The House Opposite

by J. Jefferson Farjeon

  Now the door was being opened by an enormous policeman. The policeman seized him and handcuffed him and hissed, ‘Come and be hanged!’ And he went and was hanged…

  Now the door was being opened by a three-headed giant That, of course, was simply ridiculous, but then, you may have gathered by now, Ben was simply ridiculous. Otherwise would he still have been in Jowle Street, seeking entrance through its most forbidding portal? The three-headed giant gave a roar and ate him up three times, once with each head. Ben listened to his bones crackling…

  Now it was the man he had murdered who opened the door. Why not? This man had already arisen from one death. Why should he not get up after another? Anyhow, here he was, with wounds all over him, opening the door to Ben. And Ben murdered him again. And he bounced up again. Ben killed him seventeen times and then gave up with a sob…

  And now the door was beginning to open slowly all by itself. Slowly—very slowly. And no one was behind it. Only black, yawning space. ‘Gawd—it’s really ’appenin’ this time!’ gasped Ben. He closed his eyes and rushed into the space, and banged his head against the door. It hadn’t been really happening. The door was still closed.

  But something else was really happening. As though in response to the thud of Ben’s head—for the contact of his head with the wood of the door had also really happened—a little shutter was being cautiously raised, and an eye was appearing at an aperture. Ben stared back at the eye balefully. Thus bulls have stared, angry and impotent, at the scurvy tricks of matadors.

  ‘’Oo’s there?’ asked the owner of the eye.

  Ben did not answer. For one reason, he was still speechless from his bump. For another, Fate chose to play a card—and Fate had decided, perhaps while Adam was courting Eve, that Ben should one day enter No. 26 Jowle Street. The card Fate played was held, appropriately, in Ben’s own hand. It was the little red and green button. The hand that held it was raised in the abortive attempt to prevent, by pressure, the birth of a bump, and it so happened that the button was revealed at the same time between two of the fingers. Then, swiftly and astonishingly, the door did actually open.

  Ted Flitt, who opened the door, had been scarcely less agitated than the person he opened the door to. Events were getting beyond him, and although his was a minor part—saving in one particular, shortly to be revealed—he was weighed down by his responsibilities and agitated as to his capacity to carry them out. He had seen his betters ‘put through it.’ He had been ‘put through it’ himself. There were indeed so many things he had been told he must do, and so many he had been told he mustn’t do, that confusion reigned in his mind; and, when confronted with the need for a quick decision, he could not always remember which was which. Wherefore Ted Flitt had returned to first principles when he had seen the red and green badge through the slit, and, throwing over subtleties, had opened the front door in obedience to the accepted sign.

  Ben, this time, did not rush through. ‘Let’s get this straight,’ he thought to himself. ‘Is it, or ain’t it?’

  You can’t be sure of anything immediately after a bump. But, of course, the stars and the comets and the lights and the pits keep running round and round in a circle, like, whereas this present blackness before him was stationary. He tested it by putting his finger through it. The finger pierced nothingness. ‘It ain’t,’ he decided. ‘It is!’

  And, suddenly confronted with this stupendous fact, for Reality is stupendous just after you have mislaid, it, he lost his head, and shot in with the speed of a cannon ball.

  Then another stupendous fact confronted him. Stupendous in character, if not in size. He found himself gripping the throat of, surely, himself!

  ‘’Strewth!’ he thought. ‘I’m committin’ suicide!’ For an instant he really believed he was. He’d once heard a spiritualist say that, just before you died, you sometimes bulged out of yourself and looked back. The next instant, however, he decided that he couldn’t be. You cannot commit suicide without getting hurt, and he didn’t feel hurt. Not around his throat, at least, and his astonishment had suspended all physical sensations higher up.

  ‘Yus, but if it ain’t me,’ came his next thought, ‘why don’t ’e squeak?’

  The reason for this was quite simple. When a certain tightness exists around your throat, you can’t squeak.

