Works of W. W. Jacobs

by Jacobs, W. W.

  BURLEIGH. I’ll do neither, damn you.

  (BURLEIGH goes to door R. and shuts it. FLETCHER rises from his chair and stands, over L., watching him. BURLEIGH turns from the door, and takes a small Japanese sword from the wall. He moves slowly towards FLETCHER, drawing the sword from its sheath as he comes.)

  I give you one chance, Fletcher. You are a man of your word. Hush this up and let things be as they were before, and you are safe.

  FLETCHER (sharply). Put that down.

  BURLEIGH. By heavens, I mean what I say. FLETCHER. I mean what I said.

  (BURLEIGH raises the sword)

  Don’t be a mad —

  (BURLEIGH rushes at FLETCHER and stabs him in the chest)

  BURLEIGH. NOW perhaps you’ll —

  (FLETCHER raises his hands to his chest, staggers and falls between table and footlights)

  (BURLEIGH goes over to him)

  Come, get up, you’re not — not —

  (He looks at the sword in his hand, shudders, and drops it close to the body. He looks carefully for traces of blood on his hands and wipes them with a piece of paper, which he afterwards burns, He goes to safe, takes out a cash-box, puts money in his pocket, burns some papers, then opens the bureau. He takes from it a revolver which he loads and places it in his pocket. He goes to FLETCHER’S body and takes the roll of notes from his pocket. A faint noise is heard off. He starts to his feet)

  BURLEIGH. What’s that?

  ‘He creeps to the door and listens. After waiting for a moment, he returns and throws table-cloth over body, closes the safe and the bureau, and is about to go off R. when there is another noise heard off. He starts violently, then creeps to the door and listens. He leans out at door R. He closes the door and backs into the room with a mystified expression, and after a moment’s pause he creeps to the door and switches off the light. He stands against the wall by the side of the door with a revolver in his hand. The door, which opens up stage, is slowly pushed open by the BURGLAR. The light from his lantern flashes found the room and he cautiously enters. The open door conceals BURLEIGH from the BURGLAR, who creeps across the stage. BURLEIGH slams the door to, switches on the light and covers the BURGLAR with his revolver.)

  BURLEIGH (suddenly). Hands up !

  BURGLAR (dropping lantern). S’truth! A fair cop!

  BURLEIGH. Hands up, or I’ll put a bullet through you.

  BURGLAR (holding up his hands). All right, Guv’- nor, don’t shoot, I know when the game’s up.

  Burleigh (pointing to chair by fireplace). Sit down.

  BURGLAR. But, Guv’nor, I BURLEIGH (threateningly). Sit down, damn you.

  (The BURGLAR backs towards the table which conceals FLETCHER’S body.)

  (Hastily.) Not there, here. (Points to chair. The BURGLAR sits.)

  BURGLAR. You needn’t point that thing at me, it might go off. You wouldn’t like to murder me, Guv nor.

  (BURLEIGH lowers revolver and regards him strangely.)

  (Whining.) I haven’t taken anything, Guv’nor. I’ve only been in a minute or two. It won’t do you no good to put me away, and I’d —

  BURLEIGH. Silence.

  BURGLAR (WHINING). ITS THE fust time, Guv’nor. I’ve been out o’ work for —— —

  Burleigh. Silence. (Straightens up and raising revolver again). Yes. (Nods.) Yes. (Turns to Burglar.) How am I to know how long you’ve been here? How am I to know what you’ve done? Where is my friend? Eh? Where is he? What have you done with him?

  BURGLAR (staring). I’ve only seen you, Guv’nor. BURLEIGH. Well, where is Fletcher? He was here when I went upstairs to my room ten minutes ago. Sit still (backs a little to door and after first opening his mouth ineffectually calls three times very slowly and each louder than the last.) Fletcher! Fletcher!! Fletcher!!! — (Comes into room again and eyes BURGLAR.) You dog! You dog! I believe you’ve killed him. That was the cry I heard! BURGLAR (starting up). What! BURLEIGH (in a terrible voice). Sit down! You have killed him and you shall swing for it. You shall swing for it! Murderer! BURGLAR. I tell you I haven’t seen a soul. BURLEIGH. Well — we’ll see. You keep quiet; I am going to call the police. If you try to escape I will shoot you.

  (He goes to door R. and goes out, closing it after him and locking it from the outside. The BURGLAR sits listening for a moment, then cautiously rises and creeps to the door and tries it. He takes a tool from his pocket and tries to pick the lock, but fails to do so. He then goes to the window, opens it and looks out. The sound of a police whistle is heard outside. He runs back from the window, and stumbling over table-cloth, drags it off and sees FLETCHER’S body. Bends down and touches it, then utters a scream. Police whistle is again heard. He rushes to the door and beats frantically upon the panels.

