The House Opposite

by J. Jefferson Farjeon

  Now he was on the railing, tipping forward gratefully towards the wall. Before his knees was the opening he sought. Dropping carefully to the diminutive balcony floor, he peered in through the open window. All was stillness and silence and blackness…

  No! Something moved in the room! Slowly…softly…

  ‘One day,’ thought Hobart, ‘I shall kill that cat!’ He entered the pitch-dark room, and stood still for an instant listening for sounds that were not feline. He heard none. The hope that he was in the room alone with the cat was emphasised by all this passivity. Had any person been in the room as Hobart had entered through the window, he must have been seen by that person—a dim form leaping through—and there would have been an immediate attack on the intruder. But Hobart had not been attacked. He had not been seen! So far, then, so good!

  He began to grope around. In a passage above him a sleeping man stirred.

  ‘Now, let me get my bearings,’ thought Hobart. ‘This is a tall, rather narrow house, and I started from a top room at the front. Say there are three floors. Yes, I think I remember the windows from outside. From the front room of the top, the third floor, I climb out over the roof, and turn to the back of the house. The roof slopes a long way down at the back. Either there is no back room on the top third floor, or it is a very small one, with no window. A cupboard room, perhaps, or a little room with a small window at the side. It doesn’t matter, anyway. I get down as far as the second floor, I am on the second floor now. I am in a back room on the second floor, and my sleeping jailor is still above me, while between the two flights which separate me from the front door, I may meet three other people—the old man, the woman—damn her!—and that apology of a fellow who hangs around the front hall. Well, I’m ready to meet them. I hope I meet them all—though, for preference, one at a time. And remember, Jack Hobart, there’s no need to be gentle when you do meet them! You’re in your own house, and it’s a real rough house…Now—where’s the confounded door?’

  As he moved towards it, his foot struck something on the ground. Something low and flat. He stooped and felt it. Yes, low and flat…and long…

  ‘Odd bit of furniture, this,’ he reflected. ‘Sort of a chest, eh? Lid a bit loose too.’

  He raised the lid. He stooped lower. The cat, hunting perhaps for mice, crept close, sharing his curiosity. Together, they peered down into the invisible.

  Then some one leapt from the darkness beside Hobart, and something crashed on his head. As he reeled into oblivion, he made a frantic grasp, and wrestled momentarily with a startled feline. But his fingers grew limp, the feline shot out of the window in a mad frenzy, and the old man who had emerged so galvanically from a corner stared down at Hobart’s form as it crumpled into the chest.

  ‘Eh!—what was that?’ muttered the jailer on the floor above.

  The jailer blinked about him vaguely. The passage was dark. He cursed himself. He groped for matches, after much fumbling managed to relight the stump of candle.

  ‘Hallo, you in there!’ he called through the door.

  Receiving no reply, he suddenly unlocked the door and looked in. The room was empty. The candle, helpless against the draught, died its second and final death.

  He ran to the open window. He stared out. Across the road, on the doorstep of No. 29, a ragged man was standing.

  CHAPTER XXV

  NADINE GOES IN

  SAVING for the depressing illumination from the lamp-post at the corner, Jowle Street was in utter darkness when Nadine returned to it. No light glimmered from any window. But that was not proof that it slept.

  Two hours had passed since she had scribbled her hurried note and had left No. 29 with the Indian, and much had happened in that time. Nadine herself had been fully occupied. But more was to occur before the night was through, and, as though gifted with prescience, the girl paused for an instant and shivered. The instant passed, however, and her nerves were steady again when, after a rapid glance at No. 26, she turned towards No. 29 and approached the front door.

  Reaching it, she listened. No sound came from within. Softly she tapped on the worn wood. On the other side of the wood, only a few feet distant, a sailor lay, but he did not hear her tapping. Her hand went to the bell, hesitated, and came away again.

  She turned her head, and glanced once more at the house opposite. Then, swiftly, she left the doorstep and slipped into the side alley where, earlier, the sailor had slipped and bumped into a cat. The girl was spared this little shock, but disappointment awaited her at the end of the alley. A window she had hoped might be open was closed and latched.

