by Sapper
Jimmy strolled over to the window and looked out. “And so you propose to kill me!” he said thoughtfully. “Will it be done with your own fair hands, dear Uncle Arthur?”
He swung round, and suddenly the room grew strangely silent. For there was a look on his face that none of them could understand.
“Admirable things – windows, aren’t they,” he continued. “Without curtains you can see through them: with curtains you can’t. Then they act as mirrors, uncle dear. Are you going to the cattle show you were studying the notice of when I was telephoning?”
Jimmy began to laugh softly.
“And you, my dear lady, should really learn to control your face. And you shouldn’t say you are touring when you haven’t any luggage.”
With a sudden movement he flung open the window, and waved his hand.
“My God! It is the police.” Uncle Arthur had sprung to his side. “The young swine has fooled us. There are a dozen of them. Quick – bolt.”
“Not this time,” said a deep voice at the door, and Jimmy recognised the speaker as Superintendent Naylor of the Yard, with Spencer and half-a-dozen men behind him. “So it’s you, is it, Verriker? There have been times when I suspected it must be. Where’s the plant?”
“I should think a visit to the pagoda might help,” said Jimmy mildly, and Verriker began to curse.
“Good work, Sefton,” cried Spencer. “But it gave us a bit of a shock when we got the address.”
“So it did me,” said Jimmy. “In fact I almost fainted in the car.”
Verriker ceased cursing and stared at him.
“Do you mean to say you only found out where you were coming when you were in the car?” he said.
“Sure thing,” answered Jimmy. “My dear Uncle Arthur, we have been playing a little game of the spider and the fly. And knowing the usual fate of the fly, this one decided to take a few precautions. The only trouble was that he hadn’t any idea as to where the parlour was. That he was going to be invited in he felt sure, but he felt a little dubious as to the hospitality that would be extended to him there. So he invited down a few friends” – he waved his hand at the police – “to remain at hand, in case they were wanted. He thought it better that they shouldn’t follow him, in case they were seen, and the spider should leave the parlour hurriedly. Besides he wanted the spider to tell him all that was in his heart. And then when he had found out his destination – he pretended to throw a faint. And being left alone for half a minute, he wrote a little message. And he put the message in a little tube. And he fastened the tube to a little leg.”
“What the devil do you mean?” snarled Verriker.
“Why, just that this particular fly had taken your advice in advance about empty fishing baskets. You see – his wasn’t empty. Inside it was a carrier pigeon.”
A HOPELESS CASE
1
Through the open window came the ceaseless noise of the tree beetles. Occasionally it would be drowned by the coughing grunt of a lion in the distance, or the shrill scream of some animal nearby – a scream that showed that death was, as ever, abroad in the land outside. But these were only interludes; life to the man who sat at the table seemed to consist of that eternal, damnable noise.
He was not a very pleasant sight – the sole occupant of the room. His chin required the attentions of a razor; his shirt, which was opened at the neck, would have done with a wash. His riding breeches were threadbare; his boots caked in mud. And yet for anyone with eyes to see one fact would have struck home. Those breeches and boots bore the unmistakable stamp of the West End.
The room was in confusion. Dust lay thick in the corners; a few odd letters littered the table. The lamp had smoked, and half the funnel was black with soot. Against one wall a cupboard minus its doors leaned drunkenly – a cupboard in which unwashed plates and an old teapot without a handle were jumbled together. And, ranged in rows along the opposite wall, empty bottles.
A full one stood on the table by his side, and after a while he picked it up and half filled his glass with whisky. Then he resumed his study of the book that lay in front of him. A strange book to find in such surroundings, and yet one which helped to explain the riddle of the riding breeches. It was a book of snapshots and odd cuttings from newspapers. A few groups cut from The Tatler and The Sketch were pasted in and it was at one of these that he was staring.
Bridesmaids; bride and bridegroom; best man – particularly the best man. He was in the uniform of the 10th Lancers, and for a long while the man sat there motionless, studying the face on the paper. Good-looking, with clear-cut features; a magnificent specimen of manhood, showing off the gorgeous uniform of the regiment to perfection. Then very deliberately he got up and crossed the room to the broken bit of mirror that served as a shaving glass. Dispassionately he studied his own face, not sparing himself in the examination. And at length he turned away.
“Great God!” he said, very slowly. “How did it happen?”
And the line of bottles gave answer.
He went back to the table, and started turning over the pages of the book. The regiment on parade; a stately home set in wonderful trees; groups on the moors with keepers and dogs; groups with the women he had known… And at last a simple snapshot of two people – himself and a girl. Pat and self – thus ran the inscription underneath it, and for perhaps a quarter of an hour he sat there motionless, staring at it. Some big insect fussed angrily against the mosquito netting, trying to get at the light; ceaselessly the beetles droned on – but the man at the table heard nothing. He was back in the might-have-been; back at Henley – three years before the war.
Pat! What was she doing now? She’d stuck to him loyally; stuck to him as only a woman can stick to the thing she loves. For it had started even then. The curse was on him: the soul-rotting, hellish curse that had brought him to this. But at last it had had to end: the thing had become impossible.
