily on to his coat-lappet hiccupping dismally.

  “You s-seen my missis anywhere?” demanded the son of toil, disregarding Mr. Deacon’s apologies.

  “No,” said Mr. Deacon, “I haven’t.”

  “Qui’ sure?” pursued his questioner, with piercing emphasis, supporting himself now by both lappets of Mr. Deacon’s coat, and regarding him with an apparent suspicion that the lady might be artfully concealed in his tail-pocket.

  “I’m really quite sure,” replied Mr. Deacon fervently; “absolutely sure that I haven’t seen her at all, anywhere.”

  “I dunno wha’s become of ’er,” mused the bereaved husband, disconsolately shaking his head. “I biffed ’er in the eye, an’ I ain’t seen ’er since. I dunno wha’ she wan’ go ’way like that for. No accountin’ for a woman. Comin’ out for ’oliday an’ goin’ off soon’s we begin!”

  “Quite unaccountable,” agreed Mr. Deacon gently seeking to detach his new friend’s grasp. “You must be most anxious, and I am sorry to have detained you. Good morning!”

  “But look ’ere you’ll tell me when you see ’er, won’ yer?”

  “Certainly—of course; at once!”

  “Tell ’er I’m worry outomelife ’bout ’er. I’m very fon’ my wife. I jis’ biffed ’er in the eye, an’ I ain’ seen ’er—ain’ seen ’er noffor a long time. Answers to the name o’ Soosan. Goo’ bye, of pal! I’ll never forgeshyer. I’ll go’n ask s’mother feller.”

  “A fine, affectionate character under a rough exterior!” bleated Mr. Deacon, inwardly, as with some relief he observed the anxious spouse’s intricate progress through the crowd. Then he went his way in the direction leading by the Green Dragon.

  “Charming sight! Charming sight!” he mused, beaming on the fringe of small children; when he found himself addressed by a somewhat worried-looking woman with a large double perambulator, of the sort called a bassinette, with two hoods.

  “Would you jist give a ’and to my pram sir, while I go an’ fetch my ’usband?” pleaded the woman. “He’s in the Green Dragon, an’ I been a-waitin’ ’ere ’all an hour.”

  “Certainly!” replied Mr. Deacon, beaming more than ever. “He’s a little forgetful of the flight of time, no doubt, on so fine a holiday.”

  He took the handle of the unaccustomed vehicle, and the woman, with an appearance of great relief, disappeared in the main door of the Green Dragon. Mr. Deacon waited with a great deal of patience, with his eyes fixed on the door. “Another affectionate husband, no doubt,” he thought. “He is distressed to find he has kept his wife waiting so long, and now insists on her sharing his refreshment.”

  But there was no sign of the anxious mother, and Mr. Deacon’s patience suffered a certain strain. He began to feel a little apprehensive. The re-united parents had apparently forgotten all about their offspring. He looked anxiously about him, and presently his attention was arrested by a long, steady chuckle from a man who leaned on a neighbouring post, smoking a pipe.

  “It’s a do, guv’nor,” he said, as Mr. Deacon’s gaze met his. “You’re landed with them kids, like what she was afore you.”

  “What do you mean?” demanded Mr. Deacon, conscious of a distinct change of temperature under his clothes.

  The man at the post chuckled again.

  “I’ve been a-watchin’ that there pram some time,” he said. “Three or four parties ’as bin landed with it what I see myself, an’ others afore that, no doubt. As soon as they tumbled to the do they jist looked round an’ found another mug an’ passed it on. You’ll ’ave to find another mug.”

  “What?” exclaimed Mr. Deacon, with a sharper change of temperature still. “Do you mean that these children don’t belong to that woman?”

  “Not a bit of it,” replied the man at the post. “It was a man as lumbered ’em on to her. Arst her to mind ’em while he went arter his wife, ’e did; an’ it was a woman as landed ’im with ’em—said she was waitin’ for ’er ’usband.”

  “But where are all these people?” demanded Mr. Deacon, as the state of the case dawned on him. “Aren’t they in the Green Dragon?”

  “Not them. They ’ooked it out the back way as fast as they went in, you bet. You’ll have to find a mug too, I tell ye. Go on—I won’t give you away.”

  “That’s quite out of the question,” returned Mr. Deacon, conscientious in his sweat of panic. “Where are the police?”

  “Don’t believe there are none—I never see none ’bout ’ere on Bank ’Oliday.”

  Mr. Deacon recognized that this observation was not far from truth. For the place was outside the Metropolitan Police district, and the neighbourhood was apt to be given over wholly to the beanfeasters on these occasions. The police-station was a cottage some distance off, and the policeman might be anywhere. Moreover, the workhouse was eight miles away. The situation was shocking.

