‘Rum chaps, them Indians,’ remarked the coffee-stall keeper, breathing on a spoon and polishing it, ‘but I like ’em.’
‘I loves ’em,’ replied Ben.
‘Aunt of mine used to board ’em,’ went on the coffee-stall keeper, ‘and she used to say nicer people she never met. But, of course, you get all kinds.’ He leaned forward, and dropped his voice confidentially. ‘Between you and me, mate,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t much care to sleep in a room next to that one!’
‘That’s right,’ murmured Ben.
‘If he was peckish, like as not he’d slice out your liver and have it for breakfast!’
He burst into guffaws at the joke. Ben did not join in. The coffee stall-keeper looked disappointed, and tried something else.
‘Fancy them findin’ that old man in Bermondsey ’angin’ upside down!’
‘’Ere, you’re a little ray o’ sunlight, ain’t yer?’ barked Ben.
He finished his second cup quickly, paid his account, and turned away.
Which direction should he take? Left—towards Jowle Street? Or right—towards peace? Suddenly he fished a coin from his pocket.
‘’Eads, it’s Jowle Street,’ he muttered, ‘and tails it ain’t!’
He tossed. The coin came down tails.
‘It ain’t,’ he murmured.
And turned towards Jowle Street.
CHAPTER V
THE CONTENTS OF A PARCEL
HAVE you ever paused to realise the different mental attitudes of those who, superficially, appear to be engaged on business identical with your own? In a street, for instance, as you pass from one point to another?
To you a journey between two lamp-posts may be a forgotten incident, making no record in your mind. To the woman you overtake so carelessly it may be an eternity, though once her feet travelled as lightly and as fast as yours. To the young man who unconsciously keeps pace with you on the other side of the road it is a journey of breathless wonder, while each step brings him nearer to the whole meaning of existence waiting for him round the corner. To the elderly man, impelled to equal speed ten yards behind, it is a tragedy, with a doctor’s house at the end of it.
Ben, on his way back to Jowle Street, was separated by similar gulfs from those he moved among, walking through a disturbing world of his own. It was not the world of the little whistling errand-boy he passed. It was a darker, grimmer place. A sort of tunnel, the sinister walls of which were closing in on him and pressing him forward. At the end of the tunnel were Indians with cynically smiling eyes, and a nasty old man gesticulating at a window—funny how that nasty old man stuck in Ben’s mind!—and a chap hanging upside down. And towards all these things, despite the kindness of a tossed coin, Ben was moving. Why?
Yes—why? Ben stopped suddenly, and asked the question. There were loads of other ways, stretching to other points. Behind him, and on each side. Any one of them would be preferable to the particular way he was taking; any one of them would lead, if unpretentiously, to a peaceful night. For an instant he was out of the tunnel, and the walls ceased to press. ‘I did come down tails, you know!’ urged the coin in his pocket. ‘Play fair!’
But he went on, with the question unanswered. You see, the answer was beyond the capacity of a bloke like Ben to fathom.
‘Blinkin’ fate,’ was as near as he could get to it. He was quite unconscious that he himself had anything to do with the matter, and that, despite the coin’s protest, the desire to play fair was very dominant in his cowardly little heart.
The drizzle had ceased, but the mist still wreathed through the murky thoroughfares, and the Indian wreathed through the mist. Of course, the Indian was just imagination. Ben admitted that. He hadn’t quite got rid, even yet, of the nasty feeling on his forehead that the Indian had stamped there during that tense second while the coffee-stall-keeper’s back was turned. Yes, that was it—stamped there. Like his photograph, like.
‘Lummy, wish I could peel it orf!’ muttered Ben…
Hallo, though! Was it all imagination? Ben suddenly ducked up a side street. Two large arms caught him.
‘Now, then, my lad! What’s up?’
It was a policeman’s voice. You can always tell a policeman’s voice. Solid and slow, and all right if you’re all right.
‘Beg yer pardon,’ apologised Ben. ‘Didn’t see yer.’
‘Of course, you didn’t,’ replied the policeman. ‘You had your eyes shut.’
