Number Nineteen

by J. Jefferson Farjeon

  ‘We do not mean to let them go.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Nor even separate, for the beauty of having them both together is that, if the one who has not yet completed his business still refuses to complete it, he will have to watch the other pay the price of his obstinacy.’

  Ben moistened his dry lips.

  ‘You follow?’ enquired the Owl.

  ‘I git yer,’ murmured Ben.

  ‘And still with satisfaction?’

  ‘Corse!’

  ‘And, if we gave you the job of guarding our two visitors, you would guard them safely for the purpose we have in view?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘And would gladly be present, with ourselves and our friend just behind you, to continue your assistance while the—business was being concluded?’

  The Owl stopped speaking, waiting for Ben’s response. Even now, his expression did not change. His eyebrows might at least have been raised, but they remained, with the rest of his features, as if stuck.

  Ben just managed to get out the words,

  ‘Why not?’

  The Chief said something and passed the Owl a sheet. The Owl took it quietly and read it; then continued.

  ‘We will tell you why not. You have referred to our list. We keep one. And contrary to your expressed belief, you are down on it—now. Though not precisely in the terms you yourself indicated. Let me mention your record, as we have it here.’

  He lowered his eyes to the sheet for a moment.

  ‘I will not give you all the items, for there are far too many for the limited time we have at our disposal, and incidentally they make rather nauseous reading. Three will suffice. In the first, you appear to have become associated with a detective named Gilbert Fordyce at a house numbered, not Nineteen as ours is here, but Seventeen. I have no doubt you recall it. You were instrumental in breaking up an organisation that made use of a railway tunnel.’

  ‘Owjer know that was me?’ demanded Ben.

  Ignoring the question, the Owl went on.

  ‘In the second, you became too curious in the happenings behind a window opposite your own. In the third—passing over many other occasions and coming now to a much more recent date—you discovered a dead man in the cellar of No. 15, Norgate Road, and instead of leaving well alone, you interfered once more, with disastrous results to members of the fraternity to which you claim to belong. Is it likely that, knowing your record, we should consider you a proper person to guard Mr Black and Miss Bretherton?’

  The game seemed up, but Ben held on. This implied neither special grit nor courage. You hold on to a plank while you are sinking.

  ‘Corse, I know ’ow yer’ve got this orl wrong,’ he said. ‘Smith and George knew I’d tell on ’em, so they ’as ter try and dish me fust! Me that feller? Wot a larf!’

  ‘You know him, then?’

  ‘Know ’im? I met ’im once, and give ’im wot for!’

  ‘The meeting must have been interesting.’

  ‘Yus, and nex’ time I meet Smith and George, I’ll give them wot for!’

  ‘I am afraid you will not have the chance,’ remarked the Owl, ‘and in any case it was not they who identified you.’

  ‘Oh! Then ’oo did?’

  ‘A lady who met you in one of your many previous episodes, and who has no cause to love you. She saw the photograph that was taken of you yesterday on the park seat—before your transformation—and as she is working for us at the moment she very rightly considered it her duty to tell us what she knew about you.’ Ben guessed this to be the siren who had woven her entangling net around Mr Wavell, and for whom Mrs Wavell had mistaken Miss Bretherton in the cupboard. But he was not given time to dwell on such points, for the Owl was continuing in his monotonous, expressionless drone, ‘And so, you see, we cannot have you working for us any longer, and must terminate our own brief association. One way would be to hand you over to the police for the murder of Bretherton. Oh, yes, we could do this, I have no doubt, with very little risk. But why run any risk at all? The interview is ended. Take him away.’

  He made a sign to the monnertrocity, and Ben suddenly found himself lifted from the ground in long, hairy arms.

  27

  Topsy-Turvy

  If you fall in front of a train, and you have time to think about it, you will give yourself up for lost. Then, should you have fallen between the tracks to discover that the train has passed over you with injury only to your nervous system, you will assume that you have been saved by a miracle. This does not mean that the next time you fall in front of a train you will not be equally terrified. Miracles, you will argue, if you have time to argue, do not happen twice.