  “Never mind, guv’nor,” urged his adviser. “Don’t spile the fun. It’s bin a fair beano for me, lookin’ on. Land somebody else like what you’ve bin landed. ’Ere’s a woman comin’ along now. Tell ’er to ketch ’old while you go into the pub an’ give your wife a ’idin’. That’ll fetch ’er!”

  But it became plain that Mr. Deacon fell far short of his prompter’s ideal of a sportsman. He allowed the suggested victim to pass, and desperately collected his scattered faculties to face the situation. He separated the two hoods, which made something like a complete roof, and peeped at the babies. They seemed a particularly ugly couple, he thought, as they lay at opposite ends; but then Mr. Deacon was exceptionally inexperienced in babies, and with all his philanthropy could not conscientiously recall any baby that he hadn’t considered ugly. Fortunately both appeared to be asleep, so he quietly closed the hoods together, and with a last hopeless glance at the door of the Green Dragon began to pus
h the perambulator toward home, to the audible scorn of the sportsman on the post. For Mr. Deacon could think of only one resource; he must consult Miss Wicks, the old maid next door.

  “Well, you are a mug,” remarked the man on the post, bitterly, as he saw his morning’s diversion leaving him. “I must say I wish you joy o’ that lot!”

  Mr. Deacon pursued his unaccustomed exercise in deep perplexity. The parting shot from the humorist at the post made him uneasy. Suppose this pair of infants were never claimed—would they remain for ever on his hands? All his recollections of cases of foundling children tended to reassure him in that respect, and yet—his experience of the world was small, and of babies nothing; and he could not help feeling a little uneasy. They looked as though they might be rather ill-tempered babies.

  He was disposed to take another peep, and presently a fancied movement under the hoods decided him. He was in a quieter spot, and unobserved. He pulled back the hoods and looked again. Certainly they were most unprepossessing babies. Both appeared to have moved since Mr. Deacon’s last peep so he ventured to lift the mouthpiece of the feeding-bottle that lay conspicuously on the coverlet and gently insinuate it between the lips of the baby that seemed a trifle the less ugly of the two. But instantly mouth and eyes screwed tighter, and turned in toward the pillow with unmistakable rejection. So Mr. Deacon conveyed the bottle to the opposite end and tried the other baby, with a more pronounced result. For there was a spit and splutter from that mouth, and as the face turned pillow-wards one screwed-up eye half opened with a momentary gleam of evil rage that caused Mr. Deacon to drop the feeding-bottle with something like a gasp. Obviously they were most ill-tempered babies. It was a mercy they hadn’t started crying.

  “Go it, nuss-maid,” growled a voice at his elbow. And Mr. Deacon turned quickly to perceive the disgruntled humorist, late of the post, who, apparently despairing of better diversion, had followed his tracks.

  “Go it,” repeated the philosopher. “Pick ’em up an’ cuddle ’em. My eye, your missis’ll comb your ’air for you when you take that lot ’ome!”

  He glanced about him in search of a post—he looked curiously incomplete with no post—and, finding none, relapsed into morose contemplation.

  Mr. Deacon closed the hood and went on. At any rate, the scoffer was baulked of one triumph; there was no Mrs. Deacon. But his persevering steps could be heard following behind, albeit with an easy languor proper to Bank Holiday. It was Mr. Deacon’s pause that had enabled him to catch up; plainly he was making the best of an economical holiday free of personal exertion.

  Mr. Deacon hurried forward, and the scoffer lagged unswervingly behind. The garden of Miss Wicks’s house, as of Mr. Deacon’s own, was enclosed with a thick hedge, in which stood a gate; and it was with a sense of relief that Mr. Deacon heard this gate clang behind him.

  The house stood well back in the garden, and he had a winding course of gravel path to traverse, amid many flower-beds of diverse shapes. Miss Wicks was visible near the house, but her back was turned, and the contorted ingenuity of her garden-planning caused Mr. Deacon and the perambulator to execute many tacks and long reaches, like a ship beating up wind. As he executed these laborious manoeuvres Mr. Deacon grew aware of the delighted regards of a housemaid at a first-floor window, whose round and healthy face grew suddenly broader, and whose fist was stuffed convulsively against her mouth as she contemplated the deviously-approaching phenomenon. For an instant she vanished, and in the next had returned with another grinning housemaid, larger and shinier and more hilarious than herself.

  Vaguely Mr. Deacon wondered why the spectacle of an elderly single gentleman living next door, rather warm with exertion, pushing a perambulator-load of babies along many curvilinear garden-paths should so vastly entertain housemaids; and as he wondered he added a clause including parlourmaids and cooks, for presently another window revealed two more faces similarly exhilarated.

