‘Guv’nor,’ he said hoarsely, as his ruthless companion applied the match to the candle-wick. ‘Look ’ere. I sye. Let’s quit!’
‘Rot!’ answered Fordyce. ‘It’s not my habit to quit.’
‘Yus—but wot abart my ’abit?’
‘Rot again! It shouldn’t be your habit. And, besides, I’m enjoying this!’ He held up the candle. ‘There we are. The sun’s shining again. And here’s the last lap. Come along!’
‘’Ow many more times are yer goin’ ter say, “Come hon!”’ mumbled Ben.
‘Just as many times as you don’t “come hon,”’ answered Fordyce. ‘Judging by past experience, that means about ten million times.’
They ascended the last flight. As Ben had said, it was infinitely worse than the lower flight. Twice the seaman stumbled, but possibly that was not entirely the fault of the stairs.
When they reached the small top landing, Ben stopped dead, but Fordyce pushed him ruthlessly forward through the wide-open door.
‘Now, then—where is it?’ demanded Fordyce.
‘There, guv’nor!’ whispered Ben, and pointed a trembling finger towards the inner room.
9
The Corpse
The door leading to the inner room was wide open and in the aperture, half in shadow and half revealed by the flickering firelight, lay a huddled form. Grim enough at the best of times, the room looked doubly grim now with the sullen, shooting shadows, the little arc of light made by the candle, and that huddled, silent figure.
The very walls, with their peeling paper, were sinister. The room was charged with the gloom of a recent tragedy—a tragedy so recent that its emotions hung heavy on the air, and the auras of those concerned in it lingered yet around the still form in the aperture. Ben’s eyes were almost comic in their fear, while even Gilbert Fordyce could not repress a little shudder.
‘By Jove,’ he murmured. ‘You were right! The real thing, eh?’
‘’Corse it’s the real thing,’ muttered Ben. ‘Didn’t I tell yer?’
Fordyce’s glance swept swiftly over the room. Then he crossed quickly to the body and bent over it. It was the form of a man with a crooked shoulder.
‘Dead, ain’t ’e, guv’nor?’ whispered Ben, across the room. He had not followed his leader to the prone figure, but had backed towards a pile of wooden cases.
Fordyce did not reply at once. He was beginning to feel the body. But he jumped up with a start as a sudden crash fell upon his ears. Ben stood, jibbering, beside a fallen case.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ barked Fordyce testily.
‘Sorry, guv’nor,’ chattered Ben. ‘Jest wobbled a bit, like.’
‘Well, don’t wobble a bit like any more! How do you suppose I can get on with this if you don’t pull yourself together a bit?’
He turned back to the corpse, and began to examine it again.
‘Wot’s done it, guv’nor?’ asked Ben.
‘Seems to have been hit on the head—coming out of that room.’
‘Yus, but ’oo ’it ’im?’ asked Ben hoarsely. ‘That’s wot beats me. ’Oo ’it ’im?’
‘We’ll have to try to find out. Perhaps—’
He paused, and glanced towards the inner chamber. Though the door was wide, only a portion of it was revealed, and even that portion was in shadow. Ben followed his gaze, and gulped convulsively.
‘P’r’aps—wot?’ he quavered.
‘He may be in there—eh?’ said Fordyce, in a low voice.
He had put the candle on the floor. Now taking it up suddenly, he slipped quickly into the adjoining room.
‘Oi! Oi!’ bellowed Ben.
‘What’s the matter?’ shouted Fordyce, returning immediately.
Ben looked at him, a trifle shamefacedly.
‘Yer—yer left me in the dark, guv’nor,’ he said.
‘Idiot!’
‘G’arn! Idjit yerself. Yer seems ter fergit that there candle’s mine!’
‘Well, I’ve borrowed it—as I’ve no doubt you did yourself. Tell me—is there an exit through that room there?’
‘Hexit?’
‘Yes! Don’t keep repeating what I say, and staring like a fish! Is there an exit—a way out, or anything?’
‘No, guv’nor,’ replied Ben. ‘It’s jest a room—like this ’un. There ain’t no hother door, nor nothin’.’
Fordyce disappeared again, stepping carefully over the form on the floor, and once more Ben was left in darkness. He slithered round to the fireplace, but as he drew near it suddenly crackled, and he sprang back.
‘Gawd!’ he muttered miserably. ‘Even the blinkin’ fire’s a-spittin’ at me nah!’
