by Unknown
“It’s simply bare-faced robbery,” said Bellowes. “But you shall have it. Mind you, you will have to sign another paper to-morrow, and this time there shall be no doubt about it.”
“If you pay me that, I’ll sign anything. With four pounds a week I can keep some very good birds again. But you are right that it is bare-faced robbery, and I am the man who is being robbed.”
There had been many disputes between the two men during the six weeks that they had been associated. It was by Tangent’s directions that Bellowes acted in the present quarrel.
“It would be better to pay the little devil twenty pounds a week, and keep him, than to refuse and lose him,” said Tangent. “I believe he’s right, and that your precious agreement isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Anyhow, I’ll get a new agreement ready. Pay him what he wants, and he’ll sign it.”
“Well,” said Bellowes, doubtfully, “if you say so you’re probably right. But in that case we ought to get an extension of time out of him.”
“No,” said Tangent, “the chap’s suspicious of you. He hates you. If you try any sort of monkeying, he’ll be off. Besides, with the fees you’re charging, two years will about see it through. There are not such a vast number of people who can afford the game.”
“As things go at present, it looks as though it might last for ever. You should see the engagement-book. We’ve got appointments booked for two months ahead. It isn’t only a game you see. It’s not just a pastime for fashionable women. We get men from the Stock Exchange, business men of all sorts, racing-men. Yesterday morning we had the Prime Minister’s private secretary. He didn’t give his right name, but Smeath was on to it, and then he admitted it.”
“Hot stuff, Smeath. Do you get much out of him in the way of prophecy? Foretelling the future?”
“Not very often. He has done some wonderful things that way, but more usually he deals with something that is past.”
“Why don’t you get him to foretell your own future, Percy?”
Bellowes shook his head.
“Not taking any,” he said. “He shall have a shot with you if you like.”
But Tangent also refused.
Their business had certainly progressed very rapidly. Tangent arranged a report in a newspaper. He communicated with one or two doctors whom he knew to be interested in the subject. He sent a couple of popular actresses to Smeath. He arranged a special séance for a Cabinet Minister, whose principal interest was psychology. After the first week they no longer employed sandwich-men and advertisements. The ball had begun to roll. Everybody who came to Smeath sent somebody else. Everybody in Society was talking about the hideous little dwarf and his marvellous powers. Bellowes was regarded as a showman and a charlatan, but Smeath was clearly the genuine thing.
Despite their mutual dislike, Bellowes and Smeath both lived in the same house—the Bloomsbury lodging-house. It was Bellowes who had insisted on this. He had never felt quite safe about Smeath, and even after the new agreement had been signed he had his suspicions. He was afraid that Smeath would run away. Bellowes occupied fairly good rooms on the first floor. Smeath had one room at the top of the house, but this happened to suit him. Through his windows he could get out on to a flat, leaded roof. There he made friends with the pigeons and sparrows. The maid-servant at the house, who one day saw him out on the roof with the birds all round him, said that it was witchcraft.
“They were ’opping about all over ’im. Sometimes he put one down and called another up. I never saw anything like it in my life before.”
She had the hatred of the unusual which is prevalent amongst domestic servants, and gave notice at once. But before the month was up she had grown quite accustomed to seeing Smeath playing with the birds, and the notice was revoked.
V
Bellowes still used for business purposes the name of Sanders-Bell, but he no longer called himself a doctor. He was meeting too many real doctors, and Tangent had advised against it. The room in Bond Street was divided in two by a curtain. The outer part served as a waiting-room, and here, too, Bellowes had his bureau. In the inner part of the room the actual interview between the client and the clairvoyant took place. Their usual hours were only from eleven to one and from two to four, but Bellowes would sometimes arrange for a special interview at an unusual hour and an increased price. On these occasions he always took care to pacify Smeath. Sometimes he gave him money, and sometimes other presents; on one occasion he gave him a big book about birds, with coloured illustrations, and Smeath remained docile and in a good temper for days afterwards.
“Yes,” said Bellowes. “You have complained once that I was robbing you. You can’t say that now. You have fixed your own salary. If there is the least little bit of extra work to be done, you always get something for it. You are not as grateful as you ought to be, Smeath. Where would you have been without me? What were you doing before you came to me?”
“Nothing. For some weeks I had been very hungry. I make no complaint against you, but when my time’s up I shall stay no longer. I go back to the birds again.”
“It would be more sensible of you,” said Bellowes, “if you banked your money. What did you want to buy that great owl for? He makes the devil of a row at night. We shall have people complaining about it.”
“She is a very good friend to me, that owl,” said Smeath. “I am teaching her much. She will be valuable.”
At this moment there was the sound of a footstep on the stairs, and Smeath stepped behind his curtain.
The man who entered was not at all the type of client that Bellowes generally received. He was a thick-set man of common appearance, and he was unfashionably dressed. He did not look in the least as if he could afford the fee. Bellowes saluted him somewhat curtly.
