But the figure didn’t follow him, and all at once his mind switched galvanically back to the voices. They were now much closer. Just outside, in fact. Where the figure would be …
‘Come on!’
‘You think he’s in there, then?’
‘Bet he’s popped in a barrel!’
A reply from the door-step, however, dissolved this picturesque theory.
‘Are you after a run-away? If you are, he’s just gone along that road there towards Southampton,’ came the amazing information. ‘Yes, and the brute knocked me clean down in his hurry, he did, so I hope you catch him!’
The pursuers shouted thanks. Feet turned, and hurried away. But Ben remained motionless. For the voice that had turned the pursuers’ feet was the voice of Molly Smith.
5
Drama in a Bar
Molly Smith! Molly! Not in Spain! Here! …
The room began to jerk about, and through the gymnastics swam a face. A large, red, fat face, that seemed to be propelled by its two fin-like ears. The eyes in the face were pale blue, and they stared.
‘Feelin’ queer?’ asked the owner of the face.
‘Wot’s that?’ murmured Ben, mechanically.
‘Are you feelin’ queer?’ repeated the owner of the face.
Did suspicion lurk in the pale blue eyes? If so, Ben was not in a condition to combat it. He merely stared back, while the suspicion appeared to grow.
‘You’ve been runnin’!’ The statement was more like a challenge. ‘And where’s your cap, mate? Lost it?’
‘No, here it is,’ chipped in another voice.
And Molly Smith entered, cool as a cucumber, and with the cap in her hand.
‘Lying on the door-step,’ she said. ‘Did that chap they’re after barge into you, like he did into me?’
She held the cap out to Ben. Automatically, he took it, while their eyes met. They might have been strangers for all the recognition she showed. Lummy, what a kid she was, when it came to a tight corner!
‘I tell you, I was frightened proper!’ she ran on, producing a shiver. ‘And you look as if you’d had a bit of a scare up, if you don’t mind me saying it. Did you dodge in here to get out of the way, too?’
‘Tha’s right, miss,’ answered Ben, catching at the cue.
Her quick, keen mind was like a rope thrown out to him in a raging sea.
‘Well, I don’t blame you!’ she exclaimed. ‘All these Bolshies and bag-snatchers—it doesn’t seem safe to be out! But what’s this one done? Nothing to do with that murder in the town, is he?’
Another cue! She was letting him know that she knew! Yes, and how much did she know? P’r’aps more than he did!
Now another voice joined in. The voice of the barmaid this time.
‘Nothing to do with it?’ she exclaimed, polishing a glass which had lately been bathed in her fair breath. ‘I’d say he’d everything to do with it! Wouldn’t you, Joe?’
The red-faced man, addressed as Joe, nodded solemnly, and continued to stare at Ben.
‘We was just talking about it, wasn’t we, when you popped in,’ continued the barmaid, nodding towards Ben. ‘There’s two of ’em. One’s from Spain or somewhere, so they say, and the other’s a sailor what’s come off a ship.’
‘The sailor’s the one I saw!’ interposed Molly, quickly. ‘Six foot, if an inch!’
‘I heard he was little,’ said Joe.
His tone was that of a man who objects to discarding a theory. Molly, however, stuck to her point.
‘Little be boiled!’ she retorted. ‘That only shows what stories get around!’
‘She’s right there,’ agreed the barmaid. ‘What I was told was that he was little and had a yeller tooth sticking out like a tusk! But, there you are! What are you to believe? Is it true,’ she added, turning to Molly, ‘that he was in the taxi when they heard the scream, and that this sailor fellow popped out of one door while the policeman popped in at the other?’
Just in time, Ben prevented himself from denying that there had been any scream,
‘Out he jumps,’ the barmaid ran on, ‘with his knife still in his hand and the blood dripping on the pavement, there’s no sleep for me tonight, and into a house, and then escapes off the roof! And then, just when they think they’ve got him, along comes this foreigner—’
‘Spaniard, Spaniard,’ interposed Joe, irritably.
‘Spaniard, was it? They’re all the same. And he knocks a policeman out, and off they bolt together.’
‘Wot, tergether?’ blinked Ben.
