Homefront Horrors

by Nevins, Jess;

  But Meads’ courage was now fortified by the fumes of a large quantity of fiery alcohol, and he spoke witheringly of women in general and seemed disposed to quarrel if “Old Fags” disputed his right to place them in the position that Meads considered their right and natural position. But “Old Fags” gave no evidence of taking up the challenge—on the contrary he seemed to suddenly shift his ground. He grinned and leered and nodded at Meads’ string of coarse sophistry, and suddenly he touched him on the arm and looked round the room and said very confidentially:

  “Oh, dear! Yes, Mr. Meads. Don’t take too much to heart what I said,” and then he sniffed and whispered: “I could put you on to a very nice thing, Mr. Meads. I could introduce you to a lady I know would take a fancy to you, and you to her. Oh, dear, yes!”

  Meads pricked up his ears like a fox-terrier and his small eyes glittered.

  “Oh!” he said. “Are you one of those, eh, old bird? Who is she?”

  “Old Fags” took out a piece of paper and fumbled with a pencil. He then wrote down a name and address somewhere at Shepherds Bush.

  “What’s a good time to call?” said Meads.

  “Between six and seven,” answered “Old Fags.”

  “Oh, Hell!” said Meads. I can’t do it. I’ve got to get back and take the dogs out at half-past five, old bird. From half-past five to half-past six. The missus is back, she’ll kick up a hell of a row.”

  “Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” said “Old Fags.” “What a pity! The young lady is going away, too!” He thought for a moment and then an idea seemed to strike him. “Look here, would you like me to meet you and take the dogs round the Park till you return?”

  “What!” said Meads, “trust you with a thousand pounds’ worth of dogs! Not much.”

  “No, no, of course not, I hadn’t thought of that!” said “Old Fags” humbly.

  Meads looked at him, and it is very difficult to tell what it was about the old man that gave him a sudden feeling of complete trust. The ingenuity of his speech, the ingratiating confidence that a mixture of beer-gin gives, tempered by the knowledge that famous pedigree Pekinese would be almost impossible to dispose of, perhaps it was a combination of these motives. In any case a riotous impulse drove him to fall in with “Old Fags’” suggestion, and he made the appointment for half-past five.

  * * *

  Evening had fallen early, and a fine rain was driving in fitful gusts when the two met at the corner of Hyde Park. There were the ten little dogs on their lead, and Meads with a cap pulled close over his eyes.

  “Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” cried “Old Fags” as he approached. “What dear little dogs! What dear little dogs!”

  Meads handed the lead over to “Old Fags” and asked more precise instructions of the way to get to the address.

  “What are you wearing that canvas sack inside your coat for, old bird, eh?” asked Meads when these instructions had been given.

  “Oh, my dear sir,” said “Old Fags,” “if you had the asthma like I get it! And no underclothes on these damp days! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” He wheezed drearily.

  Meads gave him one or two more exhortations about the extreme care and tact he was to observe.

  “Be very careful with that little Chow on the left lead. ’E’s got his coat on, see? ’E’s ’ad a chill and you must keep ’im on the move. Gently, see?”

  “Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Poor little chap! What’s his name?” said “Old Fags.”

  “Pelleas,” answered Mr. Meads.

  “Oh, poor little Pelleas! Poor little Pelleas! Come along, you won’t be too long, Mr. Meads, will you?”

  “You bet I won’t,” said the groom, and nodding he crossed the road rapidly and mounting a Shepherds Bush motor ’bus, he set out on his journey to an address that didn’t exist.

  “Old Fags” ambled slowly round the Park snuffling and talking to the dogs. He gauged the time when Meads would be somewhere about Queens Road, then he ambled slowly back to the point from which he had started. With extreme care he piloted the small army across the High Road and led them in the direction of Paddington. He drifted with leisurely confidence through a maze of small streets. Several people stopped and looked at the dogs and the boys barked and mimicked them, but nobody took the trouble to look at “Old Fags.” At length he came to a district where their presence seemed more conspicuous. Rows of squalid houses and advertisement hoardings. He slightly increased his pace, and a very stout policeman standing outside a funeral furnisher’s glanced at him with a vague suspicion. In strict accordance, however, with an ingrained officialism, that hates to act “without instructions,” he let the cortège pass.

