Ben Sees It Through Page 14

  ‘Oi!’ called Ben again, after three more swallows.

  The ‘Oi’ went down the shaft, blundered against the obstruction there, then bounced up again, unaccompanied. Ben was preparing a third ‘Oi’ when it froze in his throat. For now, at last, a sound ascended to him. And it did not come from the obstruction in the chimney. It came from the floor below.

  Someone was moving in the drawing-room.

  Ben discovered himself hugging Molly. He did not know whether he or she had started the hug; but, whichever it was, the other held on. Affection may have been in that embrace, but terror was uppermost. Their mutual need was something comforting—something warm amid this dying coldness!

  Meanwhile the movement below continued. They heard it in its stealthy course across the room. It had begun at the fireplace. It ended at the drawing-room door. Then there was a silence. Then, a soft bang. The bang of the front-door.

  ‘Gorn!’ chattered Ben, hysterically.

  He felt Molly trembling against him. Her need steadied him.

  ‘She’s bad!’ he thought. ‘I must do somethink!’

  He carried her back to the bed. He turned back towards the fireplace. His eyes nearly started out of his head. The little door was no longer lying on the ground. It had been propped up against the aperture.

  ‘’Oo did that?’ he gasped.

  He had done it himself. There are moments one does not remember. In the supreme of bliss or of agony we are oblivious!

  Then he got another shock. He was surprised with anything less than ten shocks a minute. Molly was not lying on the bed, as she ought to have been. She was on her feet, quivering.

  ‘Lie down agine,’ he ordered.

  But she shook her head angrily. Indignation as well as fear was now moving her, and giving a new light to her eyes. Or, rather, restoring a light that had been temporarily extinguished.

  ‘What’s the matter with me?’ she cried. ‘Talk about cotton-wool!’

  She brushed by him and ran to the window. The mist was considerably less thick than it had been, but evening darkness was now replacing the fog and not much could be seen in the garden. As she stared out, Ben stared at her. He expected her to topple over any moment. How had she crossed the floor so quickly? Mind over matter?

  ‘Ben!’ she exclaimed, turning abruptly. ‘We’ve got to get out of here!’

  ‘Ow?’ replied Ben.

  It was the obvious reply. The door was locked and the chimney was choked. But the third alternative remained. The window.

  ‘Yes, and break our necks,’ said Ben, when she indicated it.

  ‘Not if we make a rope out of the bed-clothes,’ retorted Molly, and was back at the bed as she spoke. ‘Come along! Help me rip these things off.’

  ‘Yus, but wot are we goin’ ter do when we git aht?’ asked Ben apprehensively, as he obeyed.

  ‘Two things,’ answered Molly. ‘One for each of us. Here, twist this sheet!’

  Her sudden access of energy was somewhat breathless.

  ‘Wot are they?’ inquired Ben, twisting.

  ‘The police and your cap. See you get it tight. Yes, Ben, we’ve got to get busy, you and I. Got to prove ourselves now as a team, haven’t we?’

  ‘That’s right.’ He liked the word ‘team.’ ‘But—wot are we goin’ ter tell the pleece? Yer ain’t forgot, ’ave yer, that I’m on the placards?’

  ‘No, I’ve not! That’s why I’m going for the police, while you go for the cap.’

  ‘Don’t be silly!’ retorted Ben.

  ‘I’m not silly, I’m sensible,’ she answered. ‘Now, then. The pillow-case. Oh, and these cords I was bound with. Don’t you see, both the jobs are urgent, and we mustn’t waste time with either of them. That’s why we must split.’

  ‘Yus, but why shouldn’t you go for the cap—’

  ‘Because you know where the shop is, and I don’t, and because I can’t claim a cap that isn’t mine, and because a hundred other things. Don’t argue, Ben! Can’t you see, it’s only waste of time? If you’re worrying about me and the police, you needn’t. I’m not on the placards!’

  Ben was silenced. Nevertheless, he was not happy. He knew that Molly was wise, and that this was the best way to divide the duties, but St George is not the friend of wisdom when wisdom provides the easier task.

  But was his task going to be so easy, after all? To overtake Mr Lovelace, who had had an exceedingly long start, and who might have got the cap already …

  ‘Bed!’ cried Molly. ‘Help me shove it near the window!’

