“Look a here, nevvy,” he added. “If you’re anxious to get a promotion, just you keep an eye on old Councillor Tompkins. He’ll maybe take the next ticket for heaven! Not but he’ll deserve it, and the world be better an’ heaven the worse for him goin’.”
Cobbler Juk spent a couple of busy days; but on the evening of the second day, when his nephew called at his shop, he found the old man patching a split upper.
“It’s restin’, nevvy,” Cobbler Juk explained; as the policeman sat down on the end of the bench and pulled out his pipe, “After this divvil’s sneak-work I been on, it’s clean an’ wholesome to feel a bit of honest wax thread in me fingers. An’ it helps one to think.”
“Have you come on anythin’ as ’elps you, uncle?” asked the constable. “The chief asked what you was doin’ to-day, an’ I told him I couldn’t say as you’d got a proper cloo yet, but I thought maybe you’d an idee. Have you got a cloo, uncle?”
Cobbler Juk held his bristle up against the light, and stared at it meditatively.
“Don’t be in a hurry, nevvy,” he said, speaking slowly. “This here is sure a great mystery. Not but I got some strange notions in my head, an’ maybe a cloo or two that’ll prove wonders in a while; but it may take a bit yet. Meantime, nevvy, see you to take care that Councillor Tompkins comes to no harm after dark. I leave it to you how you do it. I’d not be surprised but this case brought you promotion, if you ain’t as big a fool as you looks.
“When you come to go over the case,” he continued, still in meditative fashion, “it just looks queerer and queerer. There was the cap’n steppin’ away from the Spread Eagle, full of good liquor an’ life, one minute, an’ then the next minute him stone dead in the open streets, an’ the policeman lookin’ half a mile every way for what killed him, an’ not a soul in sight, nor a house nor a turnin’ for anyone to run into anywhere handy, with the road runnin’ there between them high, blank walls. An’ no natural motive, as you might say, ’cept the little fat saddler man wantin’ to have revenge! Ech! Ech! Ech!”
And the old man broke into an amused, dry laughter as he glanced sideways at the baited constable.
“An’ then the mystery gettin’ stranger still; for there ain’t no motive, anyway; is there, nevvy, for anyone waiting to bash the saddler. An’ now we’re expectin’ this night-murdering-thing to come for old Councillor Tompkins—”
“Do talk sense, uncle!” said the big man. “If it’s so as you knows anythin’, it’s your dooty to tell the authorities—”
“Meanin’ the likes of you and the chief,” interrupted Juk. Then, with a sudden dropping of his half-bantering, half-thoughtful manner, he said: “Tell the chief, if you like, nevvy; only bang goes your chance of promotion. Miss a bit of your sleep for once, same as I been doin’, an’ as I should have been doin’ when it come on yon poor saddler divvil. Miss a bit of sleep this next night or two and watch the councillor. His house’s on your beat. No! I’ll not say another word; only mind you, nevvy, I’m dead to earnest. There’s death stalkin’ old Tompkins, an’ he’ll go sure, if you or I don’t save him. Not but I mind all that much, so that I bottom the mystery proper. The three of ’em ’ll no more than have come by their own devil’s ’arnings. Good-night, lad! I’m to my bed.”
“Night, uncle,” said the policeman, and rose. “You’re early. I’ve all night off these next three nights, an’ I’ll see as the old councillor don’t come to no harm.”
IV
“H’m!” grunted Cobbler Juk to himself, the following night. “The lad’s doing very well. But, for all’s sakes, why don’t he hide his great silly carcass!”
Old man Juk was sitting among the bushes on the west side of Councillor Tompkins’ house. It was a little after eleven p.m., and a dull loom of moonlight behind the clouds made things vaguely seen around. Before him, about thirty feet away, there showed the window of the councillor’s room, with the light somewhat low within, as if Tompkins had only his reading-lamp lit. From time to time a shadow crossed the blind, showing plainly the councillor’s heavily marked profile.
“Old man Tompkins has sure got the trapses on him!” muttered Juk to himself. “I guess sin’s a pretty poor investment in the end.”