  Then other thoughts rushed helter-skelter into Ben’s mind, while he still held on to the throat. He held on to the throat because he realised that, in some queer manner, he had gained a physical advantage over whoever this fellow was, and he couldn’t afford to throw the advantage away. He had to retain it while the thoughts raced, through him. This was one thought. The fellow he was holding was, if not himself, like himself. This was another thought. The fellow was terrified. ‘Lummy, ’e’s frightender than me!’ reflected Ben. ‘Ain’t we a cupple?’ And, others: ‘’Ow long are we goin’ ter stand like this?’ ‘Wot ’appens if some ’un comes dahn them stairs?’ ‘’Ow much more ’ave yer got ter press ter mike a chap die?’ ‘Is ’e goin’ ter be any good ter me dead?’

  And then, suddenly, Ben’s mind stumbled into a more practical channel of thought. He realised that, dead, this fellow would be quite useless to him, whereas alive he might prove invaluable. For here, at last, was something weaker than himself. Something more pliable, more contemptible! Something he could use! He saw himself amazingly as a killer, with a killer’s power. The Past and the Present shouted in his favour. And through the shouting, gradually increasing in volume, came another thought, a thought without which all else was insignificant: Where is she? Where is she? Where is she?…

  He heard himself hissing the question. He, Ben, hissing! ‘Quick, yer measly devil! Where is she?’

  The measly devil tried to gesticulate.

  ‘Yer dead if yer don’t answer!’

  The measly devil tried to.

  ‘Wot—yer won’t?’

  Now the measly devil managed to waggle a portion of anatomy towards a passage in the rear. It was enough for Ben. In a trice they were both speeding along the passage, for which evolution Ben altered his grip to the back of his guide’s neck. At the end of the passage they halted.

  ‘Go hon!’ ordered Ben.

  ‘’Ow can I?’ almost sobbed Ted Flitt.

  Perhaps after all he couldn’t! Ben considered the point. The passage twisted downwards, and it is difficult to twist down a passage unless your neck is entirely your own. On the other hand, the sudden emotion of finding that your neck has been given back to you may endanger the neck of the donor. No, Ted Flitt’s neck could not be given back to him unless some other equally vital portion of anatomy were yielded in exchange.

  So Ben studied Flitt for another portion of anatomy that would permit progress without power. And, all at once, his eyes came to rest on a portion of hip.

  ‘’Allo!’ thought Ben. ‘Wot a mug!’

  Yes, he was a mug! He ought to have noticed that significant bulge at Flitt’s hip before. And as he noticed it now he was almost too late, for Flitt gave a sudden twirl and swung one of his arms downwards. Ben was just too quick for him. ‘No, yer don’t!’ he muttered. And, reaching the hip an instant before its rightful owner, he whipped out the ill-concealed revolver.

  ‘Now I gotcha proper!’ barked Ben, digging the revolver into Flitt’s back. ‘Quick march, or yer a gorner!’

  Then Ted Flitt gave up. With a whimper he obeyed, and began leading his captor down the twisting passage towards the basement.

  ‘No tricks!’ said Ben.

  ‘’Oo’s playin’ tricks!’ answered Flitt.

  ‘You ain’t,’ Ben told him.

  Then he told him something else.

  ‘Listen, yer blinkin’ termarter pip,’ he said, ‘and that’s puttin’ yer too big! If I ain’t’ seein’ that gall in less’n twenty ticks, yer goin’ ter ’ave a ’ole in you wot a train could go through, see?’

  Flitt saw. A tick has never been precisely measured, but it is certain that fewer than twenty elapsed
between Ben’s threat and their arrival at a door. The door was in a dark alcove. Terrified and flustered, Flitt brought a large key from his pocket and unlocked the door. A black, unlit chamber lay beyond.

  ‘Git a light!’ ordered Ben.

  Conscious of an increased pressure in his back, Flitt fumbled with a box of matches, and struck a match. As the little flame spurted, the cellar grew into being.

  ‘Candle or somethink,’ said Ben curtly.

  A candle was lit. It stood on one of two wooden chairs that formed the entire furnishing of the cellar. On the other chair, bound and gagged, was Nadine.

  Joy and anger combined tumultuously within Ben’s soul and gave him a sensation of sickness. For a moment his authority wavered, and Flitt leapt round from the candle.

  ‘Git on the grahnd!’ roared Ben, ducking just in time. ‘Or yer marked fer six foot below it.’

