by Unknown
“Mind you,” he said, “the little dwarf isn’t doing so badly out of it either. He gets his regular four pounds a week. This week I see he’s had one pound ten in cash for extra work, and you’re charging twelve-and-six for a present to him. What was the present?”
“Oh, a bird of sorts. The little beggar’s simply mad about birds. That did more good than if I’d given him the actual cash.”
“Oh, I’m not grumbling, Bellowes,” said Tangent, surveying with complacency the diamond ring on his finger. “If, by giving him a trifle extra now and then, you can keep his goodwill, it’s quite worth our while to do it. No man will work for nothing, and I suppose he finds this clairvoyance game rather exhausting. Not over and above good for the health, eh?”
“He says it’s exhausting. He seems to me well enough.”
When Tangent had gone Bellowes smiled. To swindle Tangent was a real pleasure to him, even apart from the profit he made for himself. He remembered the terms which Tangent had forced him to accept for the provision of capital for the enterprise.
The introduction of a large white owl into the Bloomsbury lodging-house could have but one effect. The maid-servant gave notice at once on general principles. It was Smeath this time who persuaded her to remain.
“You must not be afraid of the white owl,” he said. “Owls are wise birds. She knows who my friends are, and who my enemies are. You are my friend, and she will never hurt you. She will let you feed her and stroke her feathers. They are very, very soft, the feathers of an owl.”
In a week’s time Jane was neglecting her work to play with the white owl out on the leads.
VII
For several weeks no change took place. Smeath did his work with patience and docility. He addressed Mr Bellowes with respect. He made very little objection to private engagements. As a munificent reward, on two occasions Bellowes took him out to luncheon, and once presented him with some Sunday tickets for the Zoo, which he himself did not want. Every Saturday Tangent inspected, with satisfaction, some purely fantastic accounts. Bellowes was specially careful that Smeath and Tangent should never meet, lest the discrepancy between the statements in the books and the actual facts should be discovered.
And then business began to fall off. There was no excessive drop, but the previous standard was not quite maintained. That astute showman, Mr Bellowes, decided that something would have to be done. Some new feature would have to be introduced, to set people talking again.
“Smeath,” he said one day, “didn’t you tell me something once about a white owl?”
“Yes,” said Smeath, “I have one.”
“It does tricks, don’t it?”
“It does a few things,” said Smeath, grudgingly. “You do not want it. You said that you would leave me my owl.”
“You needn’t get into a stew about it, and do for goodness’ sake keep those great hands of yours still. They get on my nerves. Nobody wants to take your blessed owl away from you. The only thing that I was wondering about was whether it might not be worth while to keep the bird here, instead of at your lodgings.”
“No, sir! No, Mr Bellowes! It is in my leisure time that I want my owl.”
“Well, I was talking to Mr Tangent about it, and he thought it was a good idea; in fact, he said I ought to have done it before. We must think about it. I have been pretty easy with you, Smeath.”
“Also, I’ve worked very hard for you.”
“You’ve done what you were told, and of late you’ve given me no trouble. You might let Tangent and myself have a look at the bird, anyhow. It would be effective, you know—the dwarf clairvoyant and the great white owl on the back of his chair. Tangent spoke of a poster. I’ll tell him to give us a call in Bloomsbury on Sunday morning.”
“I do not want my owl to be taken away. It lives there on the leads outside my window. Here it would be unhappy. How could I leave it here all night alone?”
“Don’t be unreasonable, Smeath. You will see more of the bird then than you do now.”
“No,” said Smeath. “The greater part of the time when I’m here I’m like a dead man, and know nothing.”
Bellowes had quite realized that this was the point on which Smeath would have to be handled carefully.
“Look here,” he said, “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt the bird. At anyrate, let Mr Tangent and myself see it. Let us see if it can really do the things that that girl Jane jabbers so much about. If Tangent and I think it would be an asset to the show, I am prepared to go quite beyond our agreement. I’ll give you two or three shillings for yourself, Smeath. You can give yourself a treat. You’ve not been having many treats lately; in fact, you look just about half starved.”
It was true. The little dwarf had grown very thin. His eyes seemed to have got bigger and brighter. There was a look in them now which would have made Bellowes suspicious if he had noticed it.
“Jane,” said Smeath, as he met her on the stairs that night, “they are coming on Sunday morning to see my owl.”
“Then they’ll see miracles,” said Jane, with confidence.
“And they’re going to take it away.”
“If that bird goes, I goes!”
Smeath burst into a peal of mirthless laughter.
Mr Tangent arrived in a taxi-cab at the Bloomsbury lodgings at eleven on the following Sunday morning. He was in a bad temper, and swore and grumbled profusely.
“So I’ve got to turn out on Sunday morning and work seven days a week, just because you’re such a damn bad showman, Bellowes? You’ve let the thing down. The books on Saturday were perfectly awful.”
“I’m not a bad showman, and it’s not my fault. The weather’s been against us, for one thing. And, besides, no novelty lasts for ever. We must put something else into it to buck it up, and we must get that poster out.”
