‘I’ve told you this is a big thing—’
‘Yes, and that’s all you’ve told me! “You’re on duty to assist me in something big and bloody,” you told me yesterday, and I’ll say it was bloody! If it’s as big, okay! Spill a bit more!’
‘Here’s a bit more,’ answered Smith. ‘A bit about Black’s wife.’
‘Yes, what about her?’ asked George.
‘She won’t come to any harm on the other side of the Curtain so long as Black does what’s wanted.’
‘I see. And he came here to do it today?’
‘Clever fellow!’
‘What was it?’
‘Perhaps I don’t know.’
‘And perhaps you do!’
‘I may have an inkling, but what makes you think I’m the Chief’s confidant? If you think I sit beside the Chief on his perch while he whispers all his secrets into my ear, you’re wrong! Wait till I’ve got a perch of my own before you start pumping me. And that may not be so very long ahead, either. In fact, George—’
He broke off.
‘Go on!’ exclaimed George. ‘In fact what?’
‘Shall I tell you?’
‘You know you’re going to, so why waste time?’
‘All right, here goes! Once we’ve cleared our present little pile I may be breaking away. The Chief rather cramps my particular style. He doesn’t appreciate originality. Also this joint is getting a bit too hot … I say, George, is our corpse moving?’
The speaker would have been surprised had he realised that the corpse was wondering the same thing, for owing to a sudden and growing tickle on his nose he was discovering it almost impossible to maintain his motionless pose. Perspiration dripped from his forehead to moisten the floor against which it was pressed. Ben could stand much, having long learned the necessity of doing so, but the one thing he could not stand was a tickle on his nose. Upon his superhuman self-control during the next few seconds depended his very life. And added to the tickle on his nose now came the new burden of breath on the back of his neck. He didn’t care much for that, either, because it meant that somebody was bending over him for a closer scrutiny—Smith or George, but not, thank Gawd, the monnertrocity! After a short agonising period, the breath left his neck, while the tickle remained on his nose.
‘Well?’ came George’s voice.
‘If he isn’t dead as a doornail,’ replied Smith, ‘he’s got such a black-out that he wouldn’t need any anaesthetic for an operation. What was I saying?’
‘You were talking about clearing off.’
‘Ah, so I was. I’d like a spell of independence. Hatch my own schemes, and p’r’aps get you to help me carry ’em out. But that’s for the future, George—and we seem to have got a long way from that woman’s cry—which you now know could not have come all the way across Europe from Black’s wife. Of course, it may have been from somebody else’s wife.’
‘Why don’t we go and see?’ suggested George, rather obviously.
‘We will in a few moments,’ answered Smith, ‘but do you know, the longer I stay here, the less I feel in a hurry to move. And the reason for that, Georgie, is because I feel pretty convinced that our next move is going to be bang on top of the volcano!’
‘All right, but if we’re staying don’t let’s waste time,’ retorted George. ‘Who is the somebody else’s wife? Not yours, by any chance?’
‘Not by any chance,’ Smith replied, ‘though I don’t mind admitting that for a very pleasant period she ought to have been. No, I passed her on to our mutual friend Wavell—and Wavell, as you know, has got a wife. One who could give him a pretty hot time if she ever came to know of it!’
‘So that’s ’ow they roped ’im in!’ thought the corpse on the floor. ‘I’ve ’eard o’ that one! Gal let’s a bloke love ’er and then sez you do wot I tells yer or I’ll blow the gaff ter the missus! Gawd, if this tickle don’t stop I’ll bust!’
Meanwhile Smith was continuing, ‘I can’t see what the Chief would want to make Glamorous Gertie squeal for, though. She’s doing her stuff too well for any neckwringing.’
George responded, ‘P’r’aps the Chief’s fallen for the glamour, and what you thought you heard was Gertie objecting!’
Smith laughed. ‘That’s the worst guess you ever made, George! The Chief could no more fall for glamour than Gertie would object if he did! No, there’s another woman we haven’t mentioned yet.’
‘Who?’