  She returned along the alley and, making no more effort to enter No. 29, directed her attention towards No. 26. Now she stood on the doorstep of that unpleasant house, and her psychology changed. No longer hesitating, she rang the bell, and a little man sitting on a stool ten inches away from her hand raised his drooping head with a sudden start.

  ‘What a night!’ he thought, and put an ugly eye to a slit.

  He saw nothing. The person he wanted to see was too close to the slit to give the ugly eye any satisfaction. So he tried speech, since vision failed.

  ‘’Oo’s there?’ he called, in a worried undertone.

  ‘Let me in at once,’ replied Nadine, also in an undertone, but sharply. ‘Don’t waste time.’

  ‘’Oo are you?’ retorted the little man doggedly.

  ‘Does the name Mahdi signify anything to you?’ asked Nadine. ‘And the colours red and green?’

  Evidently they did, but the door did not open. The little man left it abruptly, and was replaced a few seconds later by another man twice his age. The new warden of the door repeated the original request for information.

  ‘Who is it?’ came the demand, this time with spirit.

  ‘My name won’t mean anything to you,’ Nadine responded with equal spirit; ‘but I can show you something that will. How much longer am I to be kept standing here? Suppose somebody passes by? I was told I should meet fools here, but I hardly thought the folly would begin on the doorstep!’

  ‘Perhaps our definition of the word “folly” differs,’ said the voice on the other side of the door. ‘To me is not folly to hesitate before opening the door to strangers at two or three a.m. What have you got to show me that will mean something to me, and so prove my folly?’

  ‘Can you see through a wooden door?’

  ‘No—but through a slit!’

  There was a tiny click as the panel was slipped aside. The old man’s eye appeared at the top of the slit, and a more brilliant eye—the eye of an electric torch—appeared at the bottom of the slit. The torch sent its ray through to the porch, like a miniature searchlight.

  ‘Hold up this interesting thing?’ said the old man. ‘There is light enough now to see it.’

  ‘How do you know I can hold it up?’ demanded Nadine.

  ‘If you cannot, our conversation is ended, and you can go away and knock up some other fool,’ answered the old man.

  ‘Perhaps you’re not quite such a fool after all,’ said Nadine, and held up the thing. ‘Now are you satisfied?’

  In the little ray of light gleamed a small coloured object. The colours comprising it were red and green.

  ‘A little closer,’ commanded the old man’s voice.

  Nadine advanced the small object closer to the source of the ray. Several seconds passed while it was scrutinised.

  ‘It is a little larger than I should have imagined,’ commented the scrutiniser, at last.

  ‘Of course it is a little larger,’ retorted Nadine, impatiently. ‘I am surprised that its size does not impress you more. It is Mahdi’s.’

  ‘Mahdi’s!’

  ‘Yes. And now, if you do not let me in at once, you will soon see a larger one still.’

  The door opened. Nadine slipped inside. Then the door closed quickly behind her, and the electric torch was switched out.

  ‘You are covered,’ came the old man’s voice through the darkness. ‘I can s
hoot you without a sound at any instant that I choose. Don’t move. Beside me is a dear fellow who would die for me, if necessary. Wouldn’t you, Ted? He has a knife. And on the stairs is another trusted one who, by pressing a little button which his finger is now touching, can electrocute you where you stand. Not bad for fools, eh? And now let us get down to serious business.’

  ‘I mean to get down to serious business,’ returned Nadine. ‘Switch on your light and take the badge I shall hold out to you. You will find Mahdi’s mark on the back of it. Then shoot me and knife me, and electrocute me. Not bad for fools? My friend, you are running the risk of being the biggest fool I have ever met! I am here to keep you from your folly, and to do the work that Mahdi should have done himself. He admits it. Now, then. Switch on your light, and be quick.’

  The light appeared. Her words and her imperious tone seemed to be having some effect. Again the badge appeared in the torch’s ray, and the old man took it. He examined it closely. Then he handed it back.

