Impossible to make inquiries. Inquiries would invite publicity, and publicity was a thing to be avoided. Yonder paper man could probably tell him whether a small, attractive girl had been hanging around here during the past hour or two, but it would be folly to ask him. It was folly to hang around oneself! That fresh young porter had been mighty curious. He’d seen ‘Southampton’ inside the cap. S’pose he popped out, and brought the station-master with him?
Ben crossed the road, and continued his miserable thoughts a little farther away from the station. Now, then! Get your mind on to it! The position was—Molly wasn’t here. The question was—where was she?
He tried to visualise her actions after he had left her, but all he visualised was a fog. He supposed she had got out of the window and had found a policeman—probably the policeman he had passed in the taxi just beyond the pillar-box—but what after that? What had she told the policeman? Yes, lummy, what had she told him? That an old man had killed somebody at his house, and that the old man had then bound her up in a chair, and that the old man had then gone to Waterloo to try and get a cap, and that while he was still gone he had come back again and stuck the person he had killed up the chimney?
And then the policeman would ask:
‘Who is this dead man?’
And she would reply:
‘I don’t know.’
And he would ask:
‘Who stuck him up the chimney?’
And she would reply:
‘I don’t know.’
And he would ask:
‘What did the old man want the cap for?’
And she would reply:
‘I don’t know.’
And he would ask:
‘Why did you go to the old man’s house?’
And she would reply:
‘I don’t know.’
And he would ask, and this would be a particularly nasty one:
‘If the old man was at Waterloo and you can’t say who else was in the house, or if anybody was in the house, who untied you?’
And she would reply:
‘I don’t know!’
It was a lot not to know! Yet how, if she gave any other answers, was she going to keep Ben out of it? In fact, could she keep Ben out of it? And had she?
For the first time Ben wondered whether, after all, Molly’s plan had been a good one, and whether he himself had not been remiss in trusting to a tired brain. But she had been so dominating, all of a sudden, and his brain was tired, too. P’r’aps her idea was just to shout at the policeman, ‘Hi! Go to Greystones, there’s a deader up the chimney!’ and then run. The policeman couldn’t run two ways at once, so he’d run to the deader while she ran to Southfields …
‘Yus, but she ain’t at Sarthfields!’ thought Ben, desperately. ‘If that’s wot she meant ter do, she ain’t done it! So wot’s she done?’
The answer shot out of a shadow.
‘Is your name Ben?’ piped a small boy.
Ben eyed the urchin with disfavour as he retorted,
‘S’pose it was?’
‘Well, if it was,’ said the urchin, ‘the lidy sed you was ter go back again to the ’ouse at once. She wants yer.’
24
Back to Horror House
Back to the house again! At once! Lummy!
Back to the house where every second was a shriek and every moment a murder! Back to the house which, bad enough in a white mist, would now be enshrouded by black night, with the ghosts of a dead dog in a corner and a dead man in a chimney creeping from their corporeal sources and making the stairs creak with invisible feet, while a clock that had lost its rhythm ticked jerkily … no, the clock had stopped …
‘Oi!’ called Ben.
He shot out his hand several seconds late. The urchin, having delivered his message and earned, presumably, his ounce of sweets, had disappeared. The urchin was not working overtime.
So that was it, was it? Molly was still at Greystones, in the middle of Wimbledon Common! She’d gone away from it and gone back to it, or she’d never gone away from it at all. But whichever it was, she was there now, at this moment, and had summoned Ben to join her. And, however ominous the summons, it was not one that could be evaded.
Yus, thought Saint George in rags, but what had kept her there, or taken her back there? He had the cap. There was nothing left to do now but to run away with it to Sahara, bury it, and see what came up!