‘One who called on our new caretaker here yesterday. I wish I’d got more than a glimpse of her! She was supposed to have come by mistake to the wrong door, but suppose she didn’t? And though she didn’t get in that time, suppose she’s got in since?’
‘You didn’t recognise her from the glimpse?’
‘Not at the time. But I’ve been thinking, and an impression is growing in my mind that she and I have met before!’
‘Where? Same place as Glamorous Gertie?’
‘Oh, dear, no! Nothing like that!’
‘Then where?’
‘I’ll keep that under my hat for a moment, George, in case I’m wrong. But if I’m not wrong—if this woman is the young lady I think she is—and if she has got in, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if she never got out again … Hey, what’s happening to our corpse! Hold him!’
24
Ben Bounces
Ben often wondered what would have happened, and whether his twenty-four hours’ nightmare would have ended differently if his tickle had not beaten him. ‘S’pose, fer instance,’ he asked himself, ‘s’pose I’d kep’ me grip on it till it ’ad went away—’ for tickles do very occasionally oblige in this surprising manner ‘—would they of fahnd aht I wasn’t dead and finished me orf like, or if they ’adn’t fahnd aht would they of rolled me orf somewhere, and if so where, and then wot?’ The if’s of this hazardous life which seems to take its course from trivial details are as unfathomable as they are uncountable, and so it was not likely that Ben would be able to fathom them.
But the tickle did beat him, and if a world war had resulted, he had to deal with it. A finger of the hand nearest his nose was almost within scratchable distance, but almost is not quite, as he discovered when he had extended it to its extreme limit. Just half-an-inch short! A mere half-inch from heaven; for the joy of ending a tickle even surpasses the agony that preceded the cure. It was cruel.
‘But I ain’t goin’ ter move,’ vowed Ben, as his perspiring forehead grew damper and damper against the cold stone floor. ‘No, I ain’t! See, if I move, it’s orl over, and I gotter git Miss Bretherton aht o’ this, I jest gotter, well, ain’t I, so see, that’s settled, I ain’t goin’ ter move.’
And then, the very next instant, he did move. Body beat spirit, and his extended finger covered the final half-inch to his despairing nose. It did not slide quietly, as it might have attempted under mental direction. There was no mind in the operation, only physical necessity, and it lurched violently like a suddenly released spring.
It was this movement that had brought Smith’s attention back to the corpse.
Once Ben had started moving, he did not stop. The finger on the trigger nose had fired the rest of him. Bounding up with the primitive instinct of self-preservation, his tickle forgotten, his physical condition ignored, he dashed away into the darkness before Smith or George could hold him. No good to argue that he couldn’t have done it. (Later, he argued that way himself.) He did do it. And wot yer done, yer done. Once again Ben had achieved the impossible.
When a bullet is fired, and that is all Ben was just now—a human bullet—it has no power to direct its course, but goes where it must. If it hits anything soft, it penetrates. If it is too soft itself to penetrate what it hits, it ricochets. That is what Ben did. He hit and bounced, and when he hit again he bounced again. He began to believe that he would go on doing it for ever. Like Sisyphus, doomed for ever in the world of shade to roll his stone endlessly uphill, so Ben, in this other world of darkness, seemed destined to boun
ce till the end of Time. In his swooning mind (how often had Ben’s mind swooned since that first occasion only yesterday on a park seat!) he watched himself doing it. And because he always tried to be philosophic and make the best of things once there was no way out, he told himself at last that he rather liked it. See, yer doesn’t ’ave ter do nothink. Yer jest goes on like a billiard ball.
That was the last thing he told himself till, several centuries later, he found to his amazement that he had actually stopped. Well, well! Think o’ that, now! I ain’t movin’! So the next thing was to find out why he wasn’t moving and why he had stopped.
Soon he discovered. Something was around him. He couldn’t see what it was because his head was buried against another part of the something. Not a cold stone floor this time. Sort of warm like. Couldn’t be a mother, could it? Long ago he’d had one. He managed to move his head back a little way, and as he did so he discovered that the darkness had gone and now there was light. It came from an electric lamp above him.
But Ben was not looking at the lamp. He was looking at the something that held him. It was the monnertrocity.