  BURGLAR. Let me out! Let me out! For God’s sake let me out! Help! BURLEIGH (outside the door). Stay where you are. If you come out, I’ll kill you.

  BURGLAR. Let me out! For God’s sake open the door! There’s something here. Let me out! Let me out!

  BURLEIGH (outside the door). Damn you, keep quiet.

  (THE BURGLAR crouches in a corner. There is a moment of dead silence, then the police are heard calling from downstairs.) —

  Here you are. He’s in here.

  (The BURGLAR switches off the light, as the door is opened. There is a flash of light from the policemen’s lanterns. A SERGEANT and a CONSTABLE enter, followed by BURLEIGH, who carries his revolver. The BURGLAR makes a dash for the door, and is seized by the SERGEANT and the CONSTABLE, BURLEIGH switches on the light. After a struggle, the BURGLAR is overpowered.)

  SERGEANT. Put the bracelets on him, Collins. CONSTABLE. Yes, sir. (He handcuffs the BURGLAR who is held to the ground by the SERGEANT.)

  SERGEANT (to BURLEIGH). Hot work, sir. It’s fortunate we were passing when you whistled. (To CONSTABLE.) Keep your eye on him, Collins.

  CONSTABLE. Yes, sir. (He stands over the BURGLAR.)

  BURGLAR (panting). All right, sir, I won’t give no trouble, sir. I ain’t been in the house ten minutes altogether. I swear I ain’t, sir.

  SERGEANT. What does that signify, ten minutes or ten seconds won’t make any difference.

  BURGLAR. It was ‘ere when I come; take that down, sir. I’ve only just come, and it was ‘ere when I come. I tried to get away from it, but I was locked in. It was ‘ere when I come.

  SERGEANT. What are you talking about? What was here?

  BURGLAR. That. (Pointing to body which is partially concealed by table.)

  (The SERGEANT goes over L.C.) SERGEANT. Murder!

  BURLEIGH (reeling back against the wall and covering his eyes with his hands). God! Fletcher!

  CONSTABLE (holding BURLEIGH up as he staggers). All right, sir, all right. Turn your head away. (He leads BURLEIGH to chair C and seals him with his back to the body. He pours out a glass of whiskey from a decanter, and hands it to BURLEIGH, who drinks it eagerly; the glass rattles against his teeth.)

  SERGEANT (to BURLEIGH). Who is it, sir?

  BURLEIGH (speaking with an effort). My friend — Fletcher. We lived together. (To BURGLAR.) YOU damned villain.

  BURGLAR. He was dead when I come in the room, gentlemen. He was on the floor dead, and when I see ‘im, I tried to get out. S’elp me he was. I shouldn’t ha’ called out if I’d killed him.

  SERGEANT. All right, you’d better hold your tongue, you know.

  CONSTABLE (going to BURGLAR). Yes, you keep quiet.

  (The SERGEANT goes over to FLETCHER’S body, kneels beside it, and raises FLETCHER’S head.)

  BURGLAR. I ‘ad nothing to do with it. I ‘ad nothing to do with it. I never thought of such a thing. I’ve only been in the place ten minutes; put that down, sir.

  BURLEIGH (to BURGLAR). YOU lying hound. You’ve murdered him. Poor — poor chap.

  SERGEANT. (The other characters do not see FLETCHER slowly raise his hand, as BURLEIGH is seated with his back to the body and the CONSTABLE and BURGLAR are over R. and are looking at BURLEIGH. The SERGEANT seeing that
FLETCHER is alive bends his head and FLETCHER whispers to him, he then raises his hand, by a great effort, and points at BURLEIGH. His arm falls and his head drops in a lifeless manner. The SERGEANT mutters to himself “Dead,” and holds up the sword, which he has picked up from the floor, near FLETCHER, and speaks to BURLEIGH). DO you recognize this?

  BURGLAR (eagerly). I’ve never seen it before. BURLEIGH. It used to hang on the wall. He must have snatched it down. It was on the wall when I left Fletcher a little while ago.

  SERGEANT. HOW long?

  BURLEIGH. Perhaps an hour, perhaps half an hour. I went to my bedroom. I heard a noise and a choking cry. Came down. Saw this man in here. Locked the door, and whistled for assistance.

  BURGLAR (with sudden insight). You done it! You done it, and you want me to swing for it. That’s your game is it?