He turned, and started towards where, about a dozen yards away, he could see the big figure of his nephew; in private clothes, standing under a group of three small trees, evidently keeping a constant watch on the window.
“Nevvy!” he called, scarcely above a sharp whisper. “Nevvy!”
The night was very quiet, save for odd, restless little winds that set the trees and bushes rustling mournfully at times; so that Uncle Juk’s sharply pitched whisper reached the policeman, and he came at once.
“Sit here beside me, lad,” said Juk. “I don’t want you arrestin’ me just when you ought to be arrestin’ the divvil himself!”
“I never thought as you was here,” said the constable. “Look at ’is shadder on the blind. He’s got the jumps. He was like that all last night, too. Never stirred out of the house for two days, as I knows.”
“Things is like to happen to-night, nevvy,” said Cobbler Juk. “I been hard at it all to-day, an’ all yesterday; an’ part of last night I was here with you, but you never saw me, you policeman you. An’ now I’m thinkin’ things is sure goin’ to happen. But don’t you do nothin’ till I tells you, not so what you sees. There’s some proper devil’s work forrard. Just keep your club handy, an’ move quick when I gives the word. S-s-s-t! What was that?”
The two men turned their heads and looked towards the bushes to their right. Something seemed to be stirring them in a way that was plainly never the wind. Abruptly, not twenty feet away, something that looked like a huge, black image rose noiselessly out of the bushes and stood motionless. It appeared to be about seven feet high, and was completely black but it was the head that most attracted and disgusted the two hidden watchers. The head was like nothing either of them had ever seen. It was something abnormal.
The thing began to go through the bushes in an upright position with a queer noiselessness. The head of it was all the time directed towards the window, as if it saw nothing else. It came out clear of the shrubs, and went up close against the window, and here it paused. It seemed to be nosing against the glass of the window, like an animal; and suddenly Cobbler Juk and the policeman heard a curious, infernal croaking quality in it.
“Lord!” whispered the cobbler. “What is it? What the divvil is it?”
And he lifted his head up a little above the bushes to see better, but his nephew grabbed at him and pulled him back.
“Don’t; uncle!” he muttered. “Don’t be a fool!”
The big constable was shaking.
“Get a hold of yourself!” snarled the old man. “An’ leggo my collar!”
His nephew loosed him and pulled himself together, for he was a plucky enough man, only this monstrous, unnameable thing was something so entirely beyond all that he had ever conceived of. As for old Juk, he rose slowly into a kneeling position, and stared with an incredible curiosity.
The thing at the window continued the peculiar croaking grunt, and there came a sound like a low whining, which might have been from the creature itself, or from the rubbing of something against the glass.
Abruptly the shadow of the councillor showed upon the blind, and the nest instant the blind itself was drawn up with one swift movement. The snout of the thing at the window was raised, as if the creature were looking at the councillor. The two watchers could see it, black against the half light of the room within.
At first it was plain that Councillor Tompkins saw nothing. The floor of the room stood some feet higher than the ground outside, so that the man was staring out over the head of the thing that peered up at him. Juk could see that he was looking round the garden, from side to side, with quick, jerky movements.
The creature outside had ceased its horrible croaking grunts, but now it emitted a series of them, louder than any it had made,
and within them an incredible note of malevolence, so it seemed to the old cobbler. The councillor glanced down, and abruptly he must have seen the thing, for he jumped back a couple of paces, then stopped and stared.
Perhaps for some five seconds he stood motionless, whilst the creature made not a sound. It was as if the man and the monstrous being outside looked mutually at one another. Then movement came to the man. His hand went into his side coat-pocket, and he took a couple of swift steps sideways to the lamp. But even as he did so the creature gave forth a kind of dull, croaking roar, and hurled itself at the window bodily. The glass smashed into atoms, and the sashes crumpled inwards.
“Come on!” shouted Juk; and left the bushes at a run, with his nephew after him. From the window there came still the crash of smashed glass and woodwork, and a flash from the lamp inside showed for an instant that the thing was half in and half out. The lamp went out suddenly, and directly afterwards there came three red spurts of fire and the sharp thuds of sound that a firearm makes when loosed off in a confined space.