‘That’s right. They was both in it. It’s my belief the sailor done it, and then passes the pocket-book on to this Spaniard. Well, anyhow, let’s hope they’re both caught. Ain’t anyone going to drink to it?’
‘Pocket-book, eh?’ murmured Ben. ‘Was there a pocket-book?’
‘Well, I didn’t say a coal-scuttle, did I?’ retorted the barmaid. ‘Easy to see you don’t know nothing about it!’
‘Ay, and mebbe you don’t know quite as much about it as you think,’ observed the red-faced Joe, tartly. Six feet!’
‘I never said nothing about six feet!’ returned the barmaid, with equal spirit. ‘P’r’aps it’s getting time you used your two!’
Joe looked at her with a scowl, then looked at Ben again.
‘Mebbe it is,’ he said. ‘Mebbe it is!’
And, abruptly draining his glass, he placed it on the stained counter, planked down the payment, and strode out of the inn.
Ben and Molly exchanged glances. The barmaid laughed.
‘Don’t you worry about him!’ she exclaimed. ‘Loony, that’s what he is! Well, what’ll you have?’
‘Three penn’orth o’ champagne,’ replied Ben, making an effort to hide his intense uneasiness at the red-faced man’s abrupt departure.
‘My! Aren’t you a wag!’ smiled the barmaid. ‘And the lady? Ain’t you going to treat her for picking up your cap? And a new one, too, ain’t it?’
Sometimes, for no apparent reason, one’s mind will be diverted from a main issue to a trivial one. Ben’s mind, now, was diverted to his cap. Queer how often his cap cropped up in the conversation! Of course, it was all quite natural, really, but …
Mechanically, he adjusted and completed his drink order, but his mind still flitted vaguely around his cap, or his cap flitted vaguely around his mind. Meanwhile, Molly was drawing casually closer, till her lips were within a few inches of his ear.
‘Drink it quickly,’ whispered the lips, ‘and go!’
Ben donned an expression intended to convey the response, ‘I get yer.’ To anyone else it would merely have conveyed that he had suddenly got a fly in his eye.
‘Go to the right,’ whispered the lips again. ‘I’ll follow.’
Ben repeated his expression. He now looked as if he had got two flies in his eye.
‘And leave your cap behind you,’ came the final whispered injunction.
‘There yer are,’ thought Ben. ‘Cap agine. Funny!’
He approached the counter, took his glass of three-penny champagne, and held it aloft.
‘’Ere’s wot,’ he said.
‘Buenos dias,’ answered Molly.
‘That’s a new one!’ commented the barmaid. ‘Russian, ain’t it?’
‘No, Chinese,’ smiled Molly. ‘It means “Good luck and we’ll meet again!”’
Ben grinned, and shoved his cap so far back on his head that it fell to the floor.
‘Well, I ’ope we do,’ he nodded, ‘becos’ now I gotter be orf.’
He drained his glass, and made for the door.
‘Oh, and where are you off to?’ inquired the barmaid.
‘Mothers’ Meeting,’ answered Ben, ‘ter knit socks.’
The next moment he was gone. The barmaid stared after him, and laughed.
‘Talk about lightning,’ she observed. ‘Bit of a hurry, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes, and he’s left his blessed cap behind!’ exclaimed Molly, suddenly. ‘I’d
better go after him.’
And, hastily emptying her own glass, she picked up the cap and made an equally hurried exit.
For about ten minutes the barmaid’s life became dull again. She yawned, breathed on glasses, wiped, yawned, breathed, wiped, in dreary but philosophic sequence. Then life brightened once more, the door was pushed open, and a police officer entered.
Behind came Joe, redder than ever with a kind of crimson triumph.
‘What did I say?’ he cried.
As a matter of fact, he had not said anything; he had merely thought. But when your thought proves right, it is human to assume that you have spoken.
The inspector silenced him with a sharp motion. Then he addressed the barmaid with even greater sharpness.
‘Where’s the couple who were in here just now?’ he demanded.
‘I’m sure I don’t know!’ replied the barmaid, her eyes popping.
‘When did they leave?’ barked the inspector.