  But suppose you fall in front of a train twenty times? You may still disbelieve in a succession of miracles, but you will at last assume that Fate is looking after you and that you no longer have any cause to worry. And the time you do that will probably be the time Fate throws you on the dust-heap and goes off to look after somebody else.

  It was when the monnertrocity took Ben up in its arms—the creature had a gender, but Ben could only think of it as an ‘it’—that he came to the conclusion that Fate was looking after him. ‘See,’ he argued, as with closed eyes he felt himself being borne along Gawd knew where, ‘I must of bin nearly dead abart five ’undred times, not cahntin’ the nummer o’ times in the larst twenty-four hours. Orl right. If I wasn’t popped orf any o’ them times, why should I be popped orf this ’un? It ain’t reasonable! Faite’s lookin’ arter me, yer carn’t git away from it, so ’oo’s worryin’?’

  Therefore, although it would not be strictly true to say that Ben’s mind was happy when at last he felt himself put down and opened his eyes to find that he had been put down on a chair by which the monnertrocity was standing guard, at least he was not in a panic, and was sufficiently composed to take swift note of his new surroundings. The chair, a table, a candle on the table, the monnertrocity, himself, four walls and a closed door, completed the inventory. What did they all add up to?

  As they did not add up to anything, it seemed, of which Ben could make any use, he waited for divine inspiration, while the monnertrocity continued to stand and watch him with sadistic anticipating eyes.

  Whether what happened next was due to divine inspiration or to the uniqueness of Ben’s own mind may be a moot point. We ourselves may be inclined to give Ben full credit, but Ben was as certain that his actions were divinely inspired as he was that they were, even in his incredible experience, unbelievable. Indeed the events which followed were so unbelievable that he was convinced neither his nor any other mortal mind could have thought of them, let alone put them into action.

  They were started off by a sudden movement from the monnertrocity. This movement was certainly not divinely inspired, since it bore too strong a resemblance to an animal about to spring on its prey, and it was the movement which this induced in Ben that provided the pièce de résistance. He leapt up from his chair, kicked it aside, and stood on his head.

  He did not know why he did it until he was in the process of doing it. The discovery came as his head went down and his legs went up. ‘I’m doin’ this,’ he thought, ‘ter tike ’is mind orf like!’

  It undoubtedly took the monnertrocity’s mind off. It also presented him with an anatomical difficulty. It is less easy to throttle a man who is upside down than another who is the right way up, for people do not breathe through their boots.

  What, wondered upside-down Ben, would the monnertrocity do now? Once it had overcome its surprise, would it deliver the postponed attack? The next few moments were unbearable, though they had to be borne, the unbearableness being augmented by the fact that, in his inverted position, Ben’s direction was also reversed, and he now had his back to the monnertrocity with no capacity to turn his head and look. He only had his ears to judge by, and when after a few seconds he heard a slow shuffling sound, he judged that the creature was moving. The sound drew closer, its one virtue being its slown
ess.

  At first it came towards him. Then it paused. Then it ceased its direct approach, and gradually circled round, till at last the monnertrocity came into view, to pause once more at the extraordinary sight now observed to best advantage.

  With less advantage, Ben observed the observer, painfully realising that this strange attempt to solve his immediate problem was a case of kill or cure. Whatever chance he had had of warding off the monnertrocity’s attack right side up, he now had no chance at all of warding it off upside down. ‘I s’pose wot’ll ’appen,’ he thought. ‘I’ll jest go flop, and that’ll be that like.’

  So he waited to go flop, but he did not go flop. The monnertrocity continued to gaze at the unusual spectacle, and gradually its expression changed from sheer surprise to a new form of interest at first unfathomable. Was it now studying its victim to work out how best to deal with it from this new angle? That was the obvious deduction till it dawned upon Ben that the monnertrocity’s expression did not fit into the interpretation, for the expression was no longer menacing. It was intrigued. It said, ‘I have never seen such a thing before!’ And the monnertrocity never had.