Juk was at the window now. Within the room there was a scuffling, and then a strangled gasp, which was lost immediately in a mutter of that dreadful grunting. There came an instant of absolute silence, broken by a dull, heavy thud, and then again the croaking grunts broke out, just as Juk leaped forward into the absolute darkness of the room, with everywhere the stench of smashed lamp in the air.
Cobbler Juk had his nephew’s lantern in his hand, but it had jolted out as he jumped for the window. He snatched at the matches in his vest-pocket, shouting to his nephew, who was even then climbing through the window, to wait for the light. He scraped a match savagely across his thigh, but the match broke. He snatched at another, just as the thing rose out of the darkness and dashed past him out the window, hurling the big constable out on to the grass as if he had been a child rather than an exceptionally powerful man.
“Look out there!” shouted the cobbler futilely.
But his nephew lay on the turf, half stunned, whilst the creature went bounding into the bushes and disappeared.
Juk hove the lantern down; and ran back to the window. He jumped through, and, without waiting to see what had happened to his nephew, he sprang in among the bushes, following the faint sounds that seemed to come back to him from somewhere ahead out of the darkness. Yet, in a moment, he heard nothing, and soon came to the confines of the garden without having seen a thing.
“Lost it!” he snarled to himself. “A fine mess I’ve made of it!”
He ran down a side-path to the road, and looked up and down so far as he could see; but there was nothing visible in the immediate gloom. He went, running, a hundred yards up the road, and then back again the other way, but saw not a thing; neither, though the night was still, could he hear a sound. He stood listening awhile, then shouts and lights through the trees showed him that Councillor Tompkins’ household was awake, and had come down to investigate the cause of the window-smashing and the shots. He heard his nephew shouting his name at the top of his voice.
“Here! Coming!” he called back; and began to run up the path to the house.
When he reached it, he climbed in through the smashed window.
He found that the councillor had been killed by a heavy blow on the head, in a similar fashion to the way in which both Captain Chappel and Saddler Atkins had been murdered. After this he directed his nephew to telephone to the station, whilst he took a further look round.
“I’ll get someone as knows what killed the councillor and the others tomorrow night,” he told his nephew grimly at the end of his look round. “Then we’ll get to the bottom of this here divvilment.”
V
“A dog’s nose for me, miss,” said the cobbler, “an’ not too much gin, please. M’yes, my nevvy’ll have a shandygaft, miss. I don’t hold with young folk drinkin’ strong likkers, special them as has to uphold law an’ order.”
He grinned perversely to himself.
Cobbler Juk and his nephew, who was in private clothes, were sitting in the public bar of the Slade Arms, and the time lacked a few minutes to eight on the evening following the death of Councillor Tompkins.
“Now then, nevvy,” said the old man, you didn’t show up so grand last night—not but what I was near as bad. We got to get this man that’ll sure come in here to-night, an’ when we got him we got to make him tell what he knows about yon thing we saw last night. We ain’t goin’ to collar him right off. We’ll go out after him, an’ see where he goes; and then you can put them wristbands of yours on an’ cart him away to the station for a talk with the chief.”
They sat down for an hour, during which a large number of customers came and left. Abruptly Juk leaned forward, and touched the constable on the arm.
“Now then, nevvy, we’ll just follow him;” he said; and he jerked his thumb slightly towards a big negro who was leaving the bar at that moment.
The man looked rough and powerful, and had something of the appearance of a mariner who had made enough money to live ashore in comfort; for he was wearing quite a well-cut suit, double-breasted, with an inflamed tie, and a tie-pin that winked like a true diamond.
The two of them trailed the man as far as the outskirts, and saw him put his latchkey into the door of a respectable looking house, with “Apartments” in the window.
“Come along,” whispered Cobbler Juk quickly. “We’ll nab him outside. It’ll only mean a lot of broken furniture if we let him go in. Come on!”
He led the way, at a run, and his nephew after him. Together they got hold of the negro, but found they were in for more even than Juk had expected.
