"I know," Gideon said. "Half-wit, is he?"
"Well known round there, too," said Abbott. Now his voice was more normal, as if his throat had been oiled, but he was speaking very quickly. "Named Simon, people call him Si, but whether that's from Simple Simon I don't know. It's a crying shame, a boy like that ought to be in a home, but he even goes to school! He's at the G5 Division now, there's a doctor with him. They think we'll frighten the wits out of him if we bring him here. But even if he knows who told him to do it, there's no way we can make sure that he tells us."
"We can try," Gideon said. "Just what happened?"
Abbott told him; and before the recital was finished, he was talking at normal speed and in his normal voice.
Gideon sent him home.
Gideon did not labor the obvious fact: that Benson had managed to get in touch with the half-wit, and to give him instructions—almost certainly through a third party.
Who?
The dozens of friends and acquaintances with whom Benson might have got in touch would have to be picked up now, and a full-scale interrogation begun. The movements of the hapless vitriol thrower had to be traced. Given the breaks, none of it should take long; but one fact stood out: Benson had headed for London for vengeance. His wife would be in greater terror than ever; so would his daughter. The one good thing was that young Syd was back.
Was it so good?
Gideon got his mind very clear on what had happened, and what he was going to ask the boy—and say to Mulliver.
The man who had sheltered the boy ran a doss-house near the docks; beds at a shilling a night, bring your own food, kill your own rats, find your own lice. It was a place that ought to be closed up on grounds of unsanitary conditions, yet by some miracle it managed to meet all the London County Council rules and regulations. Mulliver, a middle-aged wreck of a man, had a good reputation for helping lame dogs, and he got on well with the police. He wasn't a squealer; as far as was known, he wasn't a crook, either.
Had he let young Syd stay with him out of the goodness of his heart, or under some kind of pressure?
From Benson, for instance . . .
That was just a guess; but it was an accurate guess.
Even if he soon became certain of its accuracy, there still lay upon Gideon the burden of proof.
He cleared up everything on his desk and, about half past three, went to the G5 Division. First, he wanted to see the half-wit, to find out what the Divisional people had done; then he wanted to talk to Charlie Mulliver; next, to young Syd.
One thing was certain: as this news spread, and by now it would have reached every Division, every subdivision, every plain-clothes man and every man on the beat in the whole of the London area, the whole of the Metropolitan Police would be geared to a pitch which it reached only now and again.
Every man would feel it his personal responsibility to make sure that Benson was caught before he could harm his wife or her children.
Gideon felt that the responsibility was all his.
Mulliver swore that young Syd had come to him, pleading to be allowed to hide.
"And where was the harm?" the doss-house keeper almost whined. "I couldn't see any, Mr. Gideon, honest I couldn't."
He didn't change his story, but there was much he could have told.
17. Father and Son
There was just one thing about Charlie Mulliver which the police did not know, and which Syd Benson did.
He was a murderer.
He was not a natural killer, in the way that Benson was. In fact he still had a compassion for his fellow men which, in view of the people he mixed with over the years, was quite surprising. If a man really needed a bed and a cup of tea and a hunk of bread, and couldn't pay for it he would get it at Charlie's; a great many people went to his "hotel" in preference to the Salvation Army Hostel or the Y.M.C.A. or any of the other do-good places in the East End of London.
But Charlie Mulliver had killed his wife.
That was five years ago, and the case had long since been left high on the archives of the Yard, not as unsolvable, but as unsolved or pending. Mulliver's wife, in the common phrase, had been no better than she ought to be. At one time she had helped to run the doss house, looking after a women's section, as well as assisting on the other side. She had bestowed her favors too liberally, and in a quarrel Charlie had killed her. At the time, he had been drunk; at the time he had meant only to disfigure her; but if he were ever caught for the job he would certainly be jailed for life.
Syd Benson was the only man who knew who had killed her. Syd had helped to put the body in the Thames. And the police, knowing her habits, had not really been surprised when they had taken it out. They had questioned Mulliver, of course; and at one time the doss-house keeper had seemed the most likely suspect, but they had reckoned without the organizing genius of Benson. Having set out to fool the police for Mulliver's sake, Benson had succeeded brilliantly, by fixing an alibi at third hand and in a way which the police had never seriously questioned.
Mulliver had been a widower for five years, and all that time had known that one day Benson would want something in return for his help and his silence. There was nothing that Mulliver wouldn't do, to drive away even the thought of paying for his wife's murder.
Benson was not only clever and shrewd, but was also a sound judge of human nature. He knew that Mulliver would do whatever he was told, no matter how serious a crime. Like nine criminals out of every ten, Mulliver would feel that whatever he did, he would avoid being found out. All he had to do was pay his debt to Benson; after that, he would have nothing to worry about.
If Mulliver refused to obey Benson however, Benson would make sure that police would know all about the murder of his wife.
So Mulliver really had no choice.
And his life had been spent in the worst part of the East End, rubbing shoulders with vice and crime, with all that was worst as well as some of the things that were best in human nature. No one could have remained a saint for long while surrounded by that atmosphere, and Charlie Mulliver had been soaked in it for forty-odd years; but, the murder apart, he was not a criminal. It was not so much that he disapproved of crime as that he liked to keep himself safe from its consequences. It worked, too; he was trusted by the crooks and tolerated by the police.