  Once more the revolver covered Flitt, but this time it was his misshapen nose that came into the range of further accident. He flopped to the ground like a blancmange yielding to a heat wave, and lay there flat. Ben ran to the girl.

  ‘Gawd, wot ’ave they done ter yer, miss?’ he mumbled, and as he addressed her he found himself fighting weakness again. The sight of her helplessness and her incongruous beauty—for what had beauty to do with this dank, candle-lit cellar?—invaded his conquering spirit and made him feel all weak like.

  But he wasn’t going to risk being caught any more. While he ungagged and unbound her, he kept one eye ever ready for the figure on the ground, and at the slightest movement he swung round to it with a picturesque epithet. By the time the girl was free, ‘tomato pip’ had become a compliment.

  Nadine did not speak during the unbinding. When her hands were free she helped. Possibly her own heart was a little unsteady, too. But when the rope slipped finally from her, she stood for an instant looking at Ben, and he passed through another of those rare moments that humble one and give one back one’s tottering belief. Surely if Creation could evolve such a look as this, there must be something good in it?

  There was no time for prolongment of the moment. Every second was vital.

  ‘Quick, miss!’ muttered Ben. ‘We gotter git out of ’ere!’

  She hesitated.

  ‘No time ter lose, miss,’ he urged.

  ‘The man—is he safe?’ she whispered.

  ‘You fust, ’im arter,’ muttered Ben.

  Then he too hesitated. A door had closed softly in the hall above.

  If some archaeologist of the future discovers Ben’s brains and regards them as typical of our time, it is not likely that we shall stand very high in history, yet there are moments when we all surpass ourselves, and Ben surpassed himself now. Lurching towards the sprawled-out Flitt, he whispered fiercely in his ear:

  ‘Git hup and take orf yer coat.’

  Flitt’s ear was used to ferocity, but he had never heard anything so definitely ferocious as this before. He leapt up as though an explosion had just occurred beneath him, and his coat was off in a trice. Passing his revolver to Nadine, Ben whipped off his own coat. Then, during a surprisingly few seconds for what they contained, an exchange of certain clothing was made, and the episode concluded with the binding and gagging of the unhappy ex-jailor.

  ‘I’ll bet this is the on’y time on Gawd’s earth,’ was Ben’s fiercely whispered parting shot, as he prepared to lock the cellar door, ‘that anybody was glad ter ’ave a fice like your’n!’

  The key clicked in the lock. As it did so, a shadow passed into the sphere of dim light at the turn of the basement stairs, and materialised into the Indian.

  CHAPTER XXXI

  OUTSIDE THE CELLAR DOOR

  THE intelligence that had inspired Ben to change clothing with Ted Flitt ceased to exist at the sight of Mahdi. Of all things that had terrified Ben during the past hours it was the Indian who had terrified him most, and the Oriental’s appearance now on the basement stairs utterly extinguished the sailor’s brain. But fortunately a precisely opposite effect was produced on Nadine. On her the Indian acted as a sudden stimulant, whipping her finally out of her numbness and supplying her with the wit and vitality to carry Ben’s intelligence on. Thus, she answered Mahdi’s dawning question before it was asked.

  ‘Yes, I’m beaten, Mahdi,’ she murmured. ‘My jailer was cleverer than I took him to be.’

  ‘So?’ said Mahdi. ‘Then how do you come to be outside the cellar?’

  ‘I’d already got outside the cellar in my attempt to escape.’

  ‘I see.’ Mahdi’s voice was thoughtful, and his eyes now turned towards Ben, who luckily bathed in shadows. ‘But I might also ask how the clever jailer permitted your attempt to escape?’

  Again Nadine stepped into the breach. She was giving Ben time to recover.

  ‘There may have been some one who nearly proved even cleverer than the jailer,’ she exclaimed.

  Something in her tone, or a quick thought inspired by her words, caused the Indian to bring his eyes swiftly back to the girl’s face. Ben, struggling hard to find his lost brain, felt as though a scorching heat had been blessedly removed from his forehead.

  ‘You refer to a tramp?’ inquired Mahdi.