  The situation became static. Neither the beholder nor the beheld did anything until at last Ben realised that this could not go on for ever. Not, at any rate, as far as he was concerned. Carefully he brought his legs down to earth again, less through policy than through necessity, and as he did so the monnertrocity’s expression changed. At first Ben was unaware of the change, since the operation of descent had brought him with his back to the creature once more. It was not until he had regained his erect position and turned that he saw the monnertrocity’s eyes alive with angry disappointment. It emitted a gurgling growl, its only form of speech.

  ‘Wot, didn’t yer like it?’ asked Ben, apprehensively.

  The monnertrocity growled again.

  ‘You ’ave a shot?’ suggested Ben.

  The monnertrocity gestured imperiously towards the floor.

  ‘Lummy! ’E wants me ter do it fer ’im agine!’ thought Ben.

  Well, better appease him!

  So Ben went down for a second performance, and the second performance was as greatly admired as the first. It was, however, a shorter performance, for the performer’s head was getting sore, and when it was over Ben looked at the monnertrocity anxiously, hoping he would not demand yet another effort. To his relief there was no immediate indication of this. He found the monnertrocity grinning. This, surely, was a triumph, and, quickly and hard, Ben grinned back to preserve this better humour.

  ‘If we goes on like this,’ he thought, ‘’oo knows we won’t end up by kissin’!’ As the grinning persisted he became so encouraged that, when the monnertrocity pointed once more to the floor, he shook his head, risked touching the creature on the shoulder, and then pointed to the floor himself.

  The unbelievable scene went on. Something had been awakened in the creature’s breast, stirring emotions that had never been stirred before. If it had previously lusted for pain, now it lusted for play. Tragedy turned grotesquely into comedy, though there was no knowing how long the comedy would last. Ben had been surprised when he had stood on his head. When, after two or three minutes of inducement and persuasion, the monnertrocity followed suit, he was staggered.

  ‘This ain’t true,’ he said solemnly, as he watched the great feet rising and waving.

  But it was true, and with the undeniable evidence before him he suddenly realised the possibility of turning his negative advantage into a positive one. He had prevented or postponed the monnertrocity’s attack. Could he use this moment to become the attacker himself? Yus, ’ow abart goin’ fer ’im nah I’ve got ’im upside dahn?

  Two thoughts deterred him. One was that this would mean a return to the war he was trying to avert, and even with this initial advantage Ben doubted whether he would win out in the end. The second thought was, well, would it be cricket? If you’re not supposed to hit a man when he’s down, you certainly shouldn’t hit him when he’s upside down! Thus argued Ben, and while he argued the monnertrocity concluded his performance and the chance was lost.

  But it very soon became clear to Ben that he had acted wisely in restraining his bellicose impulse, for now the monnertrocity seemed more amiable than ever. In addition to amiability he exuded a childish excitement. The strange noises he emitted and the elevation of his thick eyebrows to their loftiest height so clearly meant, ‘Did I do it right?—Was it good?—Am I not clever?’ that Ben responded with violent nods of his head, and even pattings on his queer companion’s back. The pattings had almost as great effect on the monnertrocity as the performance, for all at once he paused in his antics, as though something had suddenly hit him, and his features took on a new puzzled expression. He blinked first at the hand that had patted him and then at the man who had directed the hand, as though engaged in working out a novel problem. The hand that had patted him could not have done so unless its owner had desired it. Why, then, had the owner desired it? Why, indeed going a little farther back, had the owner shown him this wonderful trick, introducing such entrancing new experience, such stimulating new sensation?

  Watching him, and trying to interpret what was happening, Ben thought, ‘Ain’t nobody never give ’im a friendly pat afore? P’r’aps ’e ain’t never ’ad no friend like—yer carn’t ’elp feelin’ a bit sorry fer ’im!’

  Ben’s interpretation was sufficiently accurate, for the monnertrocity’s world comprised only two sorts of people—those he was afraid of, and those who were afraid of him. It had to be one or the other.