He sprang back so far that he found himself near the passage door.
‘Well, why not?’ he thought. ‘I’ve showed ’im the bloomin’ plice. Nah ’e can ’ave it! ’E ain’t got no right ter keep me ’ere!’
He turned, and began to tiptoe away. A hand descended on his shoulder, and a grave voice behind him observed:
‘You know, if you’re not very careful, you’ll put a rope round your neck.’
The wretched man wheeled round, and once more faced his tormentor.
‘Wotcher mean?’ he gasped. ‘I was on’y jest—wotcher mean?’
Fordyce looked at him steadily.
‘I mean,’ he said, ‘it never hurts an innocent man to play straight.’
‘’Oo ses I’m a hinnercent man?’ retorted Ben. That didn’t sound quite right; he corrected himself. ‘I mean, ’oo ses I ain’t a-playin’ stright?’
‘Are you quite sure you’ve had no hand in this, my man?’
‘S’elp me ’Eving, I ’aven’t,’ answered Ben piously.
‘Have another think?’ suggested Fordyce.
Indignation stirred in Ben’s breast.
‘’Ave another think?’ he retorted. ‘Wot’s the good o’ thinkin’? If I’d ’a done it, I’d ’a knowed it, wouldn’t? D’yer s’pose one fergits a murder like postin’ a letter? Look ’ere—’
‘Steady, steady,’ interposed Fordyce soothingly. ‘Don’t get so excited. I’m inclined to believe you—that’s honest. But we’ve got to clear this mystery up, and it’s no good getting touchy.’
‘Oh, no hoffence, I’m sure!’ observed Ben, to the ceiling. ‘’Oo’d mind a little thing like being took fer a murderer? Fancy being ’urt!’ Fordyce smiled, despite himself, and Ben jumped in eagerly on the softening tide. ‘Look ’ere, guv’nor,’ he said, ‘you torks abart clearin’ this hup, but wot’s it our business, any’ow? ’Tain’t your business, see? ’Tain’t my business, see? It’s the perlice’s business, see? As I ses orl along. It’s the perlice’s business. Git a bobby.’
The plea was eloquent, but ineffective. To Ben’s disappointment, Fordyce shook his head. Ben had never met such an annoying, persistent fellow in all his born days.
‘Sorry, but I think we’ll still postpone that bobby for a bit, if you don’t mind,’ said Fordyce. ‘Of course, we’ll have to bring him along presently, though. You say you’ve been alone in this house?’
‘Gawd, ’e’s orf agin!’ thought Ben, as he nodded his head.
‘All alone!’
‘Yus.’
‘Who made that fire?’
‘I did,’ answered Ben defiantly. ‘Didn’t want ter freeze, did I?’ Noting Fordyce’s roving eye upon the empty food tin, he anticipated the next question. ‘Hor ter starve. You’re a Nosey Parker, ain’t yer? Pork an’ beans, guv’nor. Puzzle, find the pork. That wasn’t no meal fer two. Lorblimy, it wasn’t no meal fer one—but it’s the last I’ve ’ad. I tell yer, I’ve got a ’ole in me inside the size of a—’
Fordyce waved him down. He was sorry for the poor man’s hunger, but reiteration interfered with one’s train of thought.
‘Suppose someone was in the house without your knowing it?’ he suggested.
‘Then ’e was pretty nippy at ’idin’ ’isself,’ answered Ben. ‘But, o’ corse, there was them noises I told
yer abart.’
A train rumbled beneath them.
‘That kind of a noise?’ queried Fordyce.
‘No! Not that! That’s a trine—tunnel ter ’Arwich, wot I sed. There was them footsteps—creepin’, creepin’—’
‘Yes, yes, yes. I have gathered already that they crept. But one mistakes noises sometimes, you know. Particularly in the middle of the night. Do you think they might have been creaks?’
‘Yus, they might. But did yer ever ’ear of a creak wot ’it a man on the ’ead?’
He jerked his thumb towards the body, and Fordyce smiled.
‘Now, listen, old son,’ said Fordyce. ‘If you didn’t hit him on the head—’
‘Say that agin’, guv’nor, and I’ll ’it you on the ’ead, so I will!’ grunted Ben.
‘Shut up! If you didn’t, somebody else must have, and that somebody else must have been in this house when you first entered it—’
‘There wasn’t no one, guv’nor, that I’ll lay to!’