“That means more expense. I don’t see why we should keep on paying Smeath four pounds a week if business is falling off. And as for that rotten old owl of his, I’m no great believer in it. It will look all right on the poster, but it will do no good in your Bond Street rooms. I know those tricks. The bird picks out cards from a pack, or shams dead, or some other nursery foolery. Stale, my boy, hopelessly stale.”
“According to what I hear, the bird does none of those things. It’s a new line.”
“Is it? I’ll bet a dollar it ain’t. However, tell Smeath to bring it down, and let’s get it over.”
“Smeath won’t bring it down. We shall have to go up to it. He makes a great favour of showing it to us at all. And, if you will take my tip, you’ll say nothing to Smeath beyond a good-morning. I can tell you he wants devilish careful handling about this bird of his. If you interfere, you’ll spoil it. All you’ve got to do, if you think it at all remarkable, is to say to me that it might possibly do. I shall understand. Now then, come along up!”
“All those stairs!” groaned Tangent. He was a heavy and plethoric man. When they reached Smeath’s room he stood for a minute, panting.
The room was ordinarily dingy enough. It was a fine morning, and the sun streamed in through the window. On the leads outside they could see the great white owl perched on the bough of a tree which had been fixed there. Smeath, with his hat off, stood beside it, and seemed to be talking to it. Around his feet were a flock of pigeons and sparrows. He nodded to the two men, and then gave one wave of his hands. The pigeons and sparrows flew off and left him alone with the white owl.
“Funny sight!” grunted Tangent. “Devilish funny sight!”
Smeath opened the window, and called into the room:
“Good-morning, gentlemen! Will you come out?”
“Don’t much like it,” said Tangent. “I’ve no head for this kind of thing.”
“O
h, you’re all right!” said Bellowes. “You needn’t go anywhere near the edge.”
He placed a chair for him, and Tangent climbed out on to the roof, followed by Bellowes.
“I will leave you to look at the bird by yourselves, gentlemen,” said Smeath, and stepped down into the room.
“Then who’s going to make the bird do its tricks?” asked Tangent. “It’s a fine-looking beggar, anyhow. Seems about half asleep. Tame enough.” He passed his jewelled hand over the snowy plumage on the bird’s breast. “There’s a feather-bed for you,” he said, laughing.
The bird opened its eyes, and leaped straight into the face of Bellowes. Its plumage half stifled him, its sharp claws tore his eyes. He screamed for help.
Tangent, in horror, had flung himself down flat on the leads, covering his face. Within the room Smeath stood with folded arms, watching the scene with the utmost calmness.
Bellowes tore at the bird with his hands, but step by step it forced him back. There came one final scream from him, and then two seconds of silence, and then the thud as his body struck the stones below. Up above, the white owl flew swiftly away.
The dwarf rubbed his hands and laughed. And then, changing his expression to one of extreme dismay, went to the help of the prostrate Tangent.
Zero
I
JAMES SMITH was a trainer and exhibitor of performing dogs. His age was forty-five, but on the stage he looked less, moving always with an alertness suggestive of youth. His face was dominant, but not cruel. He never petted a dog. On the other hand, he never thrashed a dog, unless he considered that the dog had deserved it. He had small eyes and a strong jaw. He was somewhat undersized, and his body was lean and hard. This afternoon, clad in a well-cut flannel suit, and wearing a straw hat, he sat on the steps of a bathing-machine on the beach at Helmstone. He was waiting for the man inside the machine to come out. Meanwhile he made himself a cigarette, rolling it on his leg with one hand, and securing the paper by a small miracle instead of by gum.
As he lit the cigarette the door of the bathing-machine opened, and a tall young man of athletic build came out. He was no better dressed than James Smith. At the same time, it was just as obvious that he was a gentleman as that Smith was not.
“Hallo!” said the young man. “You’re all right again, I see. What was it—touch of cramp?”
“No, sir,” said Smith. “I’m not a strong swimmer, and I’ve done no sea bathing before. I never meant to get out of my depth, but the current took me. What I want now is to do something to show my gratitude.”
“Gratitude be blowed!” said the young man cheerfully. “It was no trouble to me, and I happened to be there.”
“Well, sir,” said Smith, “will you let me give you a dog? I’ve got some very good dogs. I should take it as a favour if you would.”
He took from a Russia leather case a clean professional card, and presented it to the young man.
“That, of course, is not my real name. That’s just the French name they’ve put on the programmes. I’m James Smith, and I have a two weeks’ engagement at the Hippodrome here. I’ve got my dogs in a stable not far from there.”
The young man glanced at his watch.
“Well,” he said, “I’ve got nothing to do this morning, I’ll go and have a look at the dogs, at any rate. They’re a pretty clever lot, I suppose.”
“They can do what they’ve been taught,” said Smith; “all except one of them, and he can do what no man can teach him.”
There was a great noise when they entered the stables. Twenty dogs, most of them black poodles, all tried to talk at once. Smith said something decisively, but quietly, and the dogs became silent again. Smith made a sign to one of the poodles and held out his walking-stick. It looked quite impossible, but the dog went over it.
“My word, but that’s a wonderful jump!” said the young man.