  Well, whatever this new sort of person, it was good, and as the monnertrocity’s crude mind returned pain for pain, it now urged him to return pleasure for pleasure. Ben steeled himself for the pat he saw coming, and just managed to survive it. It was indeed a volcanic thump, and when Ben had recovered from the shock he was just in time to see the monnertrocity speeding from the room.

  ‘Where’s ’e gorn?’ he wondered. ‘Ter spread the good news?’

  Wherever he had gone it seemed a good idea to follow, for with luck the monnertrocity might lead Ben to where he desired to go, while at worst it would be useful to know where the fellow had parked himself. A further indication of the monnertrocity’s new mood lay in the fact that the door was wide and it had no longer seemed necessary to lock the prisoner in. As Ben reached the passage the unmistakable sound of the monnertrocity’s feet gave him the direction.

  He followed cautiously. Even though things were going so surprisingly well he meant to take no chances. He’d seen boxers get the k.o. through over-confidence, and the only time he’d ever had over-confidence himself he’d walked smack into oblivion. The sound of the steps took him round a dark corner—wot a maze this was, yer couldn’t git away from it!—and then round another. Then, for a nasty moment, he lost himself. But all at once, as he rounded yet another corner, he heard voices, while between him and the voices loped the monnertrocity.

  At first the voices were too faint to decipher, but soon the words became clearer, and just before the monnertrocity reached the doorway through which the voices were sounding, Ben recognised the expressionless tone of the Owl.

  ‘You can put him out of your mind, Miss Bretherton,’ the Owl was saying, ‘for by this time there is no need for him to remain in ours.’

  Miss Bretherton’s response came sharply. ‘What do you mean?’

  The Owl replied, ‘I mean that he has been dealt with. He has been dealt with in the same way that you yourself will be dealt with, when our man returns, if the Professor continues to persist in his reticence … One moment.’

  The Chief’s voice interposed here, and when he had finished the Owl translated, speaking as unemotionally as though he were mentioning some small domestic detail.

  ‘I am corrected. It will not be in quite the same manner, though the end will be the same. The process will be slower. You have already had one small sample. You did not appear to like it very much. You will like
the rest less. Ah, and here comes our man, just when he is wanted.’

  As these words were spoken, the monnertrocity slipped out of Ben’s view through the doorway.

  ‘And now, Professor, the next move is with you … Yes, yes, wait a moment, wait a moment.’ Was there, for the first time, a slight change in the Owl’s monotone? The words, at least, had an impatient savour, and Ben wondered, with perspiring forehead and fists clenched, whether they were addressed to the monnertrocity, and if so what had evoked them? Ben knew that communication between the monnertrocity and his employers had been brought to a fine art, and that the words would have been accompanied by the appropriate signs and gestures. ‘Well, Professor, what is it to be?’

  ‘Are you devils?’

  That was Mr Black’s voice. Mr Black, then, was the Professor.

  ‘We merely ask you to complete the business which brought you here,’ answered the Owl. ‘We did anticipate the possibility of trouble—that when you got here you might weaken and change your mind. As indeed you did. Others have done it before you. That was why we had, so to speak, to assist you in. But now I am to tell you that we are no longer in a mood to waste time. I will put it more clearly. We are not in a position to. We must have your information to pass on at once, for the Chief has been summoned by an even Higher Authority—and our present address is about to change … What is the matter with you? Cannot you stay still for a moment?… Excuse this interruption, Professor, but you will note that our man seems to be growing impatient, so from every angle you must decide on your course immediately. The alternatives are plain. You will give us your information, or Miss Bretherton here—and your wife elsewhere—will have to suffer for your broken word. There is no need to mince matters. The choice is yours, and I speak plainly to assist your decision. Well?’

  One can only die once, saving in imagination, and Ben prepared to die now as he slid right up to the door which the monnertrocity had not troubled to close. But he meant to do all the damage he could before being damaged himself beyond repair, and his fists were so tightly clenched that his knuckles showed white. The sight he glimpsed through the doorway, however, caused him to pause.