  CONSTABLE (indignantly). That’ll do. That’ll do!

  SERGEANT (to BURGLAR). You hold your tongue. The less you say, the better for you. ( To BURLEIGH.) Don’t you worry about him, sir. We’ll look after him.

  (Goes over to BURLEIGH.)

  BURLEIGH (trying to smile). No, no, of course not, but — I — I SERGEANT (to BURLEIGH). Feeling better, sir? BURLEIGH. Yes.

  SERGEANT. You won’t want this thing any more, we’ve got him all right.

  (Takes the revolver, which BURLEIGH still holds, and places it in his pocket.)

  You’ve hurt your wrist, sir.

  BURLEIGH (raising his hands sharply). I? Where? SERGEANT (taking BURLEIGH’S wrist in his hand). This one, I think. I saw it just now.

  BURLEIGH. NO, it’s all right.

  SERGEANT. It must have been the other then. A cut, I think it was.

  (BURLEIGH holds up the other hand. The SERGEANT takes both his wrists in one hand, and with the other hand whips out a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and snaps them on BURLEIGH’S wrists, after a struggle in which the CONSTABLE joins.)

  BURLEIGH (struggling). Take these things off. Damn you, take them off. Have you gone mad? Take them off, I say.

  (Stands, breathing hard as police hold him, silent and watchful.)

  BURGLAR (triumphantly). And you wanted me to swing for it.

  CURTAIN.

  THE WARMING PAN

  A COMEDY IN ONE ACT

  SCENE. — MR. BOOM’S Living-room.

  This is a room with a tang of the sea about it. There is a window at the back, with geraniums on the sill. There are two doors, one down right and the other up left. The latter opens inwards and allows the person opening it to remain unseen. There is an old table centre, some wheel-back chairs, an antique chest of drawers with a model of a ship and large shells on top. Marine-scapes, painted on glass, are hanging on the walls. The fireplace is above the right door. An old tobacco-box, crude vases, etc., are on the mantelpiece. Two easy-chairs at the fire complete the furniture. A small jug containing a little water, and a lamp with a cretonne shade are on the table.

  As the CURTAIN rises BOOM and RAGGETT enter from the right.

  BOOM. Well, come in and sit down for a minute. The chair won’t bite you. (He seats himself.)

  RAGGETT. One of ‘em’s got a broken spring as is a’most as bad as a bite.

  BOOM. Has it?

  RAGGETT (pointedly). Yes — you’re sitting on the other.

  (He pushes the easy-chair out of the way, puts a small chair in its place and sits. They both smoke.)

  BOOM. Did you notice how grumpy young Dick Tarrell was looking?

  RAGGETT. I don’t like the way he looks at me at all. Tain’t safe.

  BOOM (with satisfaction). Ah! It’s beginning to work. People are beginning to talk.

  BAGGETT. Talk about wot?

  BOOM. YOU and Kate. They are beginning to notice the way you are coming here. If that don’t make her sit up, nothing will.

  RAGGETT (rising). I won’t come no more.

  BOOM (rising and pushing him back). You wouldn’t go back on an old pal, Baggett? I want her to marry young Dick — or young anybody else; she’s too much for me; worse than her mother was. And ‘cos I want her to marry, she won’t.

  BAGGETT. Well, don’t want her to marry, then.

  BOOM. Why not?

  BAGGETT.’COS then she’ll want to.

  BOOM. But I can’t help wanting her to marry. Nobody who had lived with her for twenty years could help it. Why, on’y yesterday she picked up a piece of mud off of the floor and asked me how it got there.

  RAGGETT. HOW did it?

  BOOM. Ask me another. I told her the fairies must have put it there.

  (RAGGETT eyes him.)

  (Impressively.) After dinner I found it in my baccy-jar, and when I asked her how it got there she said she supposed the fairies had been at it again.

  RAGGETT. She wants talking to.

  BOOM. Yes... yes, but a woman’s a delikit creature, Raggett, and the last row we had she got that ill she had to stay in bed.

  RAGGETT. Ay! That was all right.

  BOOM. All right! All right! What about my breakfast?

  (RAGGETT coughs.)

  And my dinner, and tea, and feeding the chickens, and washing-up, and all sorts of things that I don’t like doing?

  RAGGETT. You’ll ‘ave to do it if she marries.

  BOOM. Not me. I shall have a woman come in; same as you do. (Coaxingly.) You and me have been good pals, Ben.

  RAGGETT. Ah, ay.

  BOOM (more softly still). Come across to the “Jolly Sailors” with me now and have a couple o’ pints to get your courage up, and then come back and ask her.

