Ben Sees It Through Page 13

  And so, very late, Molly had reached Southampton again, and had retraced her way to the little inn where she had hidden during the last few nights, and which she thought she had left for ever.

  ‘Oh, so you’re back!’ the woman who ran the place greeted her doubtfully.

  ‘I know a comfortable bed when I meet one,’ smiled Molly.

  The compliment, plus payment in advance, had warded off questions. She was too tired even to eat, though the proprietress insisted, rather unexpectedly, on making a cup of tea. Then she climbed up to her little room. And, just as she reached it, the door of the adjoining room closed softly …

  ‘Lummy!’ cried Ben, with a gulp.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Molly, jerked out of her story again by the interruption.

  ‘That—closin’ door!’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Well—jest while you was menshunin’ it—I thort I ’eard another door closin’. ’Ere!’

  They listened, with ears strained.

  ‘Oi! Wot’s ’appenin’?’ chattered Ben, suddenly. ‘The clock’s stopped tickin’!’

  19

  Don Pasquali

  The ceasing of the clock’s ticking formed an uncanny interlude in Molly’s story, for silence can be as disconcerting as sound.

  There is an underground stream in a Derbyshire cavern that sends an eerie gurgle through the darkness but when the gurgle ceases the water has risen to block the only exit from an inner cave; then, if you are occupying the inner cave, the atmosphere is far more eerie. Did the ceasing of the ticking portend, in some as yet unrevealed way, that the only exit from the room Molly and Ben were occupying was going to be blocked? The exit down the chimney?

  Responding impulsively to this thought, Ben crept to the gap by the fireplace and stared gingerly down.

  Through the black sooty tunnel a vague, dying white light loomed up at him. Ben half-expected to hear the ticking from this new place, for the grandfather clock he concluded, must either have shifted its position or died; but no sound rose through the tunnel, and no movement disturbed the white light. The chimney seemed to be in a state of expectant suspension.

  Somebody bent over him. It gave him a shock, though it was only Molly.

  ‘So that’s our way out, is it?’ she murmured

  ‘Yus,’ answered Ben. ‘Can you manage it?’

  She peered down and shuddered. That wasn’t like her. Ben looked surprised.

  ‘Afraid I’m still a bit dizzy,’ she explained, apologetically. ‘Wonder if that brute’s been using any of his damned dope on me!’

  ‘I could go fust, and you could tread on me, like,’ suggested Ben.

  But she shook her head and made her way back to the bed. ‘Ben,’ she said, gravely, ‘I’m no good for a bit. Rotten, isn’t it? You think you can stick anything—and then you find you can’t!’

  ‘Go on! No one can stick wot they can’t,’ consoled Ben.

  ‘You seem able to.’

  ‘Wot? Me?’ He turned from the fireplace and stared at the bed.

  ‘Yes, you! Right to the end!’

  ‘Shurrup!’ murmured Ben, fighting bashfulness. ‘Corse, yer’ve never seen me run, ’ave yer!’

  ‘Yes—and I’ve run with you! But you always go back again, if you can help anyone—’

  ‘’Ere, wot’s orl this?’ exclaimed Ben, indignantly. ‘The on’y time I don’t run away is when I can’t, see?’

  ‘That’s not true,’ she smiled, ‘and if you like, I’ll prove it.’

  ‘’Ow?’

  ‘That chimney. I can’t go down it—but you could.’

  ‘Wot, and leave you ’ere?’ He reddened as Molly laughed. ‘That’s just silly, that is,’ he growled. ‘Let’s ’ear the rest of yer story. Wot ’appened last night when yer went up ter bed?’

  He moved back to the fireplace as he spoke and sat down on the little unhinged door. Just as well to keep an eye cocked on that chimney hole!

  And Molly continued with her interrupted story:

  The door of the adjoining bedroom had closed softly, just as she had reached the landing. It had also closed deliberately. As though it had planned to close at this particular moment.

  Before entering her room Molly paused for a moment to stare at the door. She was holding a candle—apparently there was no gas on the top floor, or it had been turned off—and the flame of the candle flickered on the number of the door that had just closed. It was No. 10. Her room was No. 12. She wished devoutly that there had been a Number 11 in between!

