Ben Sees It Through Page 11

  ‘Yus.’

  ‘And then chased you?’

  ‘Yus. We was both runnin’ away, like.’

  ‘But in the same direction?’

  ‘Yus.’

  ‘And you’ve no idea why he chased you?’

  ‘Barrin’ ’e might ’ave liked me fice,’ suggested Ben.

  Then Mr Lovelace turned away and made a casual remark; but he kept Ben in view through a mirror while he made it.

  ‘The lady who has just left,’ he observed, ‘told me outside that you had no cap on when she saw you at the pillar-box.’

  Lummy! That cap! Had Don Diablo been after it, too!

  Ben just saved himself from exclaiming at this thought, but he did not control its reflection upon his sooty visage. Through the little mirror, Mr Lovelace marked the reflection.

  ‘Was she correct?’ asked the old man, quietly.

  ‘That’s right,’ muttered Ben.

  ‘Then you must have lost your cap between the time you left Waterloo Station and the time you reached the pillar-box?’

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed Ben.

  ‘Have you seen the Spaniard since leaving Waterloo Station?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sure of that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Yus.’

  ‘Yes, you’re sure?’

  ‘No, I ’aven’t.’

  ‘Lucid as ever,’ murmured Mr Lovelace, and all at once shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, it’s a pity about your cap, but I expect we’ll have to let it go. Unless, of course, you can tell me of any place you visited on your way here? That is, you know, between Waterloo and—the pillar-box?’

  This question, the apparent casualness of which did not deceive Ben, suddenly raised two questions in Ben’s mind.

  First—he had visited one place on his way here. He had visited a restaurant from which he had subsequently bolted, leaving his meal half-finished. Was it at this restaurant that he had left his cap? Second—if Ben mentioned the restaurant to Mr Lovelace, would Mr Lovelace go and seek the cap there, leaving the coast clear at this end for Ben’s investigations?

  A difficult problem had to be decided in a flash, at a moment when hesitation might destroy the assumption of genuineness that Ben was striving to build up. For some urgent reason quite beyond his ken, Mr Lovelace wanted Ben’s cap. Was it wise to set a man of Mr Lovelace’s doubtful quality on the right road? Even though the prize would be an opportunity to find the girl in the room upstairs?

  ‘If that cap is lined with di’monds,’ decided Ben, ‘’e can ’ave it.’

  For Ben had learned, in his last moment up the chimney, that the girl in the room above was Molly Smith.

  16

  Quadruple-Crossing

  Half-an-hour later Ben sat in the kitchen, staring at a brown tea-pot. On the table, also, were a neglected cup of tea, a well-hacked loaf of bread, a pat of butter that looked as if the loaf had sat in it, five lumps of sugar on a paper-bag, and a fork all dressed up and nowhere to go. This was Ben’s idea of the way to set a tea-table.

  A somewhat similar selection lay on the table of the front-room in which he had spent the first portion of his visit; and there Mr Lovelace sat with as little interest in the tea as Ben was showing himself. He, too, was staring at his tea-pot. Each man seemed to be listening for the other.

  Following upon Ben’s effort to locate the restaurant in which apparently his lost cap resided—an effort that had been encouraged by the old man with considerable enthusiasm—this preparation of tea had formed Ben’s first office in the service of Mr Lovelace at two pounds a week, paid surprisingly in advance. It really seemed as though a point had been reached where Mr Lovelace was as anxious to appear friendly to Ben as Ben was anxious to appear friendly to him; and because Ben knew his own friendship was sheer pretence, he wondered whether his new employer’s amicable advances were also being actuated by some ulterior motive.

  ‘I’m waitin’ fer ’im ter go aht arter my cap,’ reflected Ben, as he gazed at the pot, ‘but wot’s ’e waitin’ for?’

  Two points had surprised Ben while he had been trying to locate the restaurant under Mr Lovelace’s expert guidance. The first was that, largely owing to the latter’s complete knowledge of the vicinity of Waterloo, it had been comparatively easy to reconstruct Ben’s first gropings through the fog and to reduce the possible restaurants to two. The second was that the idea of camouflage did not occur to him until it was too late. After all, why should Ben not have invented a restaurant, and so defeated the old man’s end while gaining his own? But by the time this brain-wave occurred to him it was too late to adopt it, and he consoled himself with the reflection that he might not have made his story convincing if he had not built it on reality.