  Nadine shrugged her shoulders. ‘Perhaps,’ she said.

  ‘Where is he?’ demanded Mahdi.

  And then Ben found his brain. It was half-way to the moon. A moment later and it would have been all the way to the moon, and Ben would have followed it, but he was just in time to catch hold of it with one hand, and to jerk the other hand towards the cellar door. Mentally speaking, Ben was in several pieces and several places.

  The Indian looked at the hand that was jerking towards the cellar door. Then he looked at the cellar door.

  ‘In there, Mr Flitt?’

  Ben nodded. He had been speechless through terror before. Now he was speechless through triumph. He was duping the Indian! Actually duping him…

  Mahdi moved a step forward. Then he paused, and once more Ben felt his forehead scorching and his brain moving moonwards.

  ‘What will the clever jailer do if his prisoner makes a dash?’ he inquired.

  For a peripatetic brain Ben’s was not doing so badly. From a very long way off it directed Ben to produce his pistol and to point it towards the girl’s breast. And then it asked him, suddenly close, why he had not produced the pistol before, why he had concealed it behind his back, and why he was not now pointing it at the Indian instead of the girl. A quick swing round—bing!—pop him off!…Yes, why not? Quick swing round—bing!—pop him off! And then a bunk up the stairs, and across to the front door…What was the order?…Swing round—bing—pop—bunk…Swing round—bing—

  The Indian was moving forward again. ‘Where’s ’e goin’?’ thought Ben. He couldn’t make sure whether the Indian were moving towards him or the cellar, or exactly midway between the two. It must be the cellar! He had called him ‘Mr Flitt!’ Well, that proved it, didn’t, it? Swing round—bing—pop—no! ’Arf a mo’! Wait till he got by! That was the ticket. Then, when he had got by, and was at the cellar door, with his back turned…swing round bing—pop—bunk…

  It is probable that if some statician or surveyor of foreheads could have measured the perspiration on Ben’s brow at this moment, the density would have constituted a record; although the record was destined to be broken twice more on the same spot before Ben’s brow returned to its normal texture. As the Indian drew nearer and nearer, the brain behind the brow separated and became a thousand brains, each shrieking, each thinking differently, each swimming about impotently and blubbing for its mother. The Indian grew large and small, as seemed his habit at poignant moments. The whites of his eyes revolved like Catherine wheels. Time revolved with him. Was it yesterday, or today, or tomorrow? And through it all, like the throb of an engine or the beat of a pulse, ran the ceaseless, meaningless rhythm: round—bing—pop—bunk…round—bing—pop—bunk…

  Then reality came hurtling back. The Indian had passed, an
d was at the cellar door. At the cellar door! Beyond Ben! With his back to Ben! At the mercy of Ben!

  With violently trembling fingers—‘yer see, yer ain’t quite yerself,’ Ben reflected in one of those timeless instants not recorded by clocks—the dazed fellow began to swing the pistol round towards the Indian. The Indian turned the cellar key. The pistol continued to swing round. The Indian began to push the cellar door open. The pistol swung round more. It was a slow-motion swing. Now the muzzle pointed directly towards the Indian’s back…

  And then a hand closed over Ben’s. If it had closed over suddenly, Mahdi would have been dead the next instant; and Ben would have qualified at the same moment for a lunatic asylum. But it closed over quietly, softly, yet with a strange firmness. Something cool, something infinitely steadying, pervaded Ben. For the first time he experienced the full executive quality of the girl he was humbly trying to serve…

  Now the cellar door was wide open, and Mahdi was peering in. A bound and gagged figure peered back at him from a dark corner. And, all at once, Ben realized—or thought he realised—the reason why he had not been allowed to shoot Mahdi in the back. When Mahdi stepped into the cellar to investigate that bound and gagged figure more closely, it would be simple to spring forward and close the door behind him. And to relock it! And to solve the Indian problem!

  But Indian problems are not so easily solved. For some reason of his own, Mahdi did not step into the cellar to make a closer investigation of the bound and gagged figure. Satisfied, with what he saw, he suddenly stepped back into the passage and relocked the door himself. Then he put the key into his pocket, and turned once more towards the two who were watching him.