25
The Owl
Ben was not given time to dwell on this new, unpleasant development. A door opened behind the monnertrocity who, now fully viewed by Ben for the first time, turned out to be a large hairy man with a monkey face and bare, gorilla-like feet, and a small, spectacled man emerged. The man shot a quick glance at Ben and his captor, without any change of expression—Ben was to learn that his expression never changed—and then went back into the room from which he had come, closing the door after him.
At a movement from Ben, the monnertrocity’s encircling arms tightened, and Ben knew that escape was impossible. Even had it been possible, where would he have escaped to? Behind him sounded voices. Approaching and familiar.
‘Ah! So you’ve caught our corpse—well done, Monkey-face,’ said Smith. The monnertrocity emitted one of his incoherent gurgles while Smith went on, now addressing the corpse, ‘You’re certainly teaching me things, Jones, and I wish our all-too-short acquaintance were not about to end. For instance, I never knew a dead man could run so fast. I suppose, while you were lying doggo, you heard all we said? Come along! Spill it out! It might be a good idea for you to talk while you still can.’
‘’Ow can yer tork when yer in a lemon-squeezer?’ gulped Ben.
‘Let him go, Monkey-face,’ ordered Smith, accompanying the order with a gesture. ‘He won’t do any more running.’ The tight embracing arms loosened, and Ben stepped back out of them hastily. ‘Whoa! Steady in reverse! You nearly had George over. Now then! To repeat—did you hear all George and I said?’
‘I ’eard enuff,’ replied Ben.
‘That was a pity for you, though I hardly imagine that by this time it will make any difference. You know that is the Chief’s door?’
‘Oh! And was that ’im wot come aht of it?’
‘The Chief never comes out of it. So who did come?’
‘Why should I tell yer?’
‘Small chap with glasses?’
‘Yus, if yer wanter know.’
‘That would be the Owl, George. I know the procedure. He came out to see what the din was and now he’s inside making his report. He’ll be out again shortly—and then what fun!’
As Smith’s cynical eyes rested on Ben, he tried to fight back.
‘’Oo’s goin’ ter git the fun?’ he demanded.
‘Well—if the term really applies—you should have a nice little slice of it coming to you.’
‘And wot abart your slice?’
‘Ours? Yes, what about ours, George?’
‘We can do without it,’ replied George.
‘P’r’aps yer’ll git it, jest the sime,’ retorted Ben. ‘Yus, and p’r’aps I won’t? It’s you wot comes along and mucks things up!’
‘Really!’ remarked Smith, with raised eyebrows. ‘You might explain that?’
‘Yer arsked if I ’eard yer torkin’!’
‘Yes?’
‘Wich I did.’
‘So you said. Go on.’
‘Leastwise, some of it.’
‘Not all?’
‘If yer think I was physical fit fer service while I was lyin’ at the foot o’ them stairs arter me tumble, yer daft!’
‘What did you hear, then, that’s in your mind at this moment?’ asked Smith.
‘Well, yer torked abart me a bit, didn’t yer?’ answered Ben. ‘Yus, and I didn’t like some o’ the things yer said! Lummy, I thort yer’d got me stright by nah, but yer went on as if I was a quitter. S’pose I let on ter the Chief when I sees ’im that you’re the ones wot’s thinkin’ o’ quittin’?’
Smith’s expression darkened, and for the first time Ben thought he had said something to worry him.
‘I wouldn’t,’ advised Smith.
‘Why not?’
‘Well, for one thing, it mightn’t be healthy for you.’
‘I see. If I keep mum the Chief’ll send me ’ome with a fat cheque and a bottle o’ tonic!’
‘And for another thing, you’d be talking through your hat and you couldn’t prove a word you said.’
‘I could charnce that! No ’arm tryin’! If yer still thinks I’m double-crossin’, jest pass that on ter the Chief, and see wot I’ll tell ’im! I’ll tell ’im yer goin’ ter mike yer pile and then walk aht on ’im—’
A heavy boot came up from the ground and shoved him in the stomach. He fell back, and once more felt the monnertrocity’s long arms around him.