  “Old Fags” wandered through a wretched street that seemed entirely peopled by children. Several of them came up and followed the dogs.

  “Dear little dogs, aren’t they? Oh my, yes, dear little dogs!” he said to the children.

  At last he reached a broad, gloomy thoroughfare with low, irregular buildings on one side, and an interminable length of hoardings on the other, that screened a strip of land by the railway land that harboured a wilderness of tins and garbage. “Old Fags” led the dogs along by the hoarding. It was very dark. Three children who had been following, tired of the pastime and drifted away. He went along once more. There was a gap in a hoarding on which was notified that “Pogram’s Laundaulettes could be hired for the evening at an inclusive fee of two guineas. Telephone 47901 Mayfair.” The meagre light from a street lamp thirty yards away revealed a colossal coloured picture of a very beautiful young man and woman stepping out of a car and entering a gorgeous restaurant, having evidently just enjoyed the advantage of this peerless luxury.

  “Old Fags” went on another forty yards and then returned. There was no one in sight.

  “Oh, dear little dogs!” he said. “Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What dear little dogs! Just through here, my pretty pets. Gentle, Pelleas! Gently, very gently! There, there, there! Oh, what dear little dogs!”

  He stumbled forward through the quagmire of desolation, picking his way as though familiar with every inch of ground, to the further corner where it was even darker, and where the noise of shunting freight trains drowned every other murmur of the night.

  * * *

  It was eight o’clock when “Old Fags” reached his room in Bolingbroke Buildings, carrying his heavily laden sack across his shoulders. The child in Room 476 had been peevish and fretful all the afternoon, and the two women were lying down, exhausted. They heard “Old Fags” come in. He seemed very busy, banging about with bottles and tins and alternately coughing and wheezing. But soon the potent aroma of onions reached their nostrils and they knew he was preparing to keep his word.

  At nine o’clock he staggered across with a steaming saucepan of hot stew. In contrast to the morning’s conversation, which though devoid of self-consciousness had taken on at times an air of moribund analysis, making little stabs at fundamental things, the evening passed off on a note of almost joyous levity. The stew was extremely good to the starving women, and “Old Fags” developed a vein of fantastic pleasantry. He talked unceasingly, sometimes on things they understood, sometimes on matters of which they were entirely ignorant; and sometimes he appeared to the obtuse, maudlin, and incoherent. Nevertheless, he brought to their room a certain light-hearted raillery that had never visited it before. No mention was made of Meads.

  The only blemish to the serenity of this bizarre supper party was that “Old Fags” developed intervals of violent coughing, intervals when he had to walk around the room and beat his chest. These fits had the unfortunate result of waking the baby.

  When this undesirable result had occurred for the fourth time, “Old Fags” said: “Oh, dear! Oh, dear! This won’t do. Oh, no, this won’t do. I must go back to my hotel!” A remark that caused paroxysms of mirth to old Mrs. Birdle. Nevertheless, “Old Fags” retired, and it was then just on eleven o’clock.

  The women went to bed, and all through the night Minnie heard the old man coughing.

>   * * *

  Meads jumped off the ’bus at Shepherds Bush and hurried in the direction that “Old Fags” had instructed him. He asked three people for the Pomeranian Road before an errand boy told him that he believed it was somewhere off Giles Avenue; but at Giles Avenue no one seemed to know it. He retraced his steps in a very bad temper and inquired again. Five other people had never heard of it. So he went to a post office, and a young lady in charge informed him that there was no such road in the neighbourhood. He tried other roads whose names vaguely resembled it, then he came to the conclusion that “that blamed old fool had made some silly mistake.”