  ‘Wot for?’ asked Ben. ‘Are we goin’ ter slide out in it?’

  ‘No, idiot! But we want something to tie one end of our rope to, don’t we?’

  ‘Corse,’ observed Ben, ‘you got a brine!’

  They moved the bed to the window. The noise it made sounded in their ears like thunder. Then they tied the improvised rope to the bed-rail, and, opening the window, dropped the other end out. There was an anxious moment as the rope descended. Would it touch bottom? Molly leaned so far out that Ben caught hold of her legs to prevent her from toppling.

  ‘O.K.!’ she reported, and he pulled her in. ‘Only a foot or two off.’

  Now came the final instructions. Molly delivered them in a rapid gabble, and they ran something like this:

  ‘Listen, Ben! You’re going down first, and the moment you get down you scoot. The very moment, mind. Don’t interrupt! I’ll give you five minutes’ start, because I want you clear before I start searching for my bobby. You’ve got money—we’ll thank Lovelace for that!—so you’ll be able to get to Waterloo the quickest way, but you’ll probably find the best way by train, like I did. If you’re lucky and get the cap, come back and meet me at—I know, Southfields station. That’s not too near here. I’ll be waiting there for you—’

  ‘Yus, but s’pose Mr Lovelace beats me to it—and s’pose I don’t catch ’im arterwards?’

  ‘You’ll come back and meet me at Southfields just the same. Maybe, in that case, I’ll have the cap! If that devil returns with it, I shan’t be far off! Now, then! Quick!’

  Ben put one leg over the window. Astride the ledge, he offered a final protest.

  ‘Look ’ere, Molly!’ he urged. ‘Wot abart lettin’ the cap go?’

  ‘Not on your life, Ben,’ she retorted. ‘I’d feel like a quitter. Wouldn’t you? That cap’s worth something to somebody, and you and I are going to find out all about it! Over you go—partner!’

  So over he went, and slid down with whirling mind as well as body to the ground.

  ‘Don’t wait! Run!’ came the injunction from the window.

  He obeyed. Without looking back, he ran along the gravel path till he reached the gate. He was in a sort of mental panic. But, just as he reached the gate, he stopped suddenly. A small object lay on the ground.

  He stopped and picked it up. It was a tiny card-case. Very elegant. And obtruding from it was a visiting card. He looked at the card and read the name:

  ‘Miss Violet Medway.’

  Medway? Who was Medway? Hadn’t he heard that name before, and wasn’t it, in some odd way, mixed up with his own? Then, in a flash, he remembered. He and Medway were ‘in the news’ together! Half the day’s posters were saying,

  ‘Where’s the Sailor?’

  And the other half,

  ‘Medway Bill This Week.’

  And, now, here was Miss Medway’s visiting card …

  Queer!

  21

  Back to Waterloo

  But there was no time just then to pause over Violet Medway and to wonder whether she were daughter, sister, aunt or niece of Joseph Medway, M.P., whose proposed legislation was sharing the nation’s attention with a murder mystery. Later on the visiting-card could be re-examined, but at the moment it had to be slipped back into the tiny case, and the case into Ben’s left boot—the one without the hole in the toe—while more urgent matters were attended to.

  Waterloo—in the quickest possible time! That came
first on Ben’s list.

  He passed through the gate, and wondered why a sense of relief did not immediately assail him. The reason was that Molly was still on the other side of the gate. Not until he knew that she as well as he had the gate of Greystones behind her would he feel like bursting thankfully into ‘There were three sailors of Bristol City,’ and he longed to linger by the gate until he saw her trim, tired little figure running towards him up the gravel path. But that would be disobeying orders, and for the moment Molly was captain of the ship. You can’t have two captains.

  So, dutifully, Ben turned away from the gate and glanced along the lane. And Fate, with a sudden whim for a surprise gift, sent him a taxi-cab!

  ‘Oi!’ called Ben.

  The taxi-cab stopped. If there had been more light to see Ben by, the driver would not have paid him this compliment. The driver merely heard the summons, however, and the word ‘Oi’ is used by Oxford undergraduates, and even by Wireless Announcers in private life. Taking advantage of the gloaming, Ben nipped like his own shadow into the cab. Then he huddled himself into a corner.