  ‘Where is Mahdi?’ he inquired.

  ‘Mahdi is with some one even more important than himself.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘If he were not, he would be here.’

  ‘I see. And who is this more important one?’

  ‘Has Mahdi ever mentioned a name?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I shall not.’

  ‘As you like. I take it you are Mahdi’s deputy?’

  ‘Hardly that.’

  ‘Who, then?’

  ‘A deputy implies an inferior.’

  ‘Really! You speak as though you were the more important one yourself!’

  ‘I am sufficiently important for your obedience. Be satisfied with that. Now, then. Waste no more time. Show me your arrangements.’

  The old man hesitated. He made one last gesture of caution.

  ‘Is there anything else you can do to prove your right to be here?’ he asked. ‘If, as your attitude suggests, my sagacity is on trial, you must forgive my insistence on proving it.’

  ‘How will this do, then? There was a man watching this house from a window opposite—’

  ‘I got rid of him,’ interrupted the old man quickly.

  ‘You did not get rid of him,’ retorted Nadine. ‘He was still there soon after midnight. Mahdi and I got rid of him. Does that knowledge prove my credentials?’

  The old man looked worried. Then he shrugged his shoulders. His resistance had been overcome.

  ‘Damn that slippery fellow!’ he muttered. ‘If ever I get hold of him I’ll make him howl! Well, well! It seems I’m bound to accept you. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘I’ve told you.’

  ‘Tell me more explicitly.’

  ‘I am here to supervise your plans.’

  ‘But Mahdi knows them, and approves of them.’ Suddenly the old man added, with a momentary return of his suspicion: ‘Didn’t he tell you of the plans?’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘Then you know them!’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘And in that case, there is no need to repeat them. Walls have ears, eh? I take it, of course, that you approve of the scheme? You haven’t come here, at this hour, with an alternative, I hope?’

  ‘I approve of the scheme,’ replied Nadine; ‘but I am not satisfied that you will be able to carry it out.’

  ‘Why?’ demanded, the old man.

  ‘Because, so far, you have bungled. I want to see your preparations with my own eyes—’

  ‘Listen to her!’ burst out the old man indignantly. ‘She comes in my house, Ted, and she expects me to take her all over the place as though I were a—’ He broke off, and veered round to her again. ‘P’r’aps you’d like to see our prisoner with your own eyes?’

  ‘Prisoner?’

  ‘Yes, yes!’

  Nadine was silent for a moment. Then, her voice harder than ever, she answered:

  ‘I certainly intend to see the prisoner with my own eyes. Seeing is believing, my friend. Where is—the prisoner?’

  ‘He is upstairs,’ said the old man grimly. ‘Come! I will take you to him.’

  The torch was glowing now. He turned towards the stairs, and invited the girl to follow.

  ‘At the top?’ queried Nadine casually.

  ‘He was at the top,’ answered the old man; ‘but after he tried to escape I put him in a safer place.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Heavens above, how you plague one with questions! I am going to show you where. Didn’t you say yourself that seeing was believing? Stay by the door, Ted. Wharton, you go on ahead of us.’ The man on the stair ascended and disappeared. ‘Now, young lady, you will see a pretty sight.’

  They mounted the stairs in silence. When they reached the second floor, the old man stopped and pushed open a door.

  ‘In here,’ he instructed shortly.

  They entered. The torch flashed on a long box on the floor.

  ‘There,’ said the old man. ‘There is our prisoner.’

  Nadine stared down at the box. The lid was closed. She stifled a shudder. Her voice was still calm as she commented:

  ‘A box may be empty.’

  ‘This one doesn’t happen to be.’

  ‘Still, prove it!’

  ‘This time, I decline.’

  They regarded each other. Wharton, in the background, moved a step closer. A long box with a brilliant circle of light on the lid, two faces dimly illuminated above the box, and a shadowy figure approaching quietly…

  ‘What is the reason for your refusal?’

  ‘Perhaps an old man of my experience rebels against supervision—’

  ‘Aren’t we all supervised?’