Subconsciously, the gift of compassion in Charlie Mulliver was perhaps a form of self-defense. It paid off to have a heart. But he became so used to violence and crime at second hand that little shocked him. Among the hundreds of down-and-outs, drunks, men wounded in fights, sailors, Negroes, lascars, half-breeds and white men of all nationalities who passed through the doss house, dozens were badly scarred by acid, knife or razor. Scars were commonplace. So when Charlie had been told to brief Simon called Si to throw vitriol into Arthur Small's face, Charlie Mulliver had not revolted against the idea; he knew dozens of people whose faces and bodies were scarred by vitriol; and they'd lived through it. And above all things he had to ingratiate himself with Benson. He'd made a start when he had first learned that Benson was out, by telephoning his wife's boy friend.
Lilies or roses?—that would make Benson laugh!
Cunningly, Mulliver did the vitriol job through a third party, so that Simple Si could not possibly give him away to the police. The man the lad could have given away was now well out in the English Channel, on his way to Australia as a stoker on a small tramp steamer, and there was no danger from him either. So Mulliver felt quite safe. If he was at all uneasy, it was that he had kept young Syd here, but he'd received the order from Benson, and he hadn't seriously thought of refusing to obey. He had known of a dozen places where he could hide the boy, and had decided that the safest was in the doss house—in one of the tiny little private rooms where he lived himself. There had been no trouble at all with young Syd when he'd told him that it was his father's instructions.
All Syd wanted was to see his father.
And on the morning of the fifth day, the morning after
Jingo Smith's capture, the morning after Gideon had become a hero, the morning which had gone so well, young Syd Benson had met his father for the first time in four years.
Young Syd hadn't realized what was going to happen.
Mulliver hadn't warned him, but Benson had arrived in London the previous night. He had several days' stubble on his lean face, and looked rough and vicious. Freddy Tisdale was still with him. They had come in on a big truck from Birmingham; the journey had been arranged by Benson's Birmingham friends, and they had arrived in the darkness of early morning. They hadn't gone to the doss-house but had been hiding inside big barrels in an empty warehouse not far from the spot where Jingo Smith had made his attempt to blow himself and others sky-high.
It was more an oil dump than a warehouse, not far from Charlie Mulliver's place. It was easy for Benson and Tisdale to get across roofs to the doss-house and eat, but at the slightest warning they could go back to the warehouse. It was true that if the police searched the doss-house they might find evidence that Benson and Tisdale had been there, but to take all reasonable precautions against that, whenever they were there, they wore cotton gloves and so made sure they didn't leave prints.
The doss-house emptied during the day; from ten o'clock until five or six in the evening, there was no one there except Mulliver, a drab who did some of the cleaning for him, and occasional visitors.
It was not until the night guests had departed that Mulliver had gone in to see young Syd and said with that tone of simulated kindliness:
"Your dad wants to see you, Syd. Coming?"
Young Syd Benson, unable to realize that he was actually looking upon his father in the flesh, stood on the threshold of the dingy little room where Benson and Tisdale spent some of their time. Tisdale was over at the warehouse; Benson wanted to see his son alone. Mulliver gave the boy a push and sent him further into the room, then backed out and closed the door. He kept near it, however, ready to raise the alarm if anyone arrived unexpectedly.
Father and son stood looking at each other.
Young Syd just saw a dream; a dream which had become real for a few minutes on the television, only to fade. Now it was back. The black stubble made no difference; the thin face made little; the sharp lines at the side of the mouth meant nothing to him. The living part of his father's face was in those pale eyes.
Benson's black stubble made them look much brighter and lighter even than they were. Shimmering. They were fine eyes, too; and the man who stood there, the dream which had come to life, was striking to look at. With his chiseled chin and his sharp nose and the deep eye-sockets, Benson was handsome in a kind of piratical way.
The odd thing was that they stood so still for a long time.
Young Syd was just numbed; unbelieving; and yet rising toward a tremendous exaltation.
Benson did not feel like that, but he felt an emotion which he had never experienced before: a kind of pride in his son, a kind of satisfaction that here in front of him was a chip off the old block. No one could doubt that he was face to face with his own flesh and blood.
"Hallo, boyo," Benson said very slowly. He clenched his right fist as he moved forward, and pressed the knuckles against the other's pointed chin. Young Syd didn't give ground, even when Benson increased the pressure so that it must have hurt. Then: "How do you like seeing your dad again, boyo?" Benson asked in that clipped, grating voice, and he looked almost savagely into his son's eyes.
"It's the only thing I've wanted for a long time," young Syd breathed.
Benson took his hand away from the child's jaw and gripped his shoulder. His finger bit deeply, but Syd did not flinch. He shook his son two or three times, making him sway forward and backward, but nothing altered the way that young Syd looked at him, with a light that was almost of veneration in his eyes.
"Well, I don't mind getting a look at you again," Benson said, and let the boy go. "You all right? They been looking after you?"
"Yeh," said young Syd.