‘Then he must have slipped into the house without your noticing it.’
‘’Ow could ’e? There’s only two doors, guv’nor. Back an’ front. I kep’ ’em both bolted.’
‘Yes—in the night, yes. But you told me you’d left the front door ajar just now, didn’t you?’
‘Yus. That’s right … Lummy!’
‘You know,’ said Fordyce reprovingly, ‘you’re going the wrong way to work. If you want to clear yourself of suspicion, you ought to try and prove that someone else has been in the house. Isn’t that clear to you?’
Ben considered the point.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘we knows somebody helse ’as bin in the ’ouse.’
‘Do we? Who?’
‘’Im.’
Ben jerked his thumb towards the corpse.
‘You are a charming dolt,’ sighed Fordyce. ‘Somebody besides him. Well, I see you can’t help me. Let’s have a look at your pockets.’
Ben backed away. This, surely, was becoming unnecessarily personal.
‘Wotcher mean?’ he exclaimed indignantly. ‘Ain’t even me pockets me own?’
‘Come along,’ insisted Fordyce. ‘Turn ’em out.’
‘’Oo’d be a little man?’ grumbled Ben. ‘Yer wouldn’t hask ter see me pockets, not if I was Dempsey.’
‘Maybe not, old chap. But you’re not Dempsey, so we won’t worry about it. Turn ’em out. What have you got in them?’
‘’Oles,’ replied Ben. Fordyce took a step towards him. ‘Orl right, orl right. ’Ave it yer own way. But I can’t mike yer hout, guv’nor, so I carn’t! One minit, I ’as done it. Next minit, blimy, I ’asn’t done it. It’s heasy ter see you ain’t no perfeshunal ’tec!’
‘Trouser pockets first,’ commanded Fordyce.
Ben produced a dirty red rag. ‘Ankerchiff,’ he observed. ‘Used that ter gag ’im … Bit o’ string. Strangled ’im with that … Pencil. Real lead. That’s wot I ’it ’im on the ’ead with. That’s orl.’
‘No, not quite,’ responded Fordyce. ‘There’s something else you began to take out of your left-hand pocket, and then you slipped it back again.’
‘Never mind abart that,’ said Ben. ‘’Ave yer got to see the ’ole shop?’
‘Let’s have a look at it.’
‘I said never mind abart that!’
‘Got to use force?’
‘Oh, ’ell!’ muttered Ben. ‘Blimy, if yer couldn’t borrer a fiver orf the King! ’Ere it is!’
He dived his hand back into his left-hand pocket, and produced a little photograph. It was very shabby, but the grubbiness really didn’t matter. It was a picture of a pretty little girl.
‘I beg your pardon,’ murmured Fordyce sympathetically, as he took the picture, and studied it. ‘Yours?’
‘Yus,’ nodded Ben.
‘Jolly little kid,’ smiled Fordyce, handing the little piece of pasteboard back.
‘Yus,’ muttered Ben. ‘She—was.’ A sudden silence fell upon the room. Ben felt it necessary to break it. ‘Oh, ’ere’s somethink helse,’ he said, fishing out a bit of a cigarette. ‘’Arf a fag. One o’ Lord Rothschild’s. ’E smokes one hend, see, and I smokes the hother.’
‘Then I don’t think I’ll volunteer for the middle,’ remarked Fordyce.
‘Oi, wot abart your pockets?’ suggested Ben. ‘Fair’s fair!’
‘I don’t think we’ll trouble about mine,’ replied Fordyce.
‘Oh, orl right,’ sniffed Ben. ‘I’ll let yer orf—I ain’t sich a Nosey Parker as you—’
‘Got an idea about these noises,’ interposed Fordyce suddenly. ‘Could they have been rats?’
For the first time, Ben laughed.
‘Not unless they was rats on roller-skates,’ he said. ‘More likely, guv’nor, they was ghosts!’
‘H’m,’ grunted Fordyce. ‘I’ll believe in ghosts when I see one. What about vibration?’
‘Vi ’oo?’
‘Vibration—the shaking of the trains, you know.’
‘Yer orf yer nut, guv’nor! Vibrashun!’
‘Well, we’ve got to think of everything—possible and impossible—and I thought—man alive, what’s the matter now?’
‘Lor’ luvvaduck!’ chattered Ben, crumpling up again. ‘Look there, guv’nor—that—door!’
‘Eh? What door?’ cried Fordyce, wheeling round.