“It is ten minutes to eleven, sir, and our hour for beginning is eleven. However, as you have called, if you like to pay the fee now—two guineas—I will make an appointment for you, but I’m afraid it will have to be in nine weeks’ time.”
The visitor looked reflective, turning his seedy bowler hat round in his hands.
“Don’t think that would do,” he said. “Nine weeks—that’s a very long time. Couldn’t Mr Smeath see me to-day? Couldn’t he make an exception?”
“Only by giving you a special appointment. And for that a very much higher fee is charged.”
“How much?” asked the man.
“He could give you ten minutes at one o’clock to-day. But the charge for that would be six guineas. You see, Mr Smeath is only clairvoyant while in the hypnotic state, and that cannot be repeated indefinitely.”
The visitor took an old-fashioned purse from his hip-pocket. He pulled out a five-pound note, a sovereign, and six shillings.
“There you are,” he said. “Please book me ten minutes with Mr Smeath at one o’clock to-day.”
“Very good,” said Bellowes, opening the engagement-book. He looked up, with his pen in his hand. “What name shall I put down?”
“I am Mr Vincent.”
“You’ll be careful to be punctual, of course. Mr Smeath will be ready exactly at one o’clock.”
“I shall be here,” said the man.
He had no sooner gone than Smeath emerged from behind the curtain again. “What on earth did you do that for?” he asked excitedly.
“Keep your hair on, Smeath. It’s all right. I’m going to buy you a big cage for that owl of yours.”
“I do not want any cage. My birds are not kept in cages. It is not the extra work that I mind. It is that I cannot do anything for that man. I tell you he is dangerous.”
“In what way dangerous?”
“I don’t know. He is dangerous to me.”
“He looked to me an honest man enough. He had the a
ppearance of a chap up from the country. Probably wants to know what his best girl is doing. I shouldn’t worry about it if I were you. Don’t stand in the way of business, Smeath. You don’t know what the expenses are here. I’ve got to pay the rent next week, and if I told you what that was, you wouldn’t believe it. If you don’t want the bird-cage, you shall have something else.”
But it was necessary to show Smeath a sovereign, and to present him with it before he would consent. Even then, he did so with great reluctance.
Clients with appointments came in, and the ordinary business of the morning began. Smeath no longer spoke when in the clairvoyant state, for he was often consulted upon matters requiring secrecy, and what he said might have been heard by other clients in waiting. He had a writing-block, and scribbled down on it in pencil what he saw.
At one o’clock precisely Mr Vincent returned, and was at once brought behind the curtain. Smeath sat there motionless. His eyes were open, but he did not look up at Mr Vincent.
“Now then, sir,” said Bellowes. “What is it you want?”
Mr Vincent drew from his pocket a comb wrapped in paper. It was of the kind that women wear in their hair, and it had been broken.
“I want him to tell me about the girl who wore this at the time when it was broken.”
Bellowes placed the comb in Smeath’s hands. Smeath held it for a moment, and then the fingers relaxed, and it dropped to the floor.
Bellowes again placed it in his hand, and this time Smeath flung it from him. But immediately he began to write, Mr Vincent watching him narrowly as he did so. He wrote with an extraordinary rapidity. Presently Bellowes, who had been standing behind him, and reading what he wrote, asked Mr Vincent to wait in the outer part of the room. As soon as he was alone with Smeath, he took the writing-block out of his hands, tore the sheet from it, folded it, and put it in his pocket. Then he rejoined Vincent.
“I am extremely sorry, sir,” said Bellowes, “that the experiment has failed completely. There is perhaps some kind of antipathy between Mr Smeath and yourself. These things do occasionally happen. I find that he can tell you nothing at all, and under the circumstances, I should perhaps return your fee.”
Vincent did not seem particularly surprised.
“Very well,” he said. “I had hardly expected to get what I wanted, but I thought I might as well try. I paid you six guineas, I think. You seem to be treating me fairly, and I have given you a certain amount of trouble. Supposing you return me five of them.”
The money was handed over, and Vincent departed. Bellowes went back to Smeath and brought him out of the trance. Smeath shivered.
“Is he here still?”
“No. Gone.”
“Was it all right?”
“It was quite all right.”
“I’m glad he’s gone,” said Smeath. “I was horribly afraid of something. Now I can go out and get my lunch, and I have to buy food for the birds too.”
“I shouldn’t spend too much money on it if I were you,” said Bellowes.
Smeath laughed.
“It is not very expensive,” he said. “And I have made one extra sovereign. Why not?”
“Because, in future, Smeath, you are going to work for me for much less money—for a pound a week, to be precise.”
“I shall not,” said Smeath, loudly.
“I told you once before not to squeal. I don’t like it. You will do exactly as I say, and for a very good reason. If you don’t you will be taken to prison, and you will be tried before a judge, and you will be hanged, Smeath. Hanged for the murder of Esther Samuel in the woods at Teston.”
VI
“What makes you say that? How do you know it?” asked Smeath. The fingers of his big hands locked and separated and locked again. His eyes were fixed intently on Bellowes. He looked excited, but not frightened.