  The driver waited, frowned and descended, feeling vaguely disturbed. Ben saw his head coming, cleared his throat quickly, and cried, in his lordliest tone:

  ‘Sarthfield.’

  ‘Where?’ demanded the driver.

  ‘Sarthfield, wot?’ repeated Ben, endeavouring to increase the lordliness. ‘Stishun.’

  And he spat out of the window to clinch the matter.

  The driver, however, still hesitated. None of the lords he knew spat.

  ‘Let’s see your fare?’ he demanded, suspiciously.

  Ben took out a ten-shilling note—one of the four he had received from Mr Lovelace—impressed it with his thumb-mark, and held it up.

  ‘That good enuff fer yer?’ he asked, sarcastically.

  ‘Let’s see closer,’ retorted the driver, and snatched the note.

  Just in time Ben saved himself from snatching it back. He remembered that people in the Upper Class can watch a note leave them without wincing.

  ‘Looks all right,’ admitted the taximan. ‘I’ll give you the change at Southfields.’

  Then he returned to his seat, and the car moved.

  Indignation stirred the passenger. He felt certain that this was not the usual treatment meted out to nobility. But a row had to be avoided at all costs, so he swallowed his pride and contented himself by visualising the driver being cut up into very small pieces, and spread on bread-and-butter, and eaten by Chinese brigands in Maninchooria.

  The taxi wound out of the lane. Staring out, Ben recognised the pillar-box as they went by it, but when they passed a policeman Ben quickly ducked back to his corner. Fortunately the cab was not one of those taxis with windows all the way round.

  He remained in his corner for the rest of the journey, saving for one moment when he was dissatisfied with the pace of the cab.

  ‘Is this a taxi or a ’earse?’ he called.

  ‘Well, it was a taxi when we started,’ the driver called back, angrily, ‘but by the time we finish—’

  ‘Yus, yer needn’t end it,’ interrupted Ben. ‘That’s your trick, cocky.’

  The generous admission produced what the complaint had not. The driver celebrated the occasion with more juice.

  ‘Where’s this?’ asked Ben, when at last the taxi stopped.

  ‘Southfields,’ answered the driver. ‘Isn’t that where you said?’

  ‘Oh! We’re ’ere, are we?’ muttered Ben.

  He left the cab abruptly. The driver began looking at him rather hard. He dived into the station.

  ‘In a hurry, aren’t you,’ the driver called.

  ‘Trine,’ Ben called back. ‘Jest goin’.’

  ‘Don’t you want your change, then?’

  Taximen may be suspicious, but they are honest. Ben hesitated. Did he want his change?

  Arguments against: a train was just coming in, and it might be his, and if he missed it he might have to wait an hour. Also, he didn’t want to impress his visage on the taximan’s mind by showing him too much of it.

  Argument for: 7/3.

  The 7/3 won. He dived back and got it. Then he dived for the train. Then he dived for the ticket-office. Then he dived for the train again. Then he dived into the train, and sat down breathlessly on an old woman.

  ‘Who do you think you’re sitting on?’ cried the old woman, as she bounced him off.

  ‘Beg pardon, mum,’ muttered Ben. ‘I didn’t know it was you.’

  It was a nuisance. He didn’t want to attract attention, and now everybody began staring at him. He closed his eyes, to shut them out.

  Behind him, two men were talking.

  ‘Yes, it’ll be a damn good thing, if it’s pushed through,’ said one. ‘The country’s simply marking time.’

  ‘But will it be pushed through?’ replied the other. ‘Medway’s not too popular.’

  Medway again! Wasn’t there any getting away from the name?

  ‘What’s that to do with it?’ demanded the first speaker.

  ‘A lot, I should have thought,’ answered the second.

  ‘Nonsense, nonsense! If an Act’s good, it’s good! Who cares a damn about the man behind it?’

  ‘We care a damn lot about the man behind it! What, never heard of a politician losing his influence through a private scandal? I could give you half-a-dozen cases—’

  ‘Oh, well, let’s drop politics! What’s the latest about that sailor? I see they’re on the track of him.’

  Ben’s heart leapt. So did his frame. The old lady got another bump.

  ‘Any more of your freshness, young man,’ she cried, shoving him away a second time, ‘and I’ll have you put out.’