  ‘I ’ope ’e goes orf soon,’ thought Ben, despairingly, as the minutes dragged by. The house was getting horribly on his nerves, and he longed to satisfy the instinct of St George and then be off. ‘Wunner if ’e’d pop orf quicker if I pertended ter go ter sleep?’

  The more he thought of this idea, the more he liked it. It was, he considered, a distinctly brainy idea, and he couldn’t quite understand how he had thought of it. Perhaps it was because he all at once discovered he really did feel a little sleepy!

  ‘Yus, lummy, if I ain’t careful, I’ll go orf proper!’ he blinked, sitting up with a jerk.

  Thus reality trod on the heels of pretence, casting disturbing doubts on the ruse of dissimulation. Was it such a good idea, after all? Suppose he both feigned sleep and found it!

  ‘I’ll ’ave a little drink while I ’ave a little think,’ he decided, turning to his neglected cup. ‘P’r’aps the warm inside me’ll ’elp.’

  As he took up the cup he noticed that the surface was half an inch below the rim. This vaguely surprised him, because he had poured it out right up to the slop-over—he always did this, to avoid wasting any—and he didn’t remember having taken a sip.

  ‘Must ’ave done it while I wasn’t lookin’,’ he thought. ‘That’s a pity.’

  You can’t enjoy food and drink properly if you don’t concentrate.

  He raised the cup to his lips, and was about to pour it down his mouth, also to the slop-over, when a bell rang and something clicked above him. He jumped up, giving the floor a drink as he did so, and replaced his cup on the table. Then he noticed that the thing that had clicked was an indicator, and that the word ‘Drawing-room’ was wobbling in a glass-topped wood box on the wall.

  ‘I hexpect that’s fer me,’ he frowned. ‘It’s a come-dahn, bein’ a ’ousemaid!’

  He left the kitchen and went into the room misleadingly described as a drawing-room. Ben would have described it as a Morgue, if that was right for where you kept dead people. But Mr Lovelace was very much alive when Ben entered to inquire.

  ‘Yus?’

  Mr Lovelace regarded him keenly. Then ordered,

  ‘Pull the blinds down.’

  ‘Oh,’ answered Ben, and walked to the window.

  ‘Had your tea?’ asked Mr Lovelace’s voice behind him.

  ‘’Avin’ it,’ replied Ben.

  Looking out, he noticed that the fog was thinner.

  ‘Well, I hope you’re enjoying yours better than I’m enjoying mine,’ observed Mr Lovelace. ‘You’ve introduced a wonderfully tinny taste into it. Do you make your tea with nails?’

  One doesn’t reply to remarks like that.

  ‘Still, I hope you’re surviving?’ continued the old man. ‘Feeling all right, eh?’

  ‘Yus,’ said Ben, and suddenly added, ‘but a bit sleepy like.’

  Subtle, that!

  ‘Well, if you’re tired, you can take a nap afterwards, Ben,’ responded his employer—with equal subtlety? ‘There’ll be nothing more for you to do till dinner. Don’t forget that little side window. By the fireplace. Where are my cigars? Ah—I remember—in the next room.’

  He darted out of the door. He returned just as Ben was pulling
down the blind of the little side window.

  ‘Capital!’ he exclaimed, approvingly. ‘You’re excellent at blind work!’

  Back in the kitchen, Ben pondered over the remark.

  ‘Blind work, eh?’ he murmured.

  He turned to his cup once more and raised it. So far he had had one-eighth of the contents and the floor had had one-quarter. He prepared to make sure of the balance.

  ‘Blimy, it does seem tinny!’ he agreed as the lips established contact. ‘I s’pose it was tea I put in the pot, and not tacks?’

  Then, suddenly, he put the cup down again. A dozen things were shouting to him warningly, turning his forehead damp. One was the taste of the tea—that wasn’t no tin! Another was Mr Lovelace’s deliberate reference to the taste—to put Ben off his guard, like? Another was the slight drowsiness Ben had already experienced—imparted by a one-eighth dose? Ben recalled that during the tea preparations, Mr Lovelace had entered the kitchen once to tell him where the second tea-pot was—and maybe to put something into the second tea-pot! Another was the bell—to see whether Ben was capable of answering it? Another was the lightning dash just now for cigars. More likely for a peep in the kitchen and an increase in the dope?

