Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison

by Arthur Morrison

  “He’s scarcely a pal to be proud of,” Crick observed, with a critical eye to the mongrel’s lack of points. “Pure pedigree tripehound, with a doormat cross, I’d guess. Well, and where’s your news? You’ve hit somebody under the ear with a piece of string this morning, they tell me, and we’ve come to hear about it — Mellor especially. Did he take it game?”

  “Oh, pretty well, as you might say, sir — pretty well. Nothin’ to grumble about, considerin’.”

  The dashing Mellor, with a somewhat glary eye, inwardly much concerned with the black cigar, was helping himself through with cold brandy. “Say anythin’ to you?” he managed to ask with some appearance of interest.

  “You don’t ‘appen to ‘a’ known ‘im, sir, I s’pose?” asked the hangman, turning to Mellor quickly.

  “Know him? No — of course not; didn’t know him,” replied the gallant youth, coughing at a gulp of brandy and regarding the cigar with growing apprehension.

  “Ah, well, there wasn’t much about ‘im,” commented the hangman, with an odd air of relief. “Nobody don’t seem to ‘a’ took much interest in ‘im, else there’d ‘a’ been two or three more o’ you gents ‘ere to see me. Now, the day when I ‘tended to Cracknell for the Mile End case, the bar was pretty-nigh full. ‘E was a rum ‘un, was Cracknell. I told you about ‘im afore, but this genelman ain’t ‘eard. Cracknell was a man very much o’ your size an’ appearance, sir,” he went on, turning again to the now thoroughly unhappy Mellor. “When I comes up to ‘im with the straps, as it might be to you, ‘Oh,’ says ‘e, ‘you’re the bloke, are you?’ he says. ‘Why,’ says he, ‘I’d make a better ‘angman out o’ putty.’ he says; an’ then — beg pardon, Mr. Crick, the genelman don’t seem very well.”

  The completely disorganized Mellor, as pallid a figure as ever stood before the man in black, gulped behind his hand, and murmured: “Bit off color; eggs for breakfast; always disagree; think I’ll go outside.”

  “That so?” queried Crick, taking his friend by the arm. “Come along, then — a whiff of fresh air in the Temple. That’ll put it right.” And the hangman watched the aspiring youth go much as he had often seen a white-livered patient going, supported by a turnkey.

  “Young gent tried hisself a bit too high with that cigar, I think,” he commented, turning to Warren. “I didn’t say nothin’ to offend Mr. Crick, did I, Mr. Warren?”

  “Why, no,” replied the quiet young man. “What makes you think so?”

  “Well, I was a bit close about this mornin’s job, an’ I meant to be. I’ve got to be careful about that — an’ there was that noo young gent, too. I didn’t know ‘im so well, you see. I should be very sorry to offend genelmen as take an interest in me, but I’ve a very nice little ‘ouse just now, with a garden, an’ I don’t want to ‘ave to move. I’m partial to gardenin’, you see, sir, and particular interested in clove-pinks; an’ the ground suits clove-pinks wonderful. I ‘ave to be very careful, comin’ an’ goin’; and, if you’ll allow me, sir, you’re about the only genelmen I know as I’d let into the secret. Most of ‘em’s all right, I know, but they talk an’ go on, and — well, any accident might let it out. I’ve ‘ad to move once, because of a pliceman’s wife lettin’ on, an’ I don’t want to move again; besides the garden, the part suits the missis, an’ my darter’s goin’ out teachin’ the pianner, an’ we’re settled very comfortable and friendly with the neighbors — under a special name, of courss. That ‘a the great advantage of private executions, you see. Now, everybody knew Calcraft, through bein’ seen always in the public jobs. ‘E ‘ad no peace of ‘is life — always movin’. I’ve known ‘im ‘ooted in the street. I could never ‘a’ stood it, bein’ a man as must ‘ave peace an’ quiet. It ‘ud ‘a’ broke my ‘art. So I’ve been very worried over this mornin’s job, for that reason. It ‘a a little awk’ard.”

  “What? This man Renton?”

  The mild little man nodded, and pushed his glass across the bar. “You see,” he explained, “he was the man next door.”

  “What? Your next-door neighbor?”

  The man in black nodded again, thoughtfully. Warren sat up and stared at him, with a faint whistle.

  “That’s ‘is dawg,” observed the hangman, with a third nod toward the animal, which pricked an ear and wagged its tail as it caught his eye.