“It is,” said Smith. “You won’t find another dog of that breed in this country that can do the same. He’s yours, if you like to take him.”
“No; hang it all! I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to take a dog which you can use professionally. What about the beggar that you said you could not teach?”
Smith pointed to a huge brindled bulldog, who lay in one corner of the stable absolutely motionless, watching them intently.
“That’s the one,” he said. “He’s never been on the stage at all. He couldn’t even be taught to fetch and carry.”
“And you just keep him because you’re fond of him?”
“Fond of him? No, I’m not fond of dogs. They’re my livelihood, and I don’t do so badly out of it. But I’m not fond of ’em—know too much about ’em.”
“Then what do you keep him for?”
“You may call it a sense of justice, or you may call it curiosity. He’s a rum ’un, that dog is, and no mistake.”
“In what way rum?”
“I’ll tell you. He’s a dog that sees dangers ahead. He knows when things are going to happen. I had him as a puppy, and when I found I could teach him nothing, I made up my mind to get quit of him. I was going off by train that day to a village fifteen miles away, and I knew a man there who I thought might take a fancy to Zero.”
“Zero, you call him?”
“Yes; that was a bit of my fun. As a performing dog he was just absolutely last—number naught, see? Well, as I was saying, there was I on the platform with the dog at my heel and the ticket in my hand. Just as I was going to get into the train, he made a jump for that ticket, caught it in his mouth and bolted with it, nipping in among a lot of milk-cans. I called him, and he wouldn’t come out. Then I went in after him, and he bolted again. By the time I did get him I had missed my train, and I didn’t give him half a jolly good hiding for it, I don’t think! If I’d gone by that train I shouldn’t have been talking to you now. Collision three miles from the station. Well, you don’t apologise to a dog. All I could do was to keep him. But that wasn’t the only instance. The beggar knows things.”
“Apparently he didn’t know that you were going to drown yourself this morning.”
“If he knew anything about it, he knew that I wasn’t.”
“Good-tempered dog?”
“Oh, all bulldogs are safe! You want to look after him with collies. He doesn’t like ’em. If he gets hold of one, it’s bad for the collie. Otherwise a baby could handle him.”
Zero had crossed over to them, and the young man stooped down and patted him. The dog expressed delight.
“I can send him round to your hotel,” said Smith; “or, for that matter, he’d follow you. He’s taken a fancy to you, he has.”
“Look here,” said the young man, “let me buy him. I’m not a millionaire, but I can afford to buy a dog. I’d like to have this one, and there’s no reason on earth why you should give him to me.”
“You’d like to have him, and I can afford to give him to you, and I want to give him to you. You must let a man indulge his sense of gratitude. It’s only fair.”
“Very well, if you say so. Many thanks. I’ll step over to the Hippodrome and see your show to-night.”
“Do. You’ll be surprised.”
The two men talked for a few moments longer, and then Zero’s new owner said that he must be getting back to lunch.
“You really think the dog will follow me?” he said. “I don’t want to take a lead?”
“I know he’ll follow you. I tell you I know dogs. They take fancies sometimes. You can take that dog out, and if I call hi
m back myself he wouldn’t come.”
“I bet you a sovereign he would.”
“I’ll take that,” said Smith. “You go on with him, and I’ll wait here.”
The young man walked a few yards away with the dog at his heels, and then Smith called the dog back, loudly and insistently. The dog did not give the slightest sign that he had heard anything at all. When his master stood still, he remained standing patiently at his heel, and never once looked back.
The young man laughed as he took out his sovereign-case.
“Queer chap, Zero. Well, you’ve won, Mr Smith. Catch!”
Mr Smith caught the sovereign adroitly, and went back into the stable.
“Yes,” he said to the cleverest of the black poodles, “I don’t know that I wouldn’t sooner he’d taken you.”
It was seldom that Smith addressed any of his dogs, except to give an order. The poodle did not know what to make of it. He whined faintly.
Richard Staines went back to his hotel, with Zero at his heels. He had his own sitting-room opening into his bedroom at the hotel, and he intended to keep the dog there at night. This was against the laws of the hotel; therefore Staines had to pause a few moments in the hall to get the laws altered. One of the arguments he used was that he would only be there two days longer, and it would not matter for so short a time. The other argument was bribery and corruption. After which he and Zero went up in the lift together.
II
Staines was a partner in succession to his father in an old-established firm of stockbrokers with a good connection. He had a small flat in St James’s Place, and thither he brought Zero. Zero accepted metropolitan life philosophically. There was a dingy cat in the basement of St James’s Place, and he was quite willing to make friends with her. He looked mildly puzzled at her definite assurance that she would kill him if he came a step nearer. It never occurred to him to attempt to injure her. But for one slight lapse—he had killed a collie, and cost Staines compensation—his behaviour was admirable. He was fortunate in having a master who was fond of outdoor life, and not at all fond of London. Every week-end, and occasionally on a fine afternoon, if business was slack, he got away into the country. He never quite seemed to understand the terror which his appearance inspired in some young or foolish people. When children rushed from him shrieking, he would look up at his master as much as to say, “Can you understand this?” And he was careful not to increase their terror by running after them.