  And another was that remark, ‘You’re excellent at blind-work.’ Blind, eh?

  Ben was only being saved from blindness at the eleventh hour! He’d been blind to think that Mr Lovelace would dream of leaving the house while Ben was free to roam about in it! He’d been blind to imagine the old man quite as big a fool as that!

  Yes, but wasn’t the old man making an identical mistake about Ben? And, if so, could not Ben profit by the mistake?

  Swift as the proverbial arrow, Ben darted to the sink and poured his cup of tea down the plug-hole. Then he darted back, and replaced the now empty cup on the table. Then he darted to the sink again, and turned on a tap to make the tell-tale tea-leaves flow away. Then he returned to the table, sat down, leaned forward, and closed his eyes. Then he waited.

  He waited an interminable while.

  ‘Strewth!’ he thought, presently. ‘’Owjer know if yer pertendin’ or not?’

  He believed, on the whole, he was pretending, because you can see flapping objects and crawling crabs even when you’re awake; but he had to convince himself periodically by counting thirty and then opening his eyes, and for a few minutes you could almost have told the time by Ben. But presently, he stopped counting at fourteen …

  In the distance, some eight thousand miles away, a bell was ringing. At first he didn’t pay any attention to it. It was only a black man in Australia eating a tambourine. Tambourines always make a tinkle as they go down. Just listen to it tinkling in his stomach. Silly, to gulp ’em so fast. It made ’em ring louder, and louder … and louder …

  He jumped up suddenly. The black Australian vanished. It was Mr Lovelace ringing again. Lummy, he must go! How long had he been ringing?

  Then, in another jerk of memory, he remembered the whole of the situation, and not merely half of it. Lummy, he mustn’t go! He must get back to his chair double-quick before Mr Lovelace came along! He must go on pretending to be asleep!

  The bell rang again. He bolted back to the chair and resumed his Rip Van Winkle attitude. Then he heard a door open quietly in the hall, and soft footsteps approaching.

  A terrible fear swept over him, a fear that under scrutiny he would not be able to sustain the deception. Suppose he gave himself away? Suppose Mr Lovelace submitted him to some test which proved Ben’s duplicity? With Ben’s duplicity would also be proved his knowledge of Mr Lovelace’s duplicity, and then all the cats would be out of all the bags and there could be no further chance of deception on either side. Ben would be drastically dealt with, and Molly upstairs could wait in vain for St George!

  As Mr Lovelace approached, Ben now tried to go to sleep in earnest, just as previously he had tried not to. He was unsuccessful. He remained painfully awake, and tortuously aware of his surroundings as the old man passed into the kitchen and came straight to his chair.

  He felt him pause at the chair. He felt him lean over the chair. He heard the ticking of the old man’s watch as the owner’s waistcoat brushed his left ear. He prayed that no breath would tickle the back of his neck. A gale he could stand, but the gentle tickle of human respiration below where you shave and above where you finish your swallow was Ben’s personal notion of Chinese torture.

  But his very terror assisted him. It produced at last a semi-swoon. And when he came out of it, Mr Lovelace had examined the empty tea-cup as well as the empty head lolling beside it, and was softly retracing his steps to the hall.

  ‘I ’ope ’e gives the front-door a good bang when ’e goes!’ thought the motionless figure he had just left. ‘If ’e don’t, I’m ’ere till Christmas!’

  A long, disconcerting silence followed. It was broken occasionally by vague sounds. One of the sounds came, disturbingly, from above. Had Mr Lovelace gone upstairs?

  But at length came the sounds for which Ben’s ears longed. A click in the hall, a sense of outdoor things, and a soft, definite slam.

  ‘’Ooray!’ thought Ben. ‘Now orl I gotter do is ter count five tharsand!’

  You see, Mr Lovelace might come back. He might have forgotten something. Or he might be playing a trick. You weren’t really safe with a man like him till five thousand!

  After seventy, however, Ben risked the odd four thousand nine hundred and thirty and raised his head. The kitchen swam for a few moments as he opened his eyes. When it stopped he rose and swam himself out into the hall.