  “‘E’s a knowin’ dawg — knowin’, ain’t ye, Billy?” Billy rose and planted his forefeet on the hangman’s leg. “A rare un for findin’ ‘is way about. ‘E’s often ‘ad a run out with me — ain’t ye, Billy? ‘E come up to the Old Bailey for the trial — follered Renton’s missis. And he follered her again each time when she went to see Renton after the sentence, with the kids. There was no keepin’ ‘im indoors. I reckon he pretty well figured it out to hisself that that was where the guv’nor was, although he couldn’t get in. And so it seems he’s been goin’ up there since, on his own, and to-day he spotted me comin’ away, an’ was after me like a shot. Felt a bit lonely, did ye, old chap? Ah, you’re a knowin’ card, Billy, but you don’t know all of it, do ye? Or you mightn’t be sich a pal. ‘Ere, give ‘im a biscuit.”

  The hangman rose, shifted his carpet bag against the side of the bar, and tapped with a coin for the biscuit.

  “So you see,” he resumed. “I’ve been a-thinkin’ about it ever since the trial. I didn’t want to ‘ave to move, you see. I’d been great pals with Jimmy Renton — he grew clove-pinks that beat anythink I ever see — and it was on his account I ‘ad rum to-day instead o’ beer; I felt I ought to celebrate it a little, you see. Well, yes, sir, you’re very good. I will ‘ave just one more. Best respects. Yes; I felt a bit sentimental about Jimmy Renton, bein’ a pal. His clove-pinks was best part o’ two inches across. I never could find out where he got his roots. He used to say ‘e’d give me cuttin’s, but I never could grow ‘em like his. He must ‘a’ took ‘em off his worst plants.”

  Warren had been staring blankly at the other’s face all through these remarks. Now, after a pause, he spoke. “My eyes, man!” he said. “What a situation! Do you mean to say that the poor wretch never suspected who you were till—”

  “Not till I come to ‘im this mornin’ with the straps, sir; no. I’d been thinkin’ about it for a week before. I’d been wonderin’ if they’d mind my askin’ him where he got them roots. I thought he wouldn’t mind tellin’ me then. But they’re very particular now, all of ‘em, Guv’nor and sheriffs and all, and they might ‘a’ said something about it. But, Lor’! I never got a chance. Jimmy went on like Bedlam, the moment he see me. ‘Beck!’ he screams out — Beck’s my private name, sir. You won’t mention it, will you?”

  “Of course not. Go on.”

  “‘Beck!’ he screams out, as if I was a ghost. ‘You’re not Beck?’ And he went back three steps as though I’d pushed him. ‘Good-mornin,’ I says, friendly as I could. ‘No ill-feelin’, I ‘ope?’ and puts out my hand. But he stares all round at ‘em wild, and he says, ‘Who’s this man?’ he says. ‘Ain’t it Beck?’ And they all crowded in an’ began to ask questions; so I told ‘em. The sheriff went white as paper and begun talkin’ to the Guv’nor. But the Guv’nor says to me, ‘Come, you must do your duty’ ‘Yes, sir,’ says I; ‘that’s what I’ve come for. Here’s the straps.’ But poor old Jimmy, he was quite broke up. ‘You never told me, Beck!’ he says. And then, ‘Don’t do it, Beck!’ he says, ‘don’t do it!’ while I was strappin’ his arms.

  “I made it as quick a job as I could, and the warders hurried him off, smart. It ain’t very far, but all the way he was callin’ out, ‘Don’t do it. Beck! Don’t do it!’ while the chaplain was readin’ the service.”

  “Ugh!” ejaculated Warren, with a shudder. “Poor, poor devil!”

  “I did my best for ‘im,” said the little man in black. “I never spoilt a job yet, but I took double care this time, knowin’ who it was for. I ‘tended to the machine a quarter of an hour sooner, so as to get more time, and I went all over everythink a dozen times w
ith a oil-can, and worked the drop till it went with a touch. There wasn’t a thing I could think of I didn’t do, and I got it over as neat and quick as any job I ever did. I couldn’t do less, could I?”

  “And now will you go home and face the man’s wife?”

  “Well, I dunno about facia’ her. She ain’t been showin’ much, and I expected she’d ‘a’ cleared out afore now; but she ain’t. We’ll be neighborly, o’ course; anyhow, the missis will.”

  “And what if that woman finds out who you are?”

  “Well, I ‘ope not. You see, we don’t want to move. My missis is a bit uneasy about it; ‘as been all along.”

  Warren looked thoughtfully in the hangman’s face for a few seconds. Then he said, “Of course the family’s hard up?”