  RAGGETT. Ask her wot?

  BOOM. TO be your wife.

  RAGGETT {starting).’Ave you gorn mad?

  BOOM (persuasively). With gin in both the pints.

  RAGGETT. YOU must be mad.

  BOOM. NO, I’m not. If she gets made to look foolish, she’ll get desperate — marry young Dick p’r’aps.... I want her to get talked about — have everybody making fun of both of you, talking about a good-looking young gal being courted by an old chap with one foot in the grave and a face like a dried herring. That’s what ——

  RAGGETT (with icy coldness). Might I ask who you’re alluding to?

  BOOM (startled, bid speaking reassuringly). Them ain’t my words, old chap. It was the way she was speaking of you the other day.

  RAGGETT (rising). Well, I won’t have nothing to do with it.

  BOOM (pulling him down in his seat again). Well, nobody needn’t know anything about it. Just do it to upset her. She won’t tell, I’m sure.... She wouldn’t like the disgrace of it.

  RAGGETT (choking and getting up again). Look ‘ere!

  BOOM (querulously). I mean from her point of view. You re very ‘asty, Raggett.

  RAGGETT. Well, I don’t care about it. It may seem all right to you, but suppose I ‘ave all my trouble for nothing.

  BOOM. Well, there’d be no harm done and it would be a bit of sport for both of us. Come across and have a pint to get your courage up. You shall have the other pint when you’ve done it.

  (They go to the street door down right, just as DICK TARRELL enters. They pause at the door.)

  DICK. Morning, Mr. Boom! I just looked in as I was passing. (He turns to go out with them.)

  BOOM (staring at him). Well, ain’t you going to have a longer look than that?

  DICK (shuffling). I don’t want to come where I’m not wanted. It’s — it’s all right to come in and talk to you, but when you’re away I — I feel that I’m in the way.

  RAGGETT. P’r’aps you are.

  DICK (scowling at him and turning to BOOM). If I say “Good morning” and she says “Good morning,” and then I don’t say any more and she don’t say any more, it makes a chap feel awkward. If I had to see her about anything —

  BOOM (laying his hand on DICK’S arm). Tell her I asked you to look for my baccy-pouch. It’ll take you a long time to find that.

  DICK. Why?

  BOOM (patting his pocket).’Cos I’ve got it here. You might spend �
�� ah — the best part of an hour looking for that. Both of you — together. (He goes to the back door up left and looks out.) She’s coming up the back way now.

  (He goes out with RAGGETT at the street door. DICK, in a somewhat confused, guilty fashion, begins to search the room. KATE enters.)

  DICK. Good morning, Miss Boom.

  KATE. Good morning.

  DICK (stammering). I — I met your tobacco-pouch just now and he — he asked me to —

  KATE (in mild surprise). Met my tobacco-pouch? But I haven’t got one.

  DICK (flustered). I mean your father, and he asked me to see if I could find his tobacco-pouch. He — he — he —

  KATE. Yes? —

  DICK. Left it about somewhere.

  KATE. He is always leaving things about; he is so absent-minded. (Sighing.) But I suppose all men are. DICK. I am not.

  KATE. I dare say you will be — when you are old enough. When I say men —

  DICK. Yes?

  KATE. I mean grown-up men.

  DICK (shortly). I am twenty-five.

  KATE. Are you really? Twen — ty — five! Backward as a baby, I suppose?

  DICK (Heatedly). Not that I know of.

  KATE (indulgently). Well, of course, you wouldn’t know. And it is nice to look young. You will be thankful for it later on. If I were a man, I should like to look like a boy as long as possible. Fresh and innocent.

  (DICK makes a gurgling noise, raises a cushion from the easy-chair and looks beneath it. He looks on the mantelpiece. KATE seats herself in the easy-chair and takes up a book. DICK continues the search.)

  DICK. Lovely morning.

  KATE (lowering book). Eh?

  DICK. I said it is a lovely morning.

  KATE. Oh, yes. What made you say that?

  DICK. Well — I — I... It is a lovely morning, and I said so.

  KATE. Yes, I heard you.

  (She takes up her book again. DICK continues his search. KATE laughs. He starts, and eyes her suspiciously; but she appears to be laughing at her book.)

  DICK. Are you fond of reading?

  KATE. Sometimes. Have you looked under the chest of drawers? It might be there.

  (DICK hesitates, then goes down on his hands and knees and peers under the chest. KATE, looking at her book, laughs convulsively. DICK springs up and stands glaring at her.)