“How do I know it?” echoed Bellowes. “I have it here in your own handwriting.” He tapped his breast-pocket. “You do not remember what happened when you were hypnotized. I put a broken comb into your hands. It was a comb which the murdered woman had worn. You began to write at once. You’ve put the rope round your neck, Smeath.”
“And that man—the man that I knew to be dangerous?”
“Mr Vincent? I told him that the experiment had failed, and returned his fee. He knows nothing. So long as you do exactly what I tell you, you are quite safe.”
“Who was he, this Vincent?”
Bellowes shrugged his shoulders.
“How should I know? Possibly one of the Samuel family. Possibly a ’tec. If I had given him what he had paid for, we should have had the police in here by now. I have saved your skin for you, Smeath. Don’t forget it.”
“Will you read it out to me, the thing that I wrote down?”
“No. It tells one everything, except the motive.”
“The motive was obvious enough. I was hungry and had no money. I had tramped to Teston and reached there two days too soon. I had nowhere to go, and I lived and slept in the woods. I begged from the girl at first, and if she had given me a few pence she might have been alive now. She was not the least bit afraid of me. Why should she have been? I was small, misshapen, and looked weak. She was tall and strong. As she turned away from me, she said the tramps in the neighbourhood were becoming a nuisance, and she would send the police after me. Even then I only meant to hit her once, but that is a queer thing—you cannot hit a human being once. You see the body lying at your feet, and you have to go on striking and striking. When I knew she must be dead, I flung the stick down. I took nothing but the money, nothing which could be traced. Even the money made me so nervous that I hid most of it—buried it in a place where I could find it again. If the police had found me, there would only have been a few coppers in my possession, and I did not look like a man who could have done it. But they never did find me.”
“I see. That was why, when I offered to advance your railway fare, you told me you had money. You had a pair of new boots on when you turned up at Warlow. I remember what an infernal squeaking row they made on the platform. Well, you’ve done for yourself, Smeath. You’ve got to work for me on very different terms now.”
“No,” said Smeath. “That is not so.”
“Very good. I’ll write my note to Mr Vincent now. He’ll do the rest.”
“No you won’t, and I’ll tell you why. You can destroy me very likely, but if you do, you’ll destroy your own livelihood. And you always take very good care for yourself, Mr Bellowes.”
“Destroy my livelihood?” said Bellowes, thumping on the table with his fist. “That’s where you make your mistake, you little devil! Because you’re useful, you think you’re indispensable. You’re not. There’s a reward of two hundred pounds out for anyone who finds the murderer of Esther Samuel. I’m a born showman. With two hundred pounds capital I can chuck this and start something else that will pay me just as well.”
“It looks as if I shall have to give in. Well, there’s no help for it. I must get a much cheaper room, of course.”
“No, you won’t. You’ll stop in the same house as me. D’you think I haven’t worked it all out? After you’ve paid your rent, you’ve a shilling a day for food, and better men have lived on less. I’m not going to give you a chance to bolt. And mark my words, Smeath, if you do bolt, the very moment I find you’ve gone I give you up. Don’t imagine you can get away. There are not many men of your build. The police would have you for a certainty within twenty-four hours.”
“Then I become a slave; I can do nothing. There were other birds that I meant to buy. And in time I could have started a business again. That must all go.”
“Quite so. That must all go. In fact, before a fortnight is out I expect you’ll sell that big white owl o
f yours. You’ll grudge him his keep.”
“It is a she-owl, and I shall not let her go. She can do things that would surprise you.”
“Can she?” said Bellowes. “It might be rather effective if you brought her down here. She would impress clients.”
“I shall not. I keep her for myself!”
“Don’t talk like a fool! You are forgetting that I hold you between my thumb and finger. If I tell you to wring that bird’s neck you will have to do it.”
Smeath rose to his feet in fury.
“Where’s my hat?” he said. “Give me my hat!”
Bellowes stood in front of the door.
“What’s the matter with you? Where are you off to?”
“Checkmate for you, Mr Bellowes. I am going now to give myself up. Where is your two hundred pounds reward, eh? Where is the money that you make out of the clairvoyant?”
“Sit down, and don’t talk in that silly way. I never told you to kill the bird. I was only speaking in your interests when I said I doubted if you could afford to keep it. As a matter of fact, I don’t care a pin’s head about it either way. If you set so much store by it, keep it by all means.”
“In that case,” said Smeath, “I will go on working for you, and on the terms that you have said.”
“That’s all right; and now you can go out to lunch. Remember that you have to be back at two o’clock. If you are not here by ten minutes past two, I shall send the police to look for you.”
“I shall be here, Mr Bellowes.”
* * *
Every Saturday morning at half-past nine Tangent called on Bellowes in Bond Street, to look over the books and to collect his share of the profits. Tangent had no great faith in Mr Bellowes. Smeath was never allowed to be present on these occasions.
On the Saturday after Mr Vincent’s visit, Tangent was well pleased with the results.