‘Go on!’ retorted Ben.
‘Anybody after you?’
‘’Oo?’
‘That’s what I’m asking.’
‘Yus. No. ’Ere, let go me arm. It’s mine, ain’t it?’
‘Yes, your arm’s yours,’ admitted the policeman, though he still retained it; ‘but can you say the same about that parcel you’re carrying?’
‘Eh?’
‘That parcel?’
‘Wot abart it?’
‘Is it yours?’
‘Corse it’s mine!’
‘You didn’t take it from anybody?’
‘Yus.’
‘Who?’
‘Cheesemonger.’
The policeman frowned.
‘That’s a pretty smart parcel, isn’t it,’ he remarked, suspiciously, ‘for a bit of cheese?’
‘Corse it is,’ answered Ben. ‘’E knoo ’oo ’e was servin’. Smell it!’
He thrust the parcel abruptly under the policeman’s nose. The policeman, unprepared for this sudden onslaught of cheddar, dropped Ben’s arm. Escape was now easy, and effected.
Ben did not know, as he darted away, whether the policeman made any attempt to follow him. He hoped the test had proved his innocence, and would willingly have waited until the cheese had done its work; but the policeman was merely his second consideration, at the moment, for out of the corner of his eye he had spied somebody far more significant—somebody from whom it was infinitely more important to escape. There was no mistake about it this time. Ben had seen the Indian. Whether the Indian had also seen him he was less able to say.
Well, if the Indian had seen him, he mustn’t see him any more! That was the one obvious thought in Ben’s mind as he now began a definite policy of evasion. He turned away from Jowle Street. Then he angled towards it, then turned away again. Following a zigzag course, a course of which no crow could have conception, he utilised every corner and every alley and every by-street. Once he even ducked down a subway, coming up at the other end like a diver. He got hopelessly lost, but that didn’t matter so long as he also lost his pursuer. And at length he decided that he had lost him, and he paused under a lamp-post to breathe.
‘Gotter git back now,’ he communed with himself. ‘Wunner where I am?’
The lamp went up as he wondered. The sudden light illuminated some letters on the wall opposite the lamppost. The letters spelt:
‘JOWLE STREET.’
Only the letters weren’t quite as distinct as you read them here. Years of dirt and depression had tried to wipe them out.
‘Wot—can’t I never get away from it?’ blinked Ben.
It did seem, this time, as though Fate had taken a hand!
He peered cautiously along the road. He was at the ‘No. 1’ end of it. He’d only used the other end up till now, the end where there wasn’t a lamp-post. That was why he hadn’t recognised it. From the spot where he stood, No. 29 was on the left, and No. 26 was on the right. There was nobody about. He could nip along to No. 29, slip round to the back, and be in at the window in a couple of shakes. But, on the point of putting this simple plan into execution, he paused. No. 26 beckoned to him with almost equal insistence.
He stared at it. Like the Indian, it bore all the uncanniness of the unknown and its very mystery was hypnotic. He knew about No. 29. Well, about bits of it. But he didn’t know anything about No. 26—he didn’t know what it was like inside, or who lived there, or what happened when you got in. Would the person who opened the door ask you your name or seize you by the throat? Of co
urse, it didn’t matter. Ben had nothing to do with No. 26, really…But it was funny how that house seemed to face him everywhere. His thoughts as well as his eyes.
He decided to have one close view of it, just to make sure there were no bloodstains or anything, and then to ‘go home.’ Crossing the road to the even number side, he slithered along till the numbers climbed to 26. Then, at a blackened railing, he stopped. One—two—three—four—five stone steps. Same as his side. Mounting to a flat space before the front door. Same as his side. And then the front door itself. Again, same as his…Not, not quite the same as his side, this time. This door was a bit more solid like. And then the slit for the letters was higher up. A good deal higher up. Funny place for the slit, that. Shouldn’t think the postman’d much care for it. He’d have to lift his arm more than shoulder high. Almost on a level with his eyes…his eyes…eyes…
‘Criky!’ muttered Ben, and backed suddenly.