  “I’d say as ‘ard up as never was.”

  “Well, look here, I’m not a rich man; but as far as a sovereign goes—” and he extended the coin.

  The man in black drew back a little. “I’d rather you give it ‘em yourself, sir,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Well, I dunno, sir; p’r’aps there’s more’n one reason. One thing, though; the missis is sometimes a leetle curious about my pockets when I’m asleep; and she don’t always understand explanations. Look here — I tell you what.”

  He rapped on the counter and demanded pen, ink, and an envelope. Then, with some labor, he inscribed an address on the envelope. “Put a post-office order in that, sir,” he said, “and post it. And I’m trustin’ your honor about the address.”

  The door of the inner bar was thrust open, and a large female face appeared, under a flowery bonnet. It bent a frown on the man in black, jerked backward with commanding significance, and vanished.

  “That’s the missis,” said the hangman, reaching for his bag. “I said she was uneasy about this job. She wants to know. She don’t want to move, either. Good-mornin’, sir, and thankee.”

  Warren waited a second and then followed him out. He looked up Fleet Street and there saw the receding back view of a small man in seedy black, in the custody of a gigantic woman in a Paisley shawl, with a ragged dog trotting contentedly behind.

  “Good Lord!” ejaculated Mr. Warren.

  BYLESTONES

  MORE than once already I have said that Snorkey Timms was not a person of any constitutional honesty, except in an oblique and cranky way toward such of his intimates as trusted the honour he never claimed to possess. Perhaps his chief personal characteristic was a dislike of the particular form of violence called work; and no argument could change his views.

  It ain’t that I’ve never tried work, he said, sucking with much enjoyment at his pipe, just filled from my pouch — his taste in tobacco was almost his only creditable characteristic — you mustn’t suppose that. I’ve tried it right enough, though not often, bein’ only ‘uman, as you might say. It may pay some, but I don’t seem to be that sort. Born different, I s’pose. Why, the hardest work I ever did — my word, it was a drive, too! — I lost money over — lost it. An’ after workin’ like two ‘orses all night, too! Fair makes me shudder when I remember it.

  Somebody had been a-preachin’ about honesty to me I s’pose, like what you do sometimes. So I took on a job as a book-maker’s minder — you know what that is, o’ course. You just ‘ang about your bloke’s pitch on the course, an’ if anybody gets makin’ a dispute with him, or claimin’ what your bloke don’t mean to pay, or what not, why you just give ‘im a push in the fore. O’ course, you get it back sometimes, but that’s what you’re paid for. Choppy Byles was my bloke — he was a nut, and no mistake. There wasn’t nothing that Choppy Byles wasn’t up to. He was up to such a lot o’ things that he kep’ two minders reg’lar — and he wanted ‘em, too, I can tell ye. We could ‘a’ done with a few more to ‘elp us most times, could me and Jerry Stagg, the other minder. Both of us had either one eye or the other black, permanent, while the flat-racin’ season was on; an’ once we went ‘ome from Alexander’s Park with about three-quarters of a weskit between us an’ nothing else on us but bruises. But Choppy Byles, he was all right, and a mile away ‘fore the row got into its swing; he ‘ad quite a payin’ afternoon.

  Chipstead Spring Meeting and Felby races is within a few days of each other, and not more’n twenty mile apart — as o’ course you know, like any other educated feller. About ‘alf-way between them two towns is a little place called Nuthatch, and the year I’m a-speakin’ of Mr. Choppy Byles and us two, Jerry Stagg and me, we stayed at Nuthatch over the day or two between the two meetin’s; I dunno why, unless there was somebody in London as Choppy Byles didn’t want to see afore he’d made a bit at Felby.

  Me and Jerry Stagg, we thought we was in for a nice little day or two’s holiday in the country. But Mr. Choppy Byles didn’t take no holidays — he was out for business all the time. He’d race two earwigs over a cabbage-leaf and bet pennies on it with the green-grocer’s boy, rather than miss a chance. And as luck would have it, we found the people at Nuthatch quite a sportin’ lot; in fact, we didn’t give ‘em full credit till we come away; and then we was ready to swear they ‘atched ‘arder nuts at Nuthatch than any place forty times its size.