  Well, no good staring! No. 10 might open again. She slipped quickly into her own room, laid the candle down on a chair—the only available surfaces were the bed and this chair and a mantelpiece—and turned to lock the door. There was no key.

  This gave her a nasty jolt. Previously there had been a key. She knew, because she had used it.

  She stood, hesitating. The softly closing door of No. 10 and the absence of her key were too disturbing to be ignored. She decided to descend and interview the proprietress.

  But when she opened her door to leave the room, the door of No. 10 also opened. She heard the little dry crackle proclaiming it. The passage promptly became an impossible No Man’s Land, and she closed her own door again hastily.

  She took the candlestick from the chair and placed it on the mantelpiece. The edge of the candlestick protruded too far over, however, so she had to put it on the bed. Then she moved the chair to the door—it wasn’t a long move—and fixed it under the knob.

  Of course, the candle couldn’t remain on the bed. The only place left was the floor. This cast horrible shadows upwards, but she wasn’t going to put it back on the chair. If the door were tried the chair might shake, and if the chair shook the candle might topple, and if the candle toppled it would go out! She wasn’t going to risk that!

  Nor was she going to risk taking off her clothes …

  ‘Wot, ’ave yer ’ad ’em on orl night?’ ejaculated Ben.

  ‘All night,’ she nodded. ‘But so have you.’

  ‘Yus, but you’re a gal,’ replied Ben. ‘That’s dif’ren, ain’t it?’ …

  Different or not, she lay on her bed fully clothed, with the exception of her shoes, and tried to shut out the big black shadows that rose from the floor to disfigure the walls and the ceiling. Molly had pluck, but, like Ben, she had passed through some dislocating hours, and things were beginning to get on top of her. As a rule, she laughed at shadows. These refused to be laughed at.

  At last, however, she fell asleep. She did not know it until she found herself waking up. The shadows were no longer separate; they had joined up and they enveloped her. The room was in darkness. The candle had either burnt out or been put out.

  ‘Who’s there?’ she tried to gasp.

  But no words came. Only the thought. And the thought was answered when, beginning to sit up, she felt an unusual tightness of the bed-clothes at her feet—the tightness of a weight.

  Then, for the first time, she noticed that the room was not absolutely dark. There was a little glow in it, a ruby speck that became bright and dull by turns. It was about two feet above the weight that was holding her legs down. Somebody was sitting on the end of the bed, smoking.

  She did not need the light to guess who the somebody was. His name was Don Pasquali—more pictorially described by Ben as Don Diablo—and once before he had sat on the end of Molly’s bed. The other time had been on board a ship, and she had nearly scratched his eyes out. And he had laughed and sworn that a Don Pasquali was not to be diverted by a little thing like that. A Don Pasquali could wait. A Don Pasquali was in no hurry. For, in the end, a Don Pasquali always got what he wanted.

  There were two things Don Pasquali wanted. Molly was only one of them.

  Now, for the second time, the Spaniard sat on her bed. And, though it was dark, she seemed to see him smiling.

  ‘Awake?’ he said, softly.

  ‘Go away!’ she managed to murmur.

&nb
sp; ‘After you talk, yes,’ he answered. ‘But, if no, I stay.’

  ‘Beast! What am I to talk about?’ she gasped.

  The cigarette glowed, then came a little closer as the Spaniard said,

  ‘The fool you help! Say where he is?’

  ‘I don’t know where he is!’ she retorted.

  ‘Oh, yes!’

  ‘I tell you I don’t!’

  ‘I see you with him—’

  ‘Well, you don’t see me with him now!’

  ‘So? Then Don Pasquali make you talk!’ The voice, despite its threat, was soft like a regretful sigh. ‘But not with pain. No! With—what is your word?—the heart?’

  A puff of smoke played over her face. The glow came nearer still. Pasquali’s hot breath mingled with the smoke, poisoning it.

  She struck at the glow, but it slipped aside, and her hand was caught in mid-air.

  ‘Beast! Beast!’ she choked. ‘I tell you I don’t know where he is! I don’t! I don’t! I’ve lost him. And if you come any nearer, I’ll show you what my teeth are like!’