Someone emerged from Southfields Station, and began glancing about. Ben recognised him, even at this distance. It was the fool of a young porter. He also recognised the manner in which the porter’s head was twisting from right to left and then from left to right. It was what he called the looking-for-me twist, and half the world suffered from the complaint. As a second figure emerged from the station, a larger, stouter figure, and caught the disease, Ben decided that Southfields was not the place to live in, and he vanished from the team of head-twisters as suddenly and as rapidly as, a few moments earlier, the urchin had vanished from him.
Having eliminated himself from Southfields Station, his next job was to impress himself upon Wimbledon Common. Should he walk? He did not know the way. Should he inquire the way? That, again, presented difficulties. His enemies were increasing so alarmingly that, ten to one, the person of whom he inquired the way would already be inquiring for him!
‘And then ’ow long ’ll it tike ter walk?’ was another argument against Shanks’s pony. ‘She’s waitin’ fer me, ain’t she? Countin’ the minits, p’r’aps! ’Ere ’e is—no, ’e ain’t—yus, ’ere ’e is—yus, no, e’ ain’t!’ Ben knew the sort of thing. It knocked the bottom out of a hippopotamus.
Taxi, then? Like he’d done before? That was an idea. But where was a taxi? And by this time wouldn’t all the taximen have been warned?
‘Corse, wot I really want,’ decided Ben, hopelessly, ‘is a hinvisible hairyplane!’
Then the next best thing came along. A hooded van, with Wimbledon Common written big on the hood, and the back open. And a rope, too, which hung from the top of the hood at the back. That rope was asking for it!
Like the monkey that he almost was, Ben seized the rope and swung up. Darkness happily concealed the manœuvre. In a couple of seconds he was lying in the rear of the van, beginning a free ride towards his goal.
Here was a bit of luck! The first he had struck since about the reign of Richard III. It was unlikely that the van would take him right to the gate of Greystones, but it would deposit him somewhere on the Common, and he could conclude the journey on foot when he felt the Common around him. There was no difficulty in recognising the feel of Wimbledon Common. It clawed at you.
An unpleasant thought marred the start of the journey. The van might be on an outward trip! But this was the time for homeward journeys, and as buildings grew less and open spaces grew more, he felt convinced that he was going the right way. The district was becoming distinctly commonish.
He raised his chin and took a squint at the unconscious driver’s back. It was a large back. It would be. And beside it, he suddenly noticed, was a second back. A larger back. It would be. He hoped they wouldn’t talk. If they talked, he knew what they would talk about!
Lummy! They were starting!
‘What’s the latest, Ted?’ asked the driver.
Now they were off! But evidently Ted didn’t read his paper, for he replied,
‘What about?’
‘Waterloo Road,’ said the driver.
‘Oh!’ exclaimed Ted, waking up. ‘Twins!’
And they all three laughed.
Then one of the three stopped laughing.
‘Did you fix things up at the back?’ inquired the driver.
‘Not yet, I ’aven’t,’ answered Ted.
‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’
‘Tell ’im that if ’e don’t stop practising ’is cornet, I’ll take up the violin!’
Then they all three laughed again. But the full beauty of the joke did not descend upon
the third until the other two had almost stopped, and the hysterical cackle he emitted echoed through the hood.
‘’Allo! Chicken got in or something?’ exclaimed Ted, and looked back over his shoulder.
There was no time to retreat. Ben was discovered. Even while he was realising it, Ted demanded, with ominous sarcasm,
‘’Aving a ride at the Company’s expense?’
‘That’s right,’ murmured Ben. ‘Got a fag?’
The ghost of a French aristocrat who had joked on the scaffold smiled approvingly. Even the more solid substance of Ted was momentarily softened. He turned to the driver and cried,
‘’Ere, stop and look at this!’
The van stopped. Ben prepared to jump out. To his surprise, however, the driver did not shout at him when he turned round. He stared, and then suddenly smiled.
‘Where’ve you taken your ticket to?’ inquired the driver.
‘Nowhere pertickler,’ answered Ben, warily.
‘I see. Anywhere will do?’
‘That’s right—s’long as the scenery’s pretty.’