  It was a rest-an’-be-thankful sort o’ place to look at, though, and as comfortable and cosy a pub to stay at as ever I see. It ‘ud convert any teetotaller to look at it, would the Fox and ‘Ounds. We got there in the evenin’ after Chipstead, an’ sat in the parlour a-talkin’ to the Nuthatchers an’ doin’ our best to astonish the natives. And all through the conversation, whatever was said, there was our bloke, Mr. Choppy Byles, feelin’ round and hintin’ to find if he couldn’t get a bet on with somebody about any ol’ thing. At last he got on to runnin’, an’ it turns out the Nuthatchers had got a chap they fancied could run a good mile.

  That was enough for Choppy Bytes. He was on it. The runnin’ chap’s name was Dobbin — Jarge Dobbin they called ‘im — an’ it didn’t seem to stand to reason that a chap with a name like that could run a fast mile. What was more, Choppy Byles’s memory was wonderful, and, follerin’ the Sheffield ‘andicaps reg’lar, he knew the name o’ pretty well everything on two legs that could raise a toddle, and the name o’ Jarge Dobbin wasn’t one of ‘em. But he always wanted the best bargain he could make, did Choppy; so he began comin’ the innocent kid.

  “‘E must be a wonderful runner,” he said, “this here Dobbin. I s’pose ‘e could run a mile in four minutes quite easy?”

  “Why, no,” says the Nuthatcher as was talkin’ most — chap called Gosling— “nobody could do that. The best as was ever done in the world was nearly thirteen seconds more’n that.”

  “Was it?” says Choppy, lettin’ on to be surprised. “Well, o’ course, I dunno nothin’ about them things. I only seemed to ‘ave a sort of idea that four minutes would be pretty quick. I s’pose he’d do it all right in four minutes and a ‘alf?”

  “No,” says Gosling; “that’s championship time, too. Jarge Dobbin ain’t a champion, not yet. But he’d run a mile on the road in five minutes.”

  “That seems rather slow for sich a very fine runner,” says Choppy.

  “Well, I think he could beat that,” says Gosling; and a whole lot o’ the others there said they was sure he could.

  “Ah!” says Choppy. “Sich a man as him ought. You don’t seem to be stickin’ up for your pal half enough. I expect you’d be glad to bet big odds he’d do it in four minutes an’ three-quarters?”

  “Why, yes,” says one chap in the crowd, “I would.” An’ some o’ the others says “‘Ear, ‘ear!” But Gosling, he sat considerin’. He was a fat, jolly-lookin’ feller, but very thoughtful, with sharp little eyes.

  “I wouldn’t bet very big odds,” he says, presently. “But I’d give a bit of odds he’d do it — say between the forty-fourth and forty-fifth milestones along the main London road here.”

  “What odds?” asks Choppy, snappin’ him up quick. “Two to one?”

  “Why, no,” says Gosling, in
his slow way; “not sich odds as them. ‘Five to four.”

  Choppy ‘aggled a bit, but he couldn’t get the odds no longer. So it was settled and put down in writin’ that Jarge Dobbin was to run from the forty-fourth to the forty-fifth milestone, next day, in four minutes forty-five seconds, if he could, the stakes bein’ five quid to four on his doin’ it. An’ as soon as that was fixed Choppy Byles began offerin’ side bets all round.

  “Not in my ‘ouse,” says the landlord. “I can’t ‘ave no bettin’ ‘ere. I’ve got my licence to think of. You’ll ‘ave to go outside if that’s your game.”

  So everybody got up an’ went out. Jist as we came tumblin’ out into the lane Choppy gives me a drive in the ribs and whispers “‘Ere’s your chance to make a bit for yourself. Take the odds, same as me, an’ tell Jerry Stagg.”

  What his game was o’ course I didn’t know, but it was pretty clear there was something up his sleeve — it was the sort o’ sleeve there’s allus something up, was Choppy’s. Well, I told you the Nuthatchers were a sportin’ lot, but it would ha’ surprised you to see the little crowd out there under the stars in that peaceful village a-backin’ and a-layin’ that evenin’. Choppy Byles, he took every bet he could get, givin’ evens when there was no more odds to be got, an’ then offerin’ odds against — anything to pile it up. Jerry Stagg an’ me, we got our little bit on soon and stopped; and sooner or later all the others stopped too, and went ‘ome. It was the sort o’ place where they go to bed in the middle o’ the evenin’.

  The back door o’ the Fox and ‘Ounds was left on the latch all night for the potman to come in in the mornin’. Choppy found that out by tellin’ the landlord he’d take a evenin’ stroll, and might be in late. So Choppy gave us the tip and went out for his stroll; and when everybody else was in bed we went out very quiet by the back way, and found Choppy waitin’ for us.