  He took a ’bus back with a curious gnawing fear at the pit of his stomach, a fear that he kept thrusting back, he dare not allow himself to contemplate it. It was nearly seven-thirty when he got back to Hyde Park, and his eye quickly scanned the length of railing near which “Old Fags” was to be. Immediately when he saw no sign of him or the little dogs, a horrible feeling of physical sickness assailed him. The whole truth flashed through in his mind. He saw the fabric of his life crumble to dust. He was conscious of visions of past acts and misdeeds tumbling over each other in a furious kaleidoscope. The groom was terribly frightened. Mrs. Bastien-Melland would be in at eight o’clock to dinner, and the first thing she would ask for would be the little dogs. They were never supposed to go out after dark, but he had been busy that afternoon and arranged to take them out later. How was he to account for himself and their loss? He visualised himself in a dock, and all sorts of other horrid things coming up—a forged character, an affair in Norfolk, and another at Enfield, and a little trouble with a bookmaker seven years ago. For he felt convinced that the little dogs had gone forever, and “Old Fags” with them.

  He cursed blindly in his soul at his foul luck and the wretched inclination that had lured him to drink “beer-gin” with the old thief. Forms of terrific vengeance passed through his mind, if he should meet the old evil again. In the meantime what should he do? He had never even thought of making “Old Fags” give him any sort of address. He dared not go back to Hyde Park Square without the dogs. He ran breathlessly up and down, peering in every direction. Eight o’clock came and there was still no sign. Suddenly he remembered Minnie Birdle. He remembered that the old ruffian had mentioned, and seemed to know, Minnie Birdle. It was a connection that he had hoped to have wiped out of his life, but the case was desperate. Curiously enough, during his desultory courtship of Minnie, he had never been to her home; the only occasion when he had visited it, was after the birth of the child. He had done so under the influence of three pints of beer, and he hadn’t the faintest recollection now of the number or the block. He hurried there, however, in feverish trepidation.

  Now Bolingbroke Buildings harbour some eight hundred people; and it is a remarkable fact that, although the Birdles had lived there about a year, of the eleven people that Meads asked, not one happened to know the name. People develop a profound sense of self-concentration in Bolingbroke Buildings.

  Meads wandered up all the stairs and through the slate-tile passages. Twice he passed their door without knowing it—on the first occasion, only five minutes after “Old Fags” had carried a saucepan of steaming stew from Number 475 to Number 476. At ten o’clock he gave it up. He had four shillings on him, and he adjourned to a small “pub” hard by, and ordered a tankard of ale, and as an afterthought three pennyworth of gin which he mixed in it. Probably he thought that this mixture, which was so directly responsible for the train of tragic circumstance that encompassed him, might continue to act in some manner toward a more desirable conclusion.

  It did, indeed, drive him to action of a sort, for he sat there drinking and smoking Navy Cut cigarettes, and by degrees he evolved a most engaging, but impossible, story, of being lured to the river by three men and chloroformed; and when he came to, finding that the dogs and the men had gone. He drank a further quantity of beer-gin, and rehearsed his rôle in detail, and at length brought himself to the point of facing Mrs. Melland. . . .

  It was the most terrifying ordeal of his life. The servants frightened him for a start. They almost shrieked when they saw him and drew back. Mrs. Bastien-Melland had left word that he was to go to a small breakfast-room in the basement directly after he came in, and she would come and see him. There was a small dinner party on that evening and an agitated game of bridge. Meads had not stood on the hearth-rug of the breakfast-room two minutes before he heard the foreboding swish of skirts, the door burst open, and Mrs. Bastien-Melland stood before him, a thing of penetrating perfumes, highlights and trepidation.

  She just said, “Well!” and fixed her hard, bright eyes on him.

  Meads launched forth into his impossible story, but he dared not look at her. He tried to gather together the pieces of the tale he had so carefully rehearsed in the pub, but he felt like some helpless bark at the mercy of a hostile battle fleet; the searchlight of Mrs. Melland’s cruel eyes was concentrated on him; while a flotilla of small diamonds on her heaving bosom winked and glittered with a dangerous insolence.

  He was stumbling over a phrase about the effects of chloroform when he became aware that Mrs. Melland was not listening to the matter of his story, she was only concerned with the manner. Her lips were set and her straining eyes insisted on catching his. He looked full at her and caught his breath and stopped.