‘Oh! Well, how will Wimbledon Common suit you?’
‘Wimbledon Common? That’s my idea of ’Eaven!’
‘Good! Then sit tight, mate, and we’ll take you there! Always willin’ to oblige!’
After which surprising conversation, the driver turned round again, glanced at his companion, and let in the clutch.
The friendly interchange and the absence of anger ought to have cheered Ben, but it did not. It had been too friendly, and the anger had been too notably absent. Had he just happened to strike the world’s prize Christians, or was there any more to it?
It very soon dawned upon him that there was more to it. The driver and Ted exchanged a number of glances—Ben was watching their heads earnestly for signs—and once Ted was about to say something, but the driver shook his head as though to silence him. Then Ted glanced back, and the driver again shook his head. He seemed to be annoyed with Ted. Why shouldn’t Ted have looked back?
Another thing. They weren’t talking any more. Another thing, they were going very fast—much faster than they had been going before. Another thing, Ted took an evening paper from his pocket and began to study it under a light, till the driver knocked it out of his hand. Another thing, there was a bit of Wimbledon Common on their left, and they were turning to the right.
Ben’s uneasiness grew. ‘They’re on ter me!’ he thought. ‘Yus, and they’re tryin’ ter keep me quiet, like—till they gits ter the police stashun!’
Could he leap out at this speed? Not a chance! But ahead was another van, and it was going slowly, and it was sticking to the middle of the road.
‘Gawd’s above if it don’t budge!’ prayed Ben.
It didn’t budge. Despite hoots and toots, it kept to the middle of the road, and Ben’s driver had to slow up with a sudden application of brakes. Ben leapt.
He aimed for a bush and hit it. As it closed over him he felt as though he were in the middle of a porcupine’s stomach, but he didn’t move, although every separate portion of him was screaming to.
He heard the van stop. He heard cries of ‘Where’s he gone?’ and ‘Well, I’m blowed!’ He heard feet tramping around. He heard others cursing the darkness that he blessed.
The darkness helped to save him, but he owed his escape to two other factors, as well. The first was that the driver had underestimated Ben’s leaping power—who but the original fool would have leapt from a car like that?—and the second was that nobody but Ben could have remained both alive and silent inside a porcupine’s stomach.
At last they gave up. Ben heard one saying, as they climbed back into the van,
‘You know, I believe you were wrong—I don’t believe it was the fellow at all!’
‘Then why did ’e jump out, eh?’ retorted the other. ‘If on’y you’d stayed still and not kep’ looking back, we’d have got ’im.’
‘Well, ’e’s gone, anyway.’
‘Jest the same, I’ll report ’im!’
Then the van moved away, and the voices were heard no more.
Forgetting himself, Ben took a deep breath of relief. Previously he had been taking little breaths, because breathing pricked, and his relief produced several serious punctures. They were so serious that he bounded out of the bush as startlingly as he had bounded in, and if an old woman with a weak heart had been passing at that moment she would have died on the spot.
Ben lay limply for a minute or two. He wasn’t feeling very well. Then three words whipped him to his feet. ‘She wants yer!’ Lummy, and here he was, lying down like a mug, and wasting time!
He turned back along the road, wandered vaguely for a few minutes, and leaned against a pillar-box to rest. It’s all very well, but you can’t get your breath back all at once without a little help. He stared dully ahead of him. A light glimmered down from somewhere. Lamppost, eh? It glimmered on two words a few feet off …
‘North Lane.’
’Strewth! Here he was!
He left the pillar-box, and staggered along the road he had last traversed in a mist. Thin wisps of white still hung about, making queer shapes in the blackness. They looked like lost souls in a world of giant trees. ‘P’r’aps I’ll be one of ’em one day,’ thought Ben.
The lane twisted and turned. Ben didn’t meet many lanes that went nice and straight. He wandered along in a sort of dream, till all at once Reality gripped him and he came to the gate.