The man was immensely powerful. He tore the old man’s grip from his arm, and hurled him backwards, then, with the speed and skill of a man accustomed to using his hands, he turned on the big policeman, and upper-cut him savagely. He followed the blow by a terrific drive on the mark, which drove the constable into a heap on to the pavement. Then, with one bound, he was down the steps; but here Cobbler Juk rose and pluckily grabbed at him. Yet the negro proved himself no brute, now that he had only the one small opponent. He freed himself with a swift, easy strength, without attempting to strike, much as a grown man might free himself from the grip of a boy; then, with marvellous speed, he sped away out of the gate and into the night.
“Lost him!” groaned Cobbler Juk. “Wonder why the big divvil didn’t plug me good and hard?”
Then he went slowly up to his nephew, who was huddled very still.
He rang the bell, and as soon as the man of the house came they got the constable inside and on to the floor, where, between them, they brought him round, all the while that the cobbler explained something of their errand.
“Now,” said old Juk as soon as the policeman came round,” you lie quiet there a bit; I’m itching to have a look into that nigger’s room. I’ll give up detectiving for good an’ all if I ain’t on the track this time.”
Half an hour later he was downstairs, with a number of things stuffed into a pillow-case. “If you’re feelin’ fit now, nevvy,’’ he said, “we’ll away to the shop, an’ I guess I’ve one or two things as ’ll s’prise you. Come along.”
VI
“Wait while I get goin’,” said Cobbler Juk, sitting down on the little bench in his shop and reaching for his last.
“Now, you just listen, nevvy, while I gets it all straightened out. I’ll tell it all to the chief in the morning, an’ I guess I’m goin’ to bother ’im for that ten pounds he offered me.
“You’ll mind that I had a look round on my own after old Cap’n Chappel was killed. You told me just after he was found, an’ I an away up as soon as you’d gone, for I was cur’us to see what I could make of it, though I never meant to give way to detectiving. Well, nevvy; that’s when I got my first cloo. Quite near where old Chappel was picked up I got these.”
He reached over to his table, and lifted an old tobacco-box out of the litter. From the box he took five broken matches, which he spre
ad out gently on the palm of his hand for his nephew to examine.
“Can’t see no cloo there, uncle,” muttered the big man, scratching his head after a prolonged and earnest stare. “They’re just used matches.”
“Wait a bit, lad,” replied Cobbler Juk, “while I jumps on a peg.
“I got proper interested in the case, an’ I did some inquirin’ round. Things was pretty easy to come on. I found as old Cap’n Chappel an’ the saddler and Councillor Tompkins was wonderful pally; especially when you come to think they was different in position. I drummed up with Mister Timmins, the councillor’s butler, an he was able to tell me a s’prisin’ lot that I’d never have thought on maybe for a divvil of a while by me lonesome.
“I spent a matter of five and fourpence on that tub, treatin’ him, before I’d got all he knew; an’ that wasn’t much; only sometimes he’d heard the three of ’em, after a tidy little dinner, get warm and merry, and crack some mighty funny yarns over their wine.
“You’d never have thought it, nevvy, to look at the saddler, and him like a little bladder of fat, as you might say; or the councillor himself, for that matter, with him bein’ so mighty respectable an’ a good enough citizen, too; but, if I was to believe some of the yarns that old Timmins told, them three men had been to sea together on some mighty rum doin’s; an’ a lot of it to do with poachin’ seal skins, or whatever they calls it.
“Well, the next thing I did was to go to old Mulberry, the photographer, an’ make him an offer for three old prints he’d got of the three of ’em. He’d had ’em in his showcase, with a hundred more, till they was all faded. I got the three for ninepence; an’ I sent the three pictures off to an old chum of mine in Liverpool, with a bit of a letter, sayin’ I’d like to know what he could find out for me.
“Well, I guess, nevvy, it was all right what the butler had told me. My friend knew old Cap’n Chappel by reputation, an’ he said he’d been a proper bad lot; had one ship confiscated for poachin’ or something, an’ done time.
The House on the Borderland and Other Mysterious Places Page 51