He had fought. God! how he’d fought! But it had beaten him. No excuse, of course: to be beaten is no excuse for a man. And he could still hear Pat’s voice that last time – could still see her sweet face with the tears pouring down it.
“Jim – if you can beat it – come back to me.”
And that was after he had had to send in his papers.
He hadn’t beaten it; it had beaten him. And now Pat was married; two children – or was it three? And he – what was he? His family said he was farming in Africa. A pleasant fiction which deceived no one. Least of all himself. He was not farming in Africa; he was a drunken remittance man living on a farm in Africa.
He closed the book, and stared with haggard eyes into the darkness. Why had this girl come to stop at Merrick’s farm, and opened all these old wounds? Why had he seen her that afternoon?
She’d reminded him of Pat a little. Cool and dressed in white – riding Merrick’s chestnut cob in a way that showed she was used to horses. What the devil did she want to bring all that back to him for? Girls and horses were all part of the life he’d lived a hundred years ago.
“Yes, a trooper of the forces, who has owned his own six horses…”
And he wasn’t even that. Just a drunken down-and-outer, with a father in the House of Lords who paid him five hundred a year on condition that he never set foot in England again.
Cool and dressed in white! Lord! but it was something to see a girl of his own class again. She’d stared at him in faint surprise when he’d spoken; drink doesn’t kill a man’s accent. And by now she’d know all about him: the Merricks would see to that.
They didn’t know who he was: he’d given his name out here as Brown. But they did know what he was, and that was all that mattered.
“A drunkard, my dear; a hopeless case.”
He could hear Mrs Merrick saying it. Not that she was a bad sort; quite the reverse, in fact. But she was the wife of a settler who had made good, and she loathed weakness. At first she had tried to pull him round – to make him take an interest in his property. For months she had pe
rsevered, and it wasn’t until she found out that he wouldn’t help himself that she gave up trying. Contemptuously.
And he deserved it: he was under no delusions. But now – He stood up suddenly, and instinctively his shoulders squared. Supposing he took a pull at himself; it wasn’t too late. Supposing he, too, made good. Supposing that girl dressed in white –
And suddenly he laughed a little bitterly. Girls dressed in white were outside his scheme of things altogether. Quite deliberately he reached out for the bottle, and tipped what was left into his glass. Then he performed his nightly rite. With meticulous attention to dressing he placed it in line with the others; called the squadron to attention, and then dismissed them.
And ten minutes later the man who called himself Jim Brown, having kicked off his boots, lay sleeping heavily on his bed.
2
He’d shaved when he next saw the girl, and his shirt was clean. She was riding, as before, and he stood waiting for her to come up.
“Good morning,” she said, cheerily. “What a heavenly day!”
“The one compensation of this God-forsaken country,” he remarked, “is that the days generally are heavenly.”
She looked at him steadily.
“Why do you stay if you don’t like it?”
“Entirely my duty towards my neighbour,” he answered. “Think of all the grief and sorrow I should cause if I departed.”
“Is that your bungalow up there?” she said suddenly.
“It is,” he remarked. “And dilapidated though it looks from the outside, I can assure you the interior is much worse.”
“That’s good,” she cried. “And as I can hardly believe it possible, I’m coming up to see.”
For a moment he hesitated.
“It really isn’t in a fit condition–” he began.
“Bunkum,” she answered. “Do you suppose I’ve never seen an untidy room before?”
“It isn’t altogether that,” he said, slowly.
Then he gave a short laugh.
“Right-ho!” he cried. “Your sins be upon your own head.”
He led the way in silence, and having tethered her horse flung open the door.
“Behold the ancestral hall,” he announced gravely.
Her eyes travelled round the room, resting for a moment on the array of bottles, while he watched her with a faint smile. What was she going to say?
“Get out,” she remarked. “This is going to be no place for a man for the next hour or two.”
It was so completely unexpected that for a moment or two he could only stare at her.
“Go on – get out,” she repeated, peeling off her gloves. “You’ll only be in the way.”
“You topper,” he said under his breath. “You absolute topper.”
Then he swung on his heel and left her, not knowing if she’d heard what he’d said – and not caring.
Two hours later he returned to find her sitting on the table smoking a cigarette. And the first thing he noticed was that the empty bottles had disappeared.
“I see you’ve removed my squadron,” he said. “It was very nearly full strength except for the officers.”
“You mean those dirty old bottles,” she remarked. “I’ve buried them outside.”
“Didn’t you admire their perfect dressing on parade?” he asked. “I used to call them to attention every time a new recruit joined.”
She stared at him through the smoke of her cigarette.
“I’ve been looking at this scrap-book of yours,” she said, calmly. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. I fear my library is somewhat deficient. But I need hardly perhaps say that Brown still remains a very good name.”
He glanced round the room; everything was spotless. The shelves of the cupboard were adorned with paper; the plates were washed and neatly stacked; even the teapot seemed to have taken on a new dignity.
“You seem to have been most thorough,” he said gravely. “Thank you.”
“So you won the Grand Military, did you?” she remarked.