  The invisible figure hesitated. Perhaps Pasquali was impressed by her sincerity. Drawing no closer, but still holding the determined little wrist in his no less determined fingers, he said,

  ‘Listen! If the beast give you money? Bracelet for the little hand. Pearls for the little neck! Eh? Soon—very soon! Then you not call Don Pasquali beast? Eh? Eh?’

  And now, suddenly, Don Pasquali’s head loomed over Molly, while the imprisoned wrist was forced down to her side. But her other arm was free, and with a frantic twist she brought it from under her and struck. This time she struck more than air, screaming while she did so. So loud was her scream that Pasquali’s roar was drowned in it. Then the blackness increased, and when she came out of it the proprietress was standing in the door-way, with a candle in her hand and disapproval on her face.

  ‘Havin’ a nightmare?’ she demanded, as Molly sat up galvanically.

  There was no one in the room beyond themselves.

  ‘The man in the next room!’ panted Molly.

  ‘The man in the next room!’ retorted the landlady. ‘There’s no one in the next room!’

  The retort was so idiotically erroneous that it whipped Molly into anger.

  ‘Do you think I’m an idiot?’ she blazed. ‘A Spaniard—he’s just been here!’

  ‘Spaniard?’ frowned the proprietress. ‘Ain’t one of the two men they’re after for this murder a Spaniard?’ She departed into the adjoining room, and returned a moment later, grumbling. ‘A nice thing, waking me up like this! You’ll be dreamin’ of the drunken sailor next.’

  ‘Wot, did she say “drunken”?’ interrupted Ben.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ answered Molly. ‘She was an old frump, anyway.’

  ‘’Ear, ’ear! But—you ’adn’t been dreamin’, ’ad yer?’

  ‘No, Ben, though for a moment I thought I must have been! But—the key. He’d removed that! And after the old frump had gone I found some cigarette ash on the bed. I expect he must have slipped in and out of the place somehow or other.’

  ‘That’s right,’ nodded Ben, gloomily. ‘They ain’t solid, these Spanish blokes—they’re shadders. Well, and wot ’appened then? Arter that?’

  ‘I sat up for the rest of the night, you bet! And next morning—this morning—my goodness, it seems a year ago!—I called at the Post Office and got your letter.’

  ‘Givin’ yer the address—’

  ‘Yes, and I didn’t waste any time about coming here, you can wager! I took the first train I could catch to Waterloo, jumped in another train from Waterloo to Wimbledon, and—raced you, didn’t I?’

  ‘Wot! Get ’ere d’reck from Waterloo?’

  ‘Of course! That’s the best way.’

  ‘Lummy, you was quick!’

  ‘A bit too quick!’ She shuddered. ‘If I’d paused at the gate, instead of slipping through like a fool, I—I wouldn’t have seen Lovelace—’

  She stopped and gulped.

  ‘Wot?’ whispered Ben.

  ‘Strangling a little fellow with his fingers!’ She took a deep breath, and set her lips. ‘I reckon that finished me, Ben. Knocked my brain out! I don’t know what I did. All I remember is suddenly finding myself struggling in that damned old devil’s arms and trying to shout. And then—blank—till I was in this room, bound and gagged, and—and you came along. Don’t ask me how long I’ve been in this room? I’ve no idea. Most of the time I’ve been in Kingdom Come! But when I could manage it I choked up a sound, in case there was anybody around to hear it, and—well, that’s my story, and so now let’s get on with it!’

  But Ben had suddenly risen from the ground and darted to her side.

  ‘Oi!’ he whispered, catching hold of her arm. ‘Some’un is dahn there—and ’e’s comin’ hup!’

  20

  The Contents of a Chimney

  You cannot decide on your tactics until you know your weapon. For instance, if the weapon is a poker you must stand close to your opponent, but if it is a china ornament you can then use the advantage of distance. Unfortunately for Ben the only weapon he could find in this ill-furnished room, apart from really heavy artillery, was the chair in which Molly had been bound, and as the ominous noise below—the noise that had diverted him from the final words of Molly’s story and had brought him scurrying away from the fireplace—began to scrape upwards from the drawing-room chimney, he dashed to the chair, seized it, and holding it aloft, staggered with unwilling courage back to the ominous aperture.

  He was handicapped by another disadvantage. He did not know who the enemy was. This, however, was not a very serious matter. Whoever the enemy was, he had to be hit.