Ben was staring at the door which he had been unable to open—the door on the wall opposite the fireplace. His eyes nearly popped out of his head, and Fordyce followed his gaze, expecting the door to open. But nothing happened, and, as far as he could see, the door called for no special comment.
‘Oh, I see what you mean,’ he exclaimed suddenly. ‘We’ve not looked in that cupboard yet.’
He moved towards it, but an exclamation from Ben detained him.
‘’Arf a mo’, ’arf a mo’!’ jabbered Ben. ‘I ’aven’t—there wasn’t—I—I couldn’t hopen it, guv’nor—’
‘Couldn’t open it, man?’ retorted Fordyce, thoroughly puzzled. ‘Why, don’t you know how to turn a key?’
‘Yus,’ gulped Ben.
‘Then, in heaven’s name, why didn’t you turn it?’ demanded Fordyce, frowning.
‘’Cos the larst time I was in this room, guv’nor,’ whispered Ben hoarsely, ‘there wasn’t no key there!’
10
In the Cupboard
Few things in the inanimate world are more potent to produce emotion than a door. The lover’s heart bounds with joy as he watches it for the approach of his sweetheart. At another time, the same heart may jump with fear as the same bit of wood slowly opens to admit heaven knows what! And cupboard doors, despite the fact that they have been designed to contain good things, can become the most sinister of all, for whereas the door of a house or of a room may be a mere channel from one unsavoury event to another, the door of a cupboard suggests some definite incident or terminal point. ‘Come in, and discover strange happenings,’ is the message of the front door. The message of the cupboard door is, ‘Here, it happened!’
Gilbert Fordyce had already opened one cupboard door in that house. This was the cupboard door in the adjoining room; and, although he had not confessed it to Ben, he had not found the operation precisely pleasurable. Happily the cupboard in the adjoining room had merely proved large and empty. But would this cupboard prove the same?
It was the key in the door that provided its chief uncanniness. Apparently, the key had only recently been inserted. During the period of Ben’s last absence, in fact. Who had inserted that key—the figure now lying on the floor, or someone who had attacked the figure? And what lay inside the cupboard, to provide its special interest?
Another question rose on top of these, and by its disturbing nature eclipsed them. Had the purpose of the cupboard been accomplished—or was that purpose still in process of accomplishment?
Fordyce pulled himself together, and addressed the seaman in a lowered voice.
‘Are you sure that key wasn�
�t there before?’ he asked quietly.
‘Yus, guv’nor,’ nodded Ben, committing the anomaly of shaking his head at the same time.
‘How are you sure?’
‘’Ow? Wotcher mean?’
‘It might have been there, and you mightn’t have noticed it,’ suggested Fordyce.
‘It weren’t there, guv’nor,’ insisted Ben. ‘Yer see, I tried ter git it hopen more’n once.’
‘And it was locked?’
‘Yus. And the key weren’t there, I tells yer.’
Fordyce advanced a step, then paused, with his eyes on the bottom of the door.
‘What about that bolt?’ he inquired. ‘Was that drawn? As it is now?’
The bolt was six inches above the floor, forming another grimly suggestive item. Cupboards do not usually have both keys and bolts on the outside.
‘No—I done that,’ muttered Ben. ‘I done that when I tries ter git it open. But it was locked, as I ses, and there weren’t no—’
‘All right, look here. I’ve got an idea.’
‘Wot?’
‘You open it!’
Ben backed away promptly, and nearly backed into the corpse. Then he backed back again, in the opposite direction, and came to roost against one of the wooden cases under the window.
‘Gawd, wot a ’ouse!’ he gasped. He stared at Fordyce with sudden indignation. ‘Me hopen it? Wotcher tike me for?’
‘Well, you know,’ murmured Fordyce, ‘it’s your turn. I think I once heard you observe, “Fair’s fair.”’
‘Garn!’
Fordyce shrugged his shoulders, and abruptly walked to the cupboard. ‘Your heroism is a constant marvel to me,’ he remarked. ‘I don’t know how you do it.’ His conversation was something in the style of a dentist who is trying to soothe his patient while he takes out the forceps. He laid his fingers on the key and tested it. ‘Well, it’s locked now, anyway,’ he reported.
Then Ben got an idea.
‘Wot abart leavin’ it locked?’ he suggested.
‘No, we can’t do that,’ replied Fordyce, and turned the key. ‘Now—it’s not locked.’
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