  ‘There’s a girl, too, isn’t there?’ went on one of the voices behind him. ‘The trouble is they’re making the prisons too comfortable, nowadays! People go wrong for a rest cure! Did you hear Edgar Wallace broadcasting on the subject the other day? According to him—’

  The train stopped. Ben got out, and waited for the next.

  The service between Southfields and London is, happily, a frequent one, and if Mr Lovelace had chosen this route there would have been no possibility of catching him up. Fate, however, does not confine its enthusiasm to surprising gifts. It also likes a close race, which may explain why Mr Lovelace chose a taxi-cab instead of a train and said ‘Waterloo Station’ to the driver. ‘Wot, all the way in this fog?’ the driver had replied, for the mist had not then begun to abate. ‘Yes, all the way in this fog,’ Mr Lovelace had retorted.

  And the driver had got lost in the fog. He had also driven into a lorry and a lamp-post in the fog. The betting, thus, was level.

  Ben, however, did not know this; and when he had caught his second train, arrived somewhat surprisingly at The Mansion House instead of Waterloo, and had exchanged E.C.4 for S.E.1, he imagined that he was about to prove himself a hopeless ‘also ran.’ Still, he told himself, as he fought an uneasy sensation aroused by his memories of the Waterloo district, he’d have to finish the race, no matter where he came in, and he’d have to prove that the cap was no longer at the winning-post, or hang his head in shameful humility when he next met Molly at Southfields station.

  ‘Arter all, it’ll soon be over,’ he muttered, while he drew near the first of the two restaurants he and Mr Lovelace had selected as the likely ones.

  At the identical moment, Mr Lovelace was approaching the other restaurant.

  Ben recognised immediately that he had made the right choice. Little though he had seen of the restaurant’s exterior through the morning’s fog, there was no mistaking the portly proprietor who had served him and who now stood outside talking to a little man with side-whiskers. Moreover, the subject of their conversation, as Ben noted when he slithered near enough to hear, would have provided ample proof had there been no other.

  The subject was Ben himself!

  ‘Yus, ’e comes into ’ere this mornin’, and orders breakfast like
you’d think ’e was the King!’ the proprietor was saying. ‘And says ’e wants a ’ole loaf!’

  ‘Well, I never!’ replied the whiskered one.

  ‘“Sure you don’t want the ’ole shop?” I told ’im. “If you do, you won’t mind mentioning it, will you? Or Windsor Castle, or any other little thing like that.”’

  ‘Ah! Wag!’ smiled the whiskered one.

  ‘Ay, and you need it, to tell some of these fellers off! Yes, and then ’e starts shedding money from his clothes—like a slot-machine, as I told ’im.’

  ‘Well, I never!’

  ‘Shillin’s and ’arf-crowns—’e’d picked up a bit somewhere, you could see—ay, and pushed it down ’is trousers ’stead of ’is pockets in ’is ’urry. But I don’t think anything of it—we get all sorts round ’ere—till I start talking about this murder, see? And when I says there’s fifty pounds reward for catchin’ the sailor—’

  ‘What, is there?’ exclaimed the whiskered one.

  ‘Well, so I’ve ’eard,’ replied the proprietor, ‘though it ain’t out yet, in fact I was just goin’ out to get a paper and see when up ’e jumps and off ’e goes, like a stone from a sling!’

  ‘Well, I never!’ muttered the whiskered one. ‘But what about the cap you were mentioning? That’s what I want to hear about! What about the cap?’

  ‘Stay there—and I’ll show you the cap!’ cried the proprietor, and dived back into the shop.

  He was only gone for twenty seconds, but during those twenty seconds Ben slipped suddenly into a doorway and transformed himself into a pancake. For, from the opposite direction, came an old man who imagined that Ben was sleeping peacefully over a kitchen table in a house on Wimbledon Common.

  22

  Re-enter the Cap

  If the imminence of the cap had thrown Ben into a flutter, the imminence of Mr Lovelace threw him into a panic. A situation was developing that required the brain of a Sherlock Holmes, the courage of a Bulldog Drummond and the luck of a man who could fall over Beachy Head without hurting himself, and Ben was weak in all three necessities. ‘It ain’t fair,’ he told the door against which he was struggling to flatten himself, ‘ter do orl these things ter me! I’d chinge with Aunt Sally any time!’