  He felt something touch his side.

  ‘Git back!’ he muttered. ‘You ain’t in this!’

  But Molly, who had slipped off the bed and had followed him, refused to get back. She had a weapon of her own—a small clenched fist, the knuckles of which were already white with preparedness and determination—and she was not going to be out of it. The ascending enemy seemed in for a hot time.

  Was he aware of it? He did not hurry. Slowly, laboriously—now rising a few inches, now pausing, now rising again, now pausing again, now scraping around for a new position—he signalled his gradual approach by a series of unpleasant noises; noises which seemed no less ominous because of their vagueness and indecisiveness.

  Swish—swish—halt. Swish—swish—halt. Swish—swish—plop. Swish—swish—would his head never appear?

  Molly glanced at Ben with puckered brow. Something new was worrying them both, and they didn’t know what it was.

  ‘Jest ’is tictacs,’ muttered Ben. ‘That’s orl. Tictacs!’

  ‘Be careful!’ whispered Molly, as Ben took a step forward.

  ‘It’s ’im wot’s bein’ careful!’ whispered Ben, giving his raised chair a little shake. ‘’E knows I got a tictac, too!’

  Nevertheless, he did not reduce his own caution, and easily resisted an impulse to look down.

  ‘Yer see,’ he told himself, in extenuation, ‘by not showin’ meself I’m givin’ ’im a surprise, like.’

  But the enemy took so long to rise to the surprise that once again Molly and Ben turned and glanced at each other perplexedly.

  ‘What is he doing?’ faltered Molly.

  ‘P’r’aps ’e’s stuck,’ answered Ben.

  This theory was not unwelcome. It would save a nasty mess on the chair. But it received a set-back when the sounds recommenced, after a silence of several seconds, and became more violent.

  Swish—swish—clatter. Clatter—clatter—scrape. Scrape—scrape …

  Silence again. This time, a much longer one.

  ‘Lummy, now ’e ’as stuck!’ whispered Ben.

  ‘Do you think so?’ she whispered back.

  ‘Corse ’e ’as,’ answered Ben. ‘Carn’t you ’ear ’im not movin’? Yus, but why ain’t ’e swearin’?’

  You always swear when you get
stuck. It’s dull and monstrous otherwise. Of course, if you find yourself stuck in such a way that your head gets fixed and your jaws won’t move—like Ben had found himself once in that narrowing part—then you can’t swear. Barring in your thoughts.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ demanded Molly suddenly, as Ben lowered the chair.

  ‘’Ave a look,’ answered Ben. ‘If ’e’s stuck, see, we can drop on ’im.’

  ‘Why not leave him?’ she gasped.

  ‘Cos we can’t git through ’im,’ replied Ben, ‘and ’e’s blockin’ the way to Hempire Free Trade. Doncher worry, miss. Molly, that is. If I drop somethink ’eavy ’e’ll go dahn plonk, and brike ’is skull, and we can git aht over the pieces.’

  ‘Don’t!’

  ‘Wot? The pieces? Lummy, miss, a bit o’ picktorial langwidge like don’t ’urt us arter all we bin through! Afore long I’ll be eatin’ supper orf corpses and not turnin’ a ’air. Usin’ ’em fer tibles, I mean,’ he explained quickly, lest there should be any misunderstanding on the point.

  He was speaking mainly through bravado, to reinforce himself for the ordeal of looking down at the thing that had got stuck, but his last suggestion nearly undid all his good work. If one could really get numb to corpses, Ben would have been corpse-proof years ago!

  Now he tiptoed to the aperture, nearly tripping over the unhinged door as he did so. He heard a gasp while he bent forward and peered down the hole. It was his gasp. The gasp was repeated a moment later. He had not really expected to see what he found there. The reality momentarily overpowered him.

  The faint whitish light that, in previous views, had marked the bottom of the chimney—the light from the drawing-room window falling on a small space of dusty hearth—was no longer visible. It was blocked by a wedged, undeniably human shape.

  Ben had been down there, in that exact spot! Might this have happened to him?

  But even at such poignant moments one must be practical. So he swallowed, to render his dry throat vocal again, and after the third swallow he managed to emit a very faint ‘Oi!’

  The thing that blocked the chimney did not respond.