  A key clicked in the front-door lock. Ben bolted for the hat-stand and dived behind a coat. A moment later the front-door opened, and Mr Lovelace’s hand stretched towards the coat. The coat developed a palpitating heat.

  Then the hand came away with a pair of thick gloves, extracted from a side-pocket of the coat. The door slammed again. Mr Lovelace’s footsteps faded up the gravel path.

  ‘Corse,’ thought Ben, as he emerged from the hatstand, ‘when yer do die it’s orl over!’

  Then he moved towards the staircase and began to ascend.

  17

  Secrets Behind Doors

  With the sensation that he was exploring new country, Ben ascended the staircase at the back of the hall, while the clock with the irregular tick sent its spasmodic whispering through the dimness.

  Ben might have dissipated the dimness which Mr Lovelace had refused to dissipate by switching on a light or two, and in theory he certainly preferred light to darkness. He was afraid, however, that illumination might draw unwelcome attention to the house and his presence in it, and for the time being he deemed it best to work in the semi-dark. So up the stairs he went, closing his eyes to shadows, and trying to convince himself that, with Mr Lovelace out of the house, there was nothing now to worry about.

  He reached the top of the stairs, and found three doors to choose from. One straight ahead, the other two on the right and left. Not a sound came from behind any of them.

  The door on the left, he calculated, would lead to the room over the drawing-room. That was the door he wanted. He turned towards it.

  A sound crept up the stairs after him. He jerked round, forgetting his theory that with Mr Lovelace out of the house there was nothing to worry about. Then he muttered, ‘Mug!’ The sound was merely the clock. The door had taken his mind off it, and when the clock’s whisper had returned to his consciousness he had failed to recognise it. The failure was assisted by the circumstance that the ticking was now below him, whereas previously it had been above him. The clock, which was of the large grandfatherly variety, stood on the half-landing of the staircase.

  Turning back to the door, and determining to be diverted by no more noises, Ben placed his hand upon the knob.

  ‘Miss!’ he called softly, before turning the knob. ‘Oi! Molly!’

  There was no reply, so he turned the knob. Of course, the door was locked.

  He knocked on the door and called
again.

  ‘’Allo!’ he said. ‘It’s me!’

  Even that information failed to stimulate vocal activity on the other side of the door.

  Well, never mind! He was going to get in! It was just a question of how.

  An idea occurred to him. His brain appeared to be clearing. Perhaps it was the reaction from that one-eighth dose of whatever-it-was he had imbibed in the kitchen? Perhaps it was the proximity of another brain which, when permitted to function, was perpetually clear? Molly Smith was a wonderful stimulant!

  But before he put his idea into practice he called once more through the dividing wood, just in case she was able to hear though she could not speak.

  ‘Doncher worry!’ he called. ‘Heverythink’s goin’ ter be orl right, see? ’E’s gorn, and I’ll be with yer afore a cat can spit!’

  Then he turned towards the other doors.

  His idea was to find a key in one of the other doors that would fit this one. Sometimes key-makers lacked variety, and a key designed for one door would occasionally unlock two. He knew this was so because the year he had taken a bath he had found the bathroom door locked, and had opened it with the key of the coal-cellar. He had always remembered it, because he had found the landlady in the bath reading Edgar Wallace. So why shouldn’t one of the keys from one of these other doors fit the door of Molly’s room?

  Worth trying, anyway!

  The first door he tried was also locked, with the key absent, but the second door, though no key protruded outside, yielded when he turned the knob, and opened. And—yes, there was a key on the inner side. Good! A bit o’ luck!

  Ben whipped the key from its rusting socket, and as he did so he caught sight of a black silent object in a corner.

  ‘Gawd! Wot’s that?’ he thought, feeling suddenly less lucky.

  It was a dog.

  Ready to run, Ben stood fascinated. The dog held him as a snake holds a rabbit. Its very stillness added to its potency. If it had moved, he would not have remained an instant.

  So—there was a dog, after all! And this was it—this crouching, motionless, silent thing! Ben recalled that before he had reached the house he had heard a dog yowl from the road—yowl and then suddenly whimper and stop. He had heard it more than once. And here the creature was! Lying in a shadowed corner like a low black tree-trunk!