“I believe that in some former existence of mine I had that honour. Incidentally speaking,” he continued, “I trust that you haven’t buried the quick and the dead together.”
“There are a dozen full bottles in there,” she said, pointing to his bedroom. “I thought they would be more convenient for you if you woke in the night.”
He stood motionless, staring at her. His face was expressionless; her eyes met his calmly and frankly.
“I deserve that,” he said in a low voice.
“My dear man,” she remarked. “I don’t think you deserve anything at all. It’s the wrong word. It’s not for me to judge. All I say is that I think it’s a pity that being who you are you should be what you are. It seems such a ghastly waste.”
“Some such idea occurred to me when I took the name of Brown,” he answered, thoughtfully.
She shook herself a little impatiently.
“How you can have that book here – be reminded day in, day out, of everything that might be yours – and not go mad, absolutely beats me.”
“Sometimes it beats me, too,” he said, quietly.
“Good God! man,” she cried, “can’t you try?”
“Good God! girl,” he answered, “do you suppose I haven’t?”
And for a space they were silent, staring at one another. At last she slipped from the table and went up to him.
“Sorry,” she said, gently, “I shouldn’t have said that. Look here – can I help? Julia Merrick told me she had done her best – but Julia is married and busy. I’m neither. Shall we have a dip at it together? No slop and slush about it. If you want a drink, have one. I shan’t look at you reprovingly. But if we pull together we might be able to keep whisky as a drink – not as a permanent diet.”
He turned suddenly and walked over to the open window. And she being a girl of much understanding lit another cigarette and waited. In her eyes was a look of wonderful pity, but she didn’t want him to see it. Something told her that she had started on the right note: that any trace of sentimentality would be fatal. For perhaps five minutes he stood there with his back to her, and only the pawing of the pony on the ground outside broke the silence. Then he swung round.
“Damned sporting offer,” he said, curtly. “Afraid you’ll find it a bit boring, though.”
“I’ll chance it,” she said. “Come over and dine tonight.”
3
And so the man who called himself Brown began to fight again. For hours he would sit in his bungalow sweating with the agony of it, and with every nerve in his body screaming for the stuff. And sometimes the girl would sit opposite him, holding his two hands across the table and watching him with cool, steady eyes.
His face was haggard; his hands shook uncontrollably when she released them. But he fought on with every gun and rifle he possessed, and the girl fought at his side.
It happened unexpectedly as such things will – in his bungalow one evening. For three hours the girl had been with him, and that particular crisis had passed. They were sitting side by side on the stoep, watching the sun go down behind the distant Drakensburg, and without thought she put her hand on his knee.
“Jim,” she whispered. “How utterly marvellous!”
And his hand closed over hers in the way there is no mistaking. She turned slowly and stared at him, and then caught her breath at the look in his eyes. She knew instantly what was coming: knew there was no way of stopping it. He was down on his knees beside her, his arms flung round her waist, his face buried in her lap. And for a space he went mad.
Hardly hearing – almost numbed with the suddenness of this new complication – she sat listening to the wild dreams of the man who called himself Brown. He was cured – with her help he had fought and won.
“For God’s sake, don’t leave me, Beryl!” he said, again and again. “Listen, dear – we’ll get married. And now that I’m all right, we’ll go back to England under my
proper name. I’ll get a job – I’ve got influence. And when they know I’m cured there won’t be any difficulty.”
He raised his face, and with blinding clearness she saw him for what he was. Before he had just been a case – a mission; now he was very much a man. A man grown old before his time, with the ineffaceable ravages of drink plain to see; a man with bloodshot, puffy eyes and trembling limbs; a travesty.
And yet, ghastly in its mercilessness though the picture was, in some strange way she seemed to see another one. Shining through this terrible mask she saw the man as he had been – clear-eyed, firm-lipped, with the pride of youth in every line of his body. And a pity that was almost divine took hold of her. She leaned forward and put her hand on his hair – and it was the hair of the man who had been that she touched. She kissed him on the forehead, and it was the forehead of the man in uniform – the man who had won the Grand Military – that she kissed.
And then he, with a little gasp of wonder, seized her hungrily and kissed her on the mouth. And Beryl Kingswood sat rigid: the dream had gone – reality had come back. The man who had kissed her lips was the man who called himself Jim Brown – the drunkard.
He was mad – incoherent with joy. He couldn’t believe it: he went on pacing up and down the veranda, painting wild dreams of the future. And every now and then he would stop and kiss the back of her neck – and touch her arm almost humbly.
“Stop and have dinner with me, dear,” he said, “on this wonderful night of nights. I’ll take you back afterwards.”
And because she was incapable of clear thought – because she was dazed by the result of what she had done in that one instant – she stayed to dinner. What was she going to do? How was she ever going to tell him? And gradually as the hours passed the thing began to get clearer. Dinner was over – a meal at which he had proudly drunk orange-juice and water. And now, sitting once again on the stoep in the darkness, her hand in his, it didn’t seem so very terrible. She would go through with it; she would marry him, and bring him back to what he had been. She had put her hand to the plough – she would not turn back.