  Mr. Deacon became afflicted with an unreasonable sheepishness; for a moment he contemplated retreat, but the length of intricate garden-path behind him was much greater than that before, and he pushed on with confused misgivings. Would Miss Wicks laugh at him too?

  “Ha—good morning, good morning!” he said, with feeble geniality; and Miss Wicks turned.

  She did not laugh. Laughter was not a common habit of the exceedingly correct Miss Wicks, who now regarded Mr. Deacon and his charge with a gaze of chilly amazement.

  Panic spread through Mr. Deacon’s bones.

  “Good morning,” he repeated, with a flurried bow and a ghastly smile. “I’ve—I’ve brought some babies!”

  “Indeed!”

  The word is easy to write; but as Miss Wicks said it—not in twenty volumes! Mr. Deacon dimly felt himself guilty of some unimagined atrocity.

  “I—I hope you don’t mind?” he bleated, anxiously.

  “Really, Mr. Deacon,” came the reply, as from frozen altitudes, “why should I mind?”

  “So glad you’re so pleased,” he answered, desperately. “I felt sure you’d take to them. Your motherly instincts—”

  “Mr. Deacon—really!”

  “Eh?” gasped Mr. Deacon, blankly. “I—of course, what I meant was, with all your experience—”

  “My experience, Mr. Deacon?”

  “Yes—that is, of course, what I really mean is—very extraordinary how I got hold of them, really. You’d be most interested—”

  “Indeed, you are mistaken; I am not at all interested, I assure you.” And Miss Wicks turned toward the rose she had been tending.

  “Then, perhaps,” pursued Mr. Deacon, desperately gathering his scattered faculties, “perhaps you’d rather not take charge of them?”

  “Take charge of them, Mr. Deacon? Most certainly I shall do nothing of the kind!”

  Here the conversation was interrupted by a loud shout from the gate.

  “Garn! Don’t you believe ’im, mum,” came the voice of the scoffer from the post. “It’s a yarn, mum. Don’t you ’ave nothink to do with ’em. Oh, he’s a shockin’ old bloke, that ’usband o’ yours! You ’ave a separation at the p’lice-court!”

  “What outrage is this?” cried Miss Wicks, turning on the unhappy Mr. Deacon, who quailed and cowered over the handle of the perambulator. “What ruffian associate have you brought to help insult me, sir?”

  “It’s a Toiler,” explained Mr. Deacon feebly. “A Toiler under a misapprehension. He only does these things on Bank Holidays. I—I—perhaps I’d better be getting along!”

  “I certainly think it most desirable,” bridled the indignant lady.

  And Mr. Deacon, much impeded by his umbrella, made a stumbling shift to turn the heavy perambulator about, and began to reverse his divagations among the garden-beds.

  But his visit had been observed afar from an upper window, through a pair of binoculars kept for such purposes by Mrs. Griffin, the most scandalous moralist in the village. A glance was enough, and in a trice Mrs. Griffin in such articles of outdoor attire as could be drawn about her as she descended the stairs was waddling furiously in the direction of Miss Wicks’s front gate. Consequently, Mr. Deacon had barely made the first tack on his return journey when Mrs. Griffin, in hasty disarray, burst into the garden and began from her end strategic movements designed to cut off the retreat of the perambulator.

  Miss Wicks regarded this invasion with horror unspeakable. Even the impenetrable Mr. Deacon, tacking about with his perambulator, was startled by the tragic distress of her demeanour. He could not in the least understand it, except as a part of the general unaccountability of the female mind, but he vaguely guessed that she had some decided objection to Mrs. Griffin making acquaintance with the babies, and that he was expected to prevent it.

  “Oh, good morning, good morning!” cried Mrs. Griffin, bearing down on the perambulator as directly as the sinuosities of the gravel paths permitted. “Why, bl
ess my soul, Mr. Deacon, what have you got there?”

  “Samples!” cried Mr. Deacon, desperately.

  “Samples?” repeated Mrs. Griffin. “What sort of samples?”

  “Oh, just the ordinary kind,” replied Mr. Deacon, trying his best to push past. “Quite ordinary! Sort of samples you see every day!”

  At this moment the garden gate opened once more, and a new figure appeared; a tall stout, tightly buttoned man in a frogged and furred coat, a man with a red face, a black moustache, a bell-topped hat, and a cigar. Skipping the corners of garden-beds and striding quickly over the paths, he thrust himself with many bows and flourishes, between the perambulator and Mrs. Griffin, who seemed on the point of forcibly seizing the hood, spite of Mr. Deacon’s struggles.

  “Samples, madam, samples, as me de-arr friend says,” interposed the stranger, in a round and fruity voice, placing himself bodily before the object of Mrs. Griffin’s ambition.