  Mrs. Melland still staring at him was moving slowly to the door. A moment of panic seized him. He mumbled something, and also moved toward the door. Mrs. Melland was first to grip the handle. Meads made a wild dive and seized her wrist. But Mrs. Bastien-Melland came of a hard-riding Yorkshire family. She did not lose her head. She struck him cross the mouth with her flat hand, and as he reeled back she opened the door and called to the servants.

  Suddenly Meads remembered that the room had a French window onto the garden. He pushed her clumsily against the door and sprang across the room. He clutched wildly at the bolts while Mrs. Melland’s voice was ringing out:

  “Catch that man! Hold him! Catch thief!”

  But before the other servants had had time to arrive he managed to get through the door and to pull it after him. His hand was bleeding with cuts from broken glass, but he leapt the wall and got into the shadow of some shrubs three gardens away.

  He heard whistles blowing and the dominant voice of Mrs. Melland, directing a hue-and-cry. He rested some moments, then panic seized him and he laboured over another wall and found the passage of a semidetached house. A servant opened a door and looked out and screamed. He struck her wildly and unreasonably on the shoulder, and rushed up some steps and got into a front garden. There was no one there, and he darted into the street and across the road.

  In a few minutes he was lost in a labyrinth of back streets and laughing hysterically to himself.

  He had two shillings and eightpence on him. He spent fourpence of this on whiskey, and then another fourpence just before the pubs closed. He struggled vainly to formulate some definite plan of campaign. The only point that seemed terribly clear to him was that he must get away. He knew Mrs. Melland only too well. She would spare no trouble in hunting him down. She would exact the uttermost farthing. It meant gaol and ruin. The obvious impediment to getting away was that he had no money and no friends. He had not sufficient strength of character to face a tramp-life. He had lived too long in the society of the pampered Pekinese. He loved comfort.

  Out of the simmering tumult of his soul grew a very definite passion—the passion of hate. He developed a vast, bitter, scorching hatred for the person who had caused this ghastly climax to his unfortunate career—“Old Fags.” He went over the whole incidents of the day again, rapidly recalling every phase of “Old Fags’” conversation and manner. What a blind fool he was not to have seen through the filthy old swine’s game! But what had he done with the dogs? Sold the lot for a pound, perhaps! The idea made Meads shiver. He slouched through the streets harbouring his pariah-like lust.

  We will not attempt to record
the psychologic changes that harassed the soul of Mr. Meads during the next two days and nights; the ugly passions that stirred him and beat their wings against the night; the tentative intuitions urging toward some vague new start; the various compromises he made with himself, his weakness and inconsistency that found him bereft of any quality other than the sombre shadow of some ill-conceived revenge. We will only note that on the evening of the day we mention, he turned up at Bolingbroke Buildings. His face was haggard and drawn, his eyes bloodshot and his clothes tattered and muddy. His appearance and demeanour were, unfortunately, not so alien to the general character of Bolingbroke Buildings as to attract any particular attention, and he slunk like a wolf through the dreary passages, and watched the people come and go.

  It was at about a quarter to ten, when he was going along a passage in Block “F,” that he suddenly saw Minnie Birdle come out of one door and go into another. His small eyes glittered and he went on tiptoe. He waited till Minnie was quite silent in her room and then he went stealthily to Room 475. He tried the handle and it gave. He opened the door and peered in. There was a cheap tin lamp guttering on a box, that dimly revealed a room of repulsive wretchedness. The furniture seemed to mostly consist of bottles and rags. But in one corner on a mattress he beheld the grinning face of his enemy—“Old Fags.”

  Meads shut the door silently and stood with his back to it.

  “Oh,” he said, “so here we are at last, old bird, eh!”

  This move was apparently a supremely successful dramatic coup; for “Old Fags” lay still, paralysed with fear, no doubt.

  “So this is our little ’ome, eh?” Meads continued, “where we bring little dogs and sell ’em. What have you got to say, you old—”

  The groom’s face blazed into a sudden accumulated fury. He thrust his chin forward and let forth a volley of frightful and blasting oaths. But “Old Fags” didn’t answer, his shiny face seemed to be intensely amused with his outburst.