He stopped dead and gulped. If Molly had not been somewhere on the other side of the gate he could never have brought himself to pass through it. His one consolation was that in all probability Mr Lovelace would still be away, looking for him in London. But, of course, Mr Lovelace would return …
He opened the gate cautiously, and entered the horrible garden. ‘Corse,’ he consoled himself, ‘it ’elps ter know wot ’Ell’s like afore’and.’ His boot made a deafening crunch on the gravel. He leapt on to the grass. Then he took another leap off the grass, recalling what he had encountered there last time.
‘I wunner why I ’ave ter do this sort o’ thing?’ he queried within himself. ‘I ain’t really good at it.’
Feeling now for the edge of the grass, he regained its soft protection. Slowly he crept forward, following the edge’s contours. Soon he came round a bend and saw the dark, gloomy building where he was to meet fresh adventures not encountered in polite society. The grass ran away from him. Now he would have to cross gravel again, to reach the building.
No light showed anywhere. Was it, after all, empty? He tiptoed forward. His toes were ready to kick, his knuckles to hit, his fingers to scratch, and his teeth to bite. Every bit of his anatomy was ready to do all it could in defence of every other bit …
He reached the building. There, ahead of him, loomed the door. What secret lurked behind? While he stared, something creaked above him. A window was opening.
25
Played in the Darkness
Wrenching his eyes from the door to the window, Ben looked up. Then followed five seconds of such breathless happenings that he did not know they had begun before they were over.
A dim face appeared at the window. Since there was light neither inside nor outside it was impossible, at the first rapid glance, to distinguish anything about the face beyond the fact that it was a face; but when a voice called softly, identity was established. The dim face at the open window was Molly’s.
There was no time for expression of gratitude at this revelation, however. The voice was pregnant with acute urgency. For a moment only the urgency descended to him, accompanied by the swift knowledge that he had to do something mighty quickly, yet without any idea of what it was. He stared up with his mouth open, whereupon the voice descended to him again, this time reaching his brain—via, assumedly, the open mouth, which was the only portion of him actively receptive.
‘Cap!’ called the voice. One point above a whisper.
‘Yus!’ Ben whispered back.<
br />
‘Cap!’ repeated the voice.
‘On me ’ead!’ replied Ben.
‘Throw it! Quick! Quick! Oh, my God!’
He seized it and threw it. He didn’t understand. It sailed upwards, a hand shot out, the cap vanished, the window closed. And then something began to happen lower down. He saw it out of the bottom corner of his eye. The front-door was beginning to open.
He ceased to look at the window. He looked now at the front-door. A blackness blacker than black widened before him. At first a narrow, vertical slit, it grew into a tall, broad space, and he knew he was expected to walk through the space.
There are times when stronger men than Ben cease to function on their own initiative. A tide catches them, and they go where the tide wills. Ben now functioned in complete obedience to the black space that beckoned him when the door, half-open, paused.
‘Come in,’ said the space.
‘I don’t want ter,’ replied the space in Ben.
‘Come in,’ said the space.
‘Ain’t you a darlin’?’ replied the space in Ben.
He felt himself moving forward. He pretended he was standing still. ‘You know—like a trine in a stashun, when it’s the hother trine wot’s movin’,’ he explained to himself. (It was probable that, on his death-bed, he would quietly argue about it.) Now he was off the gravel and on to the low stone step. Bushes on either side of the porch advanced, seeming to curve round him and cut off the garden behind. ‘Well, I don’t like the garden, do I?’ he thought. ‘So that’s orl right!’ Now he had reached the door, and was beginning to pass into the tall, wide space that was blacker than black.
‘Funny!’ he reflected. ‘I don’t seem ter be doin’ anythink. I wunner wot’s mikin’ me go?’
The position was so atrocious that one simply had to pretend it wasn’t there.
‘That was a nice day,’ thought Ben, ‘when I was a little boy and went fishin’ in the Welsh ’arp with a bent pin.’
Ben Sees It Through Page 16