  ‘…By a charming girl who, however charming, is barely a quarter of his age.’

  ‘I think you have another reason,’ said Nadine, after a short pause. ‘You imagine I am afraid to look on the dead?’

  ‘I did not say he was dead.’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Why not?’ She marvelled at her cool and callous tone.

  ‘Sometimes,’ answered the old man dryly, ‘one postpones the final coup until the moment of actual necessity.’

  ‘That may be wise,’ said Nadine. ‘But the necessity will arise in this case?’

  ‘I fear it will!’

  ‘When?’

  The old man did not respond. His eyes were fixed upon the girl, and he was studying her expression closely.

  ‘Oh—well, the exact time does not matter,’ she exclaimed suddenly, and the expression he was studying betrayed no sympathy. ‘Where is your telephone?’

  Wharton shot a quick glance at the old man, but the old man was too intent on Nadine to notice him.

  ‘What do you want the telephone for?’ he asked.

  ‘I must telephone to Mahdi.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To tell him that your prisoner is safe.’

  ‘Is that necessary?’

  ‘Absolutely. He is waiting.’

  ‘Very well,’ nodded the old man. ‘We will go down. The telephone is below. You will stay here, Wharton, and see that the lid of that interesting box does not fly open. Come, young lady!’

  He stood in the doorway, and she passed out. They began to descend the stairs.

  ‘Shall I telephone for you?’ suggested the old man, half-way down.

  ‘No, I must speak to him personally,’ returned the girl. ‘He must be convinced by my voice that I am here.’

  ‘As you like,’ said the old man.

  They reached the hall.

  ‘In here,’ said the old man, pushing a door wide.

  The girl entered. As she did so, the light was switched on. Across the room, on a little bracket, was the telephone, and by the telephone sat Mahdi.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  MAHDI TAKES CONTROL

  IF the sight of Mahdi seated by the telephone provided a shock for Mr Clitheroe, it provided an even bigger shock for Nadine, but the girl showed
the greater command of herself. With a tiny shrug she controlled her emotion. Mr Clitheroe, on the other hand, burst into immediate invective.

  ‘What the devil!’ he cried. ‘Is my house to be turned into a Jack-in-the-box? Am I to have no say what happens here?’

  Mahdi ignored him. His eyes were upon the girl.

  ‘You have chosen to deceive me,’ he said, in a voice that was sinister through its very lack of expression.

  ‘Appearances are against me, Mahdi,’ responded the girl.

  ‘Appearances only?’

  ‘Yes. But you don’t look in the mood for explanation and I am not in the mood to plead.’

  ‘Explanations,’ repeated Mahdi softly. His white teeth seemed to expand over the word. ‘No, I do not think I am in the mood for explanations, Nadine. They would take too long. You would have to explain why, when we left the house across the way, you begged me to take you to a night club when my desire was that you should go straight home. You would have to explain why you were—so kind to me, till you induced me to dance with you against my better judgment. And why you fainted. It was, I grant, well done. And why, at one moment—’ He paused, and something darted into his eye for an instant. ‘You clung to me tightly.’ He became expressionless again. ‘And why you then begged that I should put you in a taxi and send you home. And why you did not go home—but came here! Unless all this was to secure the little red and green badge that doubtless gave you entrance, there will have to be very much explanation, Nadine—and, as I have said, I have not time for it.’

  ‘Yet I could explain, Mahdi,’ insisted Nadine doggedly.

  ‘Well, perhaps you shall be given your chance to do so,’ answered the Indian. ‘But not now. Not here. And not to me,’ Now he turned to Mr Clitheroe, addressing him for the first time. ‘You have some place where we can keep her for tonight?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ snapped Mr Clitheroe venomously. ‘She shall be kept here! But, perhaps, I am in a mood for explanations,’

  ‘I hope so—but to give them, Mr Clitheroe, not to hear them,’ murmured the Indian. ‘I will attend to you in a little while. First, however, the girl. Where do you propose to put her?’