‘Ten minutes ago!’ gasped the barmaid. ‘You’re never going to tell me—’
‘Know which way they went?’
‘No.’
‘Did they leave together?’
‘No! Yes—’
‘Which? Which?’
‘Well, I’m all of a fluster! The man went first, and the girl went a few seconds after.’
‘Aha!’ exclaimed Joe, his triumph increasing. ‘Aha!’
The inspector rushed out of the bar, gave an order, and rushed in again.
‘Now, then!’ he said. ‘How long were they in here, and look lively!’
‘I can’t look lively when you make me so breathless!’ returned the barmaid. ‘Three or four minutes, I should think.’
‘What did they do?’
‘He came in first, and she came in afterwards—’
‘Yes, yes, I know that. She came in after spilling a red herring! What happened when he left?’
He jerked his thumb towards Joe.
‘Nothing happened,’ answered the barmaid.
‘Think again!’
‘Well, nothing happened that was anything, if you know what I mean. They had drinks—’
‘Drinks!’ cried the inspector. ‘Where are the glasses?’
‘Washed up.’
‘Damn! You’ve washed off their finger-prints!’
‘How was I to know—’
‘Yes, yes, all right! Did they seem in a hurry?’
‘He did! Tossed it down quicker than you talk! I thought to myself, “You’ve got a throat a mile wide, or you’d choke,” I thought. And then out he goes, leaving his cap behind.’
‘Cap, eh?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Good! Where is it?’
‘She took it out after him. Naturally I thought—’
‘What you were intended to think,’ interposed the inspector, disappointedly. ‘A put-up job, of course. Otherwise she’d have come back, wouldn’t she? And you can’t think of anything else, eh?’
‘I can describe ’em,’ answered the barmaid, combatting an unjust sense of failure. ‘The man was a funny little fellow—’
‘In a greasy coat and a new cap,’ interrupted the inspector, ‘and the girl was small, too, but trim and neat, pretty and with brown hair.’ He glanced at Joe. ‘I’ve got their descriptions.’ He glanced back at the barmaid. His head moved as sharply as his tongue. ‘Well, if that’s all you can do for us—’
‘No, I can do a bit more!’ exclaimed the barmaid, suddenly recollecting. ‘They come from China!’
‘China?’ repeated the inspector, staring.
‘Yes! I know, because when she drank she said Buenos Aires or something, and it meant “Good luck and we’ll meet again.”’
‘Why, that fixes it!’ cried the inspector. ‘“Good luck to our escape and we’ll meet again outside!” You’ve been treated to a nice little bit of acting, miss! But your Buenos Aires don’t sound exactly Chinese to me.’
‘Well, she said it was,’ frowned the barmaid.
‘And the next time you see her, if she says she’s eating kippers you can bet your life it’s haddock! I suppose you can’t get any nearer that foreign toast?’
‘I’m sure of the Buenos, but the Aires don’t sound right. Would it be Dairies? No, that’s cows, and this made me think of a donkey … Ah, I’ve got it. Buenos Dias! Funny how things come back all of a sudden. Buenos Dias—’
‘And if that isn’t Spanish, it’s damn like it!’ interposed the inspector, with another quick glance at Joe. ‘Now, you see, they’re all three tied together. The sailor knocks a policeman down while the Spaniard makes his get-away, and the girl puts a drink down while the sailor makes his get-away. And the girl speaks Spanish, so is obviously thick with the Spaniard. The circle’s complete. Well, we’ll have ’em all three under lock and key before bedtime tonight, or I’ll take up knitting!’
Upon which he swung round and left the pleasantly fuggy bar for the cheerless night outside.
‘There you are,’ said Joe.
‘Yes, and he couldn’t stop thanking you, could he?’ retorted the barmaid.
The retort hit Joe bang in the middle. Joe preferred recognition even to service. He looked pensive.
The barmaid also looked pensive.
‘Them two!’ she murmured. ‘Would you have believed it?’
6
Sanctuary in a Barn
This time Ben did not run in a circle. He found himself piloted by someone who preferred zizags. In Ben’s best moments he also preferred zigzags, but he had not had many best moments since he had left the ship, and he found it exceedingly restful, even while he panted, to act under orders again.