"If they haven't, you just tell me."
"I'm okay," young Syd said firmly.
"Sure, you look okay to me," his father said, and grinned. "Didn't expect me to get out of jug, did you?"
"Yes, I did," said Syd flatly.
Benson exclaimed: "What's that?"
"Course I expected you to get out! I used to tell the other chaps that you wouldn't stay in jug all that time," boasted Syd, and his eyes were still radiant. "I was right, wasn't I?"
"You knew a thing or two," agreed Benson, and his eyes seemed to soften. "Well, I'll tell you another thing, boyo. I'm not going to let them take me back."
"I bet you're not!"
"Now I'm out, I'm out for keeps," Benson said, and his eyes narrowed, his voice dropped. "Sometimes to get the things you want you have to do things you don't like, Syd. Get me? You heard about that cove in the car park, up in Millways?"
Syd gulped, and nodded.
"Well, do you know what he was going to do? He was going to shop me, Syd, that's what he was going to do. Couldn't let that happen, could I?"
Syd gritted his teeth and shook his head.
It wasn't because he felt any sense of horror or reproach; it was because the emotion which he had held in check, unknowingly, was beginning to force itself to the surface. Tears stung his eyes; and it was a long, long time since he had cried. He stood there, jaws working, teeth gritting together, and tears glistening in those eyes which were so much like his father's. Benson stopped speaking. He did not understand this behavior at first, and his manner changed; he was resentful, wary. Then, before he could do anything to stop it, the boy had flung himself forward and crushed himself against him, crying:
"Dad, oh Dad, Dad, Dad!"
Benson stood quite still, feeling the pressure of the taut young body, the hardness of his son's head on his chin, the grip of his son's arms round him. He heard the choking, sobbing cries. He felt something he had never known before, something which had not even been within his understanding. His own eyes felt the sting of sharp, unfamiliar emotion—something that he hadn't felt when he had been sentenced, that he hadn't felt for a single moment while he had been at Millways.
The boy began to shiver.
Gradually, he went still.
Benson eased him away, and said with a rough kindliness which was quite foreign to him: "Now take it easy, kid, you'll be all right. Just take it easy."
They waited there, feeling different now, Syd sniffing and rubbing the sleeve of his jersey across his eyes and nose, Benson watching him with that new-found pride and a fierce sense of complete possession. It was not really long, but to them it seemed a long time before he spoke.
"So that's okay, now forget it, see. You want to know something? I've got a plan to get out of the country, go somewhere the bloody coppers can't get me."
"You—you have?"
"Sure. South America. You heard of South America?"
Young Syd, still sniffing and still not able to trust himself to speak properly, just managed to nod.
"Well, that's where I'm going. A pal of mine can fix me up on a ship; I'm going as a member of the crew, see. False name and all that, and I don't need no passport. As soon as I'm three miles outside the British waters, I'm free as the air, see. The captain's in the know, but he's a foreigner and he's getting well paid for it, so it's okay.**
"That—that's good," Syd said.
Benson thrust out a hand, put his forefinger under the boy's chin, and forced his head back. The eyes were not yet completely free from tears, and were red and swollen.
"Say, what's this? Don't you want me to go?"
"Oh, yeh, course I do!"
"You didn't sound exactly enthusiastic."
Syd didn't try to look away, but said clearly, "I won't see you again for a long time, will I?"
Benson began to grin again; then he relaxed properly for the first time, took out a packet of cigarettes, lit one, and flicked the match across the little, shadowy room.
"So that's th
e trouble, is it? Don't want to lose me again, eh? Well, you needn't, boyo. They can try to separate father and son, but we know a way of putting that right, don't we? You want to know something? There's just one little job you've got to do for me, and then we'll get aboard this ship together. You come as a cabin boy, like they did in the old days. Okay?"
Syd said gaspingly, "Can—can I really?"
"Think I'd lie to my own flesh and blood? Sure, you can come, I'll fix it. But don't forget that job you've got to do first, will you?"
"Just tell me what it is, and I'll do it!"
"That's the boy." Now, Benson's expression changed again, and the look in his eyes was hard and calculating; much as it had been when he had talked with Freddy Tisdale up in the furnished house in Millways. He stared for a long time, until the child began to shift his feet, uneasy and unsure of himself. "Okay, let's talk," Benson said abruptly. "How's your ma?"
"She—she's okay."
"She never talk about me?"
"Not—not much."
"She try to turn you against me?"
"No," said young Syd, because it did not occur to him that his father might want him to lie. "She only talks about you if—well, if something happens to remind her. Like the escape from the prison. That—Dad, it was your idea, wasn't it?"
"Mine and no one else's," Benson boasted.
"I knew it was! I told everybody at school it was you, and there was a chap named Lewis, he said it was Jingo Smith. I didn't half sock him one!"
"That's the ticket," Benson said, with deep satisfaction. "Anyone says anything you don't like, sock him one. It was me who thought up that escape, and don't you forget it. And I'll get the two of us on that ship going to South America, don't you forget that, either. Your ma get those headaches like she used to?"
Gideon at work; three complete novels: Gideon's day, Gideon's week, Gideon's night Page 15