He backed into something. Something that had come along quietly behind him. The collision was violent, and his parcel fell to the ground. Only by grabbing at the railing was Ben able to prevent himself from following the parcel. Then he swerved round, to see what the new trouble was.
He found it was the nasty old man.
The old man looked at him angrily. He, also, had dropped a parcel. He seemed very annoyed about it.
‘Hey! What are you up to?’ he cried.
Ben lurched down and regained his parcel, and the old man lurched down at the same time and regained his.
‘Well, why don’t you answer, my man?’ rasped the indignant one. ‘What were you doing on that doorstep?’
‘Lookin’ at the number,’ replied Ben. It seemed a good idea. But the old man did not think it was such a good idea.
‘What for?’ he demanded.
‘Ter see wot it was,’ explained Ben.
‘Yes, but what did you want to see what it was for?’
‘So’s I’d know it.’
The old man glared. Ben glared back. After all, there was no law against looking at house numbers, was there?
‘Well, now you know it,’ said the old man, ‘what are you going to do about it?’
‘Go away from it,’ answered Ben, ‘and never come back.’
The answer found favour. The old man actually smiled.
‘Now, that’s excellent news,’ he remarked ironically. ‘Our stormy little meeting ends happily for both of us, after all!’ He turned, and mounted the steps. But, as he took out his latch-key, he turned again. ‘By the way,’ he inquired, ‘what number did you want?’
‘’Undred an’ eight,’ returned Ben.
‘I’m afraid you’ll have some difficulty,’ sighed the old man, as he inserted his key. ‘They only go up to forty-two.’
He disappeared. So did Ben. But ten minutes later Ben reappeared in Jowle Street like a human rocket, fired horizontally, with a trajectory that ended abruptly through the window of No. 29. The conclusion was so violent that there were quite a few stars.
He waited a few moments to recover from the stars. He had known several thousands of stars in his time, so it didn’t take long. Just shut your eyes, stand still, and they go. Then he crept round to the front hall, and called, ‘Oi!’ That was another good dodge he’d learned. If anybody answered your ‘Oi’ you replied, ‘Nah, then, wot are you doin’ ’ere?’ If nobody answered you, then you yourself were safe from the question. Ben was no arch-sinner, but in the lesser omissions he could claim his share of proficiency.
Nobody answered his ‘Oi.’ Good! He ascended the first flight.
‘Oi!’ he called again.
Again nobody answered him. Again, good! He ascended the second flight.
‘Oi!’
This was the most important ‘Oi.’ He was now outside his home quarters on the second floor front. But fortune continued to favour him—conscious, perhaps, of its coming desertion—and he shoved open the door with a contented mind. As contented a mind, at least, as is possible to any one in a house that creaks.
The room was empty. Just as he had left it. There was the closed window. There was the packing-case. There, even, were some familiar crumbs, including a bit of rind he remembered excommunicating to the corner. Each little sign that the room had not been entered during his absence gave him a reassuring sense of possession and of home.
Well, now it was time to start making a few more crumbs! He was sorry he had only got the cheese to make them with, because he had intended to buy a packet of biscuits and a bit of cake at the coffee stall; but the Indian, and then the stall-keeper’s conversation, had upset his plans, and he had come away with his shopping only half done. Never mind. The cheese was something. He mightn’t even have had that.
‘Aht comes me little parcel!’ he murmured, fishing for it in a capacious pocket that was mainly hole.
Little parcel? Not so blinkin’ little, neither! Had he bought all that cheese? As he opened the parcel he hoped the contents would not lie as heavy on his chest as they lay in the paper…
‘Lord luvvaduck!’ gasped Ben.
The cheese had turned into a revolver.
CHAPTER VI
A TASTE OF DEATH
‘WELL, I’m blowed!’ muttered Ben, in amazement. He had seen a rabbit turn into a Union Jack, but he had never seen a piece of cheese turn into a pistol. ‘Now wot ’appens?’