‘Let’s have an accident, Monkey-face,’ said Smith. ‘Get me? Do that lemon-squeezer act of yours again!’
The long arms tightened. In less than two seconds Ben felt as though all his breath had left him. ‘Then yer goes black, doncher?’ he thought. He felt himself going black. But before he attained that undesirable hue the arms ceased to squeeze, the door behind the monnertrocity opened again, and the small spectacled man reappeared.
His arrival had a strange psychological effect. As he gazed mildly on the scene, three of those at whom he gazed could have broken his back with ease, and even Ben, refilled with the breath he had lost, could have taken him on; but little though he was, and quiet though his voice when he spoke, the control of the situation had immediately passed to him. Even his lack of expression seemed to give him dominance. Emotion, it implied, was for fools and weaklings.
‘What is happening here?’ he enquired.
The question was addressed to Smith.
‘That’s what we’re here to find out,’ replied Smith.
‘I speak of the present moment,’ answered the little man, whom Smith had referred to as the Owl. There was something owl-like in his pale eyes. ‘I have come to take this man to the Chief.’ He indicated Ben with a slight movement of his head. ‘Had I come a few moments later, would that still have been possible?’
‘We won’t argue,’ said Smith. ‘We want to see the Chief ourselves.’
‘I have no doubt he would like to see you. Step inside, if you please.’
He moved from the doorway to allow the little procession to pass through. Smith and George went first, the monnertrocity followed. Ben, the fourth in order, paused as he was about to pass the Owl who was bringing up the rear. He had an uneasy sensation that he had finished with Smith and George, and that unless he was to become quite friendless he must make a bid for the Owl’s confidence.
‘We ain’t the fust visitors terday, are we?’ he said, with a not very successful wink. He did not feel in a winking mood.
‘Go in,’ ordered the Owl.
‘I’m goin’ in,’ answered Ben, and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘It’s them others yer wanter watch!’
‘We watch everybody,’ replied the Owl. ‘Even you.’
‘That’s right,’ nodded Ben, affecting approval. ‘Yer carn’t be too careful in this gime. I expeck there’s a cupple more ’ere yer watchin’, too, ain’t there?’
‘Your busine
ss is with the Chief, not with me. Please do not delay any longer.’
‘Okay. I git yer. But if you’d bin through wot I bin through, fallin’ dahn stairs and then bein’ squeezed like yer was a lemon, yer wouldn’t mind a breather yerself!’
Then he went in, and heard the Owl following him and locking the door.
The space they were now in was small, and the five men almost filled it. There was as yet no sign of the Chief, and Ben deduced that this was a sort of ante-room. Like where yer ’ad ter waite at dentists’ ’ouses afore yer ’ad yer tooth aht. Now threading his way through the little crowd, the Owl passed through another door, to return almost immediately. He beckoned to Smith and George, made a sign to the monnertrocity, and a moment later Ben found himself alone with Monkey-face.
A tête-à-tête with this unpleasant creature would not have been Ben’s choice, but with relief he noticed that the monnertrocity was no longer in a menacing mood. Indeed, the eyes that watched Ben were rather mournful, and if Ben could have been sure that the sadness was not due to frustrated desire, he might have been a little sorry for him. ‘Lummy, I ain’t nothink ter look at,’ he reflected, ‘but s’pose I’d bin born like ’im? And then not bein’ able ter ’ear or tork, it’d give yer the pip!’
There were no chairs. They stood and waited. Once Ben made a movement towards the entrance door, thinking it would be a good idea to study it for the next time he might want to use it, but a growl from the monnertrocity warned him, and he resumed his static pose. If he once gave his gaoler an excuse to get nasty, there was no knowing just how nasty he would get!
As the minutes dragged by it dawned upon Ben that perhaps he was missing his last opportunity to formulate a plan. Once he found himself in the presence of the mysterious individual referred to as the Chief things would assumedly happen, and while things are happening is not the best time for clear thought. It is only by thinking before things happen that you stand any chance of making them happen the way you want. So while Ben and the monnertrocity stood facing each other, Ben’s mind passed beyond his hairy gaoler into the realms of strategy.
Number Nineteen Page 16