He realised, of course, the motive of this hastily resumed flight. The red-faced man was the motive. Those unpleasant pale blue eyes had never lost their suspicion, and it had been quite obvious that the fellow had not left the bar to go home. He had left the bar to return to it with company, and neither Ben nor Molly was in a mood for any company saving their own.
So they zigzagged ingeniously through dark and windy lanes. The darkness hid their forms and the wind drowned their gasps. But Molly, the pilot, was taking no chances. Elements might assist, but it was wit that won in the end, and when they came to forked roads she suddenly whispered, ‘Wait!’ and darted up one of them.
Ben waited. He endured with wavering fortitude a score of lonely seconds. The wind blew his cap off, and he only just saved it from sailing over a hedge. If he had not saved it, the whole course of his immediate future would have been changed.
‘I ’ope she ain’t goin’ ter be long!’ he thought, fixing the rescued cap more tightly on his anxious head.
She reappeared an instant later, materialising out of the blackness like a happy ghost. But it was a ghost with only one shoe.
‘Where’s it gorn?’ asked Ben.
Perhaps he would not have noticed the absence so soon if the unshod foot had not been so pretty. Neat, it was! But then she was neat all over. Lummy, she could tell some o’ them toffs off when it came to looks! Neat as a pin—and as sharp, too, when she liked, as she now proved.
‘I’ve lost it,’ she smiled.
‘Yus, and I nearly lorst me cap,’ said Ben. ‘We’ll go and find it.’
‘No fear!’ she answered. ‘We’ll let a bobby find it. Ever heard of a false trail? Come on!’
And, seizing his arm, she started him off again up the other fork of the road.
They ran for another ten minutes. Then,
‘How’s your breath?’ she whispered.
Hers seemed unimpaired.
‘Gorn,’ he gasped.
‘Stick it for just a minute more,’ she urged.
She took his arm and guided his tottering feet round a corner into a narrow, rutted lane. Fifty yards up the lane she suddenly stopped and pulled him towards a clump of trees. Under the trees was a big black shadow. It was a barn.
A few seconds later they were in the barn, and Ben lay panting on a little
mound of hay.
Molly sat beside him. When he tried to speak, she put her fingers on his mouth. Ben yielded gratefully to the silent injunction, and slowly gasped back to life.
‘Now, then,’ said Molly at last, ‘let’s try and straighten things out a bit. Only we must speak low, or we may be heard from the road. You didn’t really have anything to do with that murder, did you?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ answered Ben.
‘Of course you couldn’t have,’ she nodded. ‘You’ve been white ever since I’ve known you. Which is more than I can say for myself!’
‘Now, don’t start that, miss,’ replied Ben. ‘There ain’t nothink wrong with you!’
‘Oh, no! I only pick pockets.’
‘Go on! You’ve give that up, ain’tcher?’
‘Ses you! Well, p’r’aps. But we won’t worry about that just yet. I want to hear things.’
‘Sime ’ere! ’Ow did yer git ter England?’
‘Like you.’
‘Eh?’
‘On a boat.’
‘Yus, but—’
‘Your boat started first, I know. But mine was a bigger boat, and we raced you.’
‘Go on!’
‘It’s true. I’ve been in Southampton two days.’
‘I’m blowed!’
‘Well, try and blow a little less loudly!’ she warned him. ‘We’re not out of the wood yet!’
She crept away from him as she spoke and groped her way to the barn door. Then she came back again, and reported all clear.
‘If you was ’ere afore me,’ said Ben, who had been thinking, ‘why wasn’t yer on the dock ter meet me?’
‘Oh, I’ve not been in easy street,’ she answered, cryptically. ‘I would have met you if I could have. As it was, I got there just too late, and then I had to pick up the threads.’
‘Yer mean clues, like?’
‘That’s it. And they weren’t nice clues! When I heard about the murder, and that a sailor had jumped out of the taxi and disappeared—well, I guessed by the description that it was you. They’ve got you tabbed, Ben! We’ll have to do something about it.’
‘Yer mean, me descripshun’s aht?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘But I ain’t done nothink, miss!’
Ben Sees It Through Page 4