The next instant it occurred to him what would happen. The owner of the pistol would want his possession back. He was probably staring angrily at Ben’s cheese at this very moment!
‘Yus, ’e’ll want it back, but ’ow’s ’e goin’ ter git it back?’ reflected Ben.
Why, by coming across after it, of course.
‘Yus, but ’e don’t know I’m ’ere?’
Didn’t he?
Well, Ben would soon find that out. If the old man knew that Ben was here—if he had seen him in that meteoric flight through Jowle Street, or if he had divined it by means of some sixth sense—then he would very soon pop across the road. Why, he might be on his way across now! Gawd! Wot a night!
Slipping the weapon into his pocket—it was a very small one and went in easily—he crept to the window, keeping his head and body well below the level of the ledge. When he reached the window he discovered that one cannot see out of a window at such a meagre elevation. Grudgingly he increased the elevation till he was able to see more than sky and chimneys, and when he had increased it sufficiently to procure a view of the door of No. 26, he put himself swiftly into reverse and dropped down flat. For at that moment the old man had come flying out of the door, and his mood had not appeared pleasant.
In the most life-like guise of a pancake he could assume, Ben cogitated.
‘’E won’t come ’ere, ’e’ll go up the road,’ ran his thoughts, ‘but if ’e does come ’ere ’e won’t git in, ’cos if ’e rings it won’t ’elp ’im and ’e don’t know there’s a winder hopen at the back, and there ain’t no hother way—well, is there?’
The slamming of the front door answered him.
‘Golly! ’e’s in!’ gasped Ben. ‘’Ow the blazes—?’
But this was no time for theorising. The old man was certainly in, and just as certainly he was coming up!
‘’Ere—stop thinkin’,’ Ben rounded on himself, ‘and do somethin’!’
What?
Well, you could stay where you were and hope—that was one thing. Or you could rush out with a roar, pretending you were a madman or a murderer—that was another. Or you could dart quickly up to the third floor—that was another—only you’d have to do that at once because the stairs at the top of the first flight were already creaking, which meant that in another moment the stairs at the bottom of the second flight would start, and when any one got round the bend of the second flight they’d spot you. Or you could say to yourself, ‘Wot ’ave I done, any’ow? ’Oo’s ’e, any’ow? Boo!’ And wait, calm like.
Ben chose the last idea. He chose it largely because he was too late to choos
e most of the others, but even if the choice had been forced upon him by circumstances he came to the conclusion that it really was the best one. For, after all, what was he afraid of? The old man, if he possessed the right to warn him away, had not done so yet, and when it came to a direct battle of wits Ben’s weren’t so bad. Anyway, your brain worked better in the open than in a cupboard.
‘Seven more, and ’e’ll be ’ere,’ Ben counted the steps. ‘If ’e don’t tread clear of No. Five ’e’ll git a jump!…There she goes…Good, ’e’s swearin’…Three more…One…Now ’e’s up—’
The door was shoved open. A figure stood in the doorway.
It was the old man all right.
‘So! You are here!’ he cried, glaring.
‘Well, I’m blowed!’ answered Ben.
‘What are you doing?’
‘No ’arm.’
‘I’ll judge that, my man! Answer me! What are you doing?’
For the first time Ben had authority for saying that he was the caretaker, and for the first time he had no inclination to make the statement. He didn’t mind lying himself, but he wasn’t so ready to involve other people. If the old man had got in with a latch-key the house presumably belonged to him; and if the house belonged to him, then it couldn’t belong to the girl; and if it didn’t belong to the girl, then he couldn’t really be her caretaker, could he? Well, there you were!…
‘Are you going to answer me, or aren’t you?’ demanded the old man.
‘Lummy, don’t you ’urry one?’ retorted Ben. ‘I’ll tell you why I’m ’ere, guv’nor. I come in ’ere ter eat a bit o’ cheese, and fahnd it rather ’ard.’
Now the old man looked at him sharply.
‘Try speaking a little more clearly?’ he suggested.
‘’Ow’s this fer clear?’ returned Ben, and brought the revolver from his pocket.
The House Opposite Page 4