Detective Ben Read online

  ‘When I tell you.’

  ‘When’ll that be?’

  ‘Tomorrow—the next day—next week—next year. You’ll know when it happens.’

  ‘Wot—yer means I’ve gotter sleep ’ere?’

  ‘Of course! I gather already that apparent denseness is a part of your particular method, and I don’t say it’s a bad idea. I was told you were an unusual man. But you can shed your denseness with me, if you don’t mind, and save a lot of time. Now I’ll show you your room—and remember this instruction. You are to go into no other.’

  ‘Yus, but I ain’t brought my perjamers,’ remarked Ben.

  She led him across the purple carpet to a passage. The passage was also carpeted, and their feet made no sound as they went along it. They passed two doors, one on each side. Ben strained his ears, but heard nothing behind the doors. No one came out of them.

  Were he and the woman alone in the place? The evidence pointed to it.

  He risked a leading question.

  ‘Orl the fambily asleep?’ he asked.

  The question produced no reply. She was depressingly uncommunicative. They reached the end of the passage. Its termination was another door. She pointed to it.

  ‘Go in there,’ she ordered, ‘and don’t come out till you’re called.’

  ‘Do I put me boots out?’ he inquired.

  ‘Listen!’ she answered. ‘You’ve begun well, and I think you will do. There may be times when I will even enjoy your humour. But bear this in mind. You haven’t been engaged to play in a comedy.’

  Whereupon she opened the door, pushed him in, and then closed the door. An instant later he heard the key turn.

  ‘Orl right!’ muttered Ben, while he listened for her retreating footsteps and heard none; the soft carpet gave away no secrets. ‘If it ain’t going to be no comedy fer me, it ain’t goin’ to be one fer you, neither!’

  He rebelled against her abrupt departure. She had not even stopped to switch on the light. He stretched out his hand for the switch, touched something cold, and jumped away. He jumped into something soft, and jumped back. The cold thing was merely the doorknob, and the soft thing was only the side of a bed, but in the dark all things are horrible when you are not feeling at your best. It took him five seconds to recover.

  He stretched out his hand again, more cautiously this time, for he was not certain of his exact position and he did not want to establish abrupt contact with any other objects. His position being quite exact, he touched the doorknob a second time, proved its identity, and worked his fingers north-westwards. It was good navigation. The fingers came to port at another cold thing. The electric light switch.

  ‘Got yer!’ murmured Ben.

  He worked the switch. His only reward was the sound of the click. No light came on.

  ‘Narsty,’ he decided.

  Leaving the door, he carefully retraced his way to the bed he had leapt against. He wanted to sit down. His knees weren’t feeling very good. But just as he was about to sit down—he was actually in process of descending—it occurred to him that somebody might be in the bed. This caused a rapid change of direction, and he sat down on the floor.

  Well, for the moment, he would stay on the floor. When you’re on the floor you have had your bump, and you can’t bump any lower. Besides, by remaining where he was he would avoid the necessity of feeling the bed and perhaps finding something. Thus he took his rest on the carpet, and from this humble level set himself to think. His thinking shaped itself into a series of unanswerable questions.

  ‘Fust. ’Oo’s this ’ere woman?’

  He stared into the darkness ahead of him, and the darkness remained uninformative.

  ‘Second. ’Oo am I?’

  He could make more progress here, though not sufficient. He was the dead bloke he had spoken to on the bridge. And the woman had engaged him for some job. But if she had never seen him before, and had to identify him by a skull-pin, where had she engaged him from? A Murderers’ Registry Office?

  ‘Nex’. Wot is the job?’

  Murdering certainly seemed to be connected with it. Had she not told him so, in effect, on the doorstep? Of course, that might have been just a bit of back-chat. She was a puzzle, she was—no knowing how to take her. And then do you engage people to kill each other at so much an hour, like sweeping a room? Go on!

  Just the same, she had implied that this was not going to be a comedy, and with that Ben very earnestly agreed. Whatever her job was, he had a job of his own, and he was going to hang on to it till kingdom come. And it probably would come. But he could not complete his job till he knew hers. So what was it?

  The darkness refused to tell.

  ‘Nex’. Wot abart this journey?’

  Blank.

  ‘When’s it goin’ to start?’

  Blank.

  ‘Where’s it goin’ to be to?’

  Blank.

  ‘’Ow am I goin’ to git out o’ this ’ouse, s’posin’ I want to?’

  Blank.

  ‘Yus, and wot’s goin’ on in this ’ouse? That’s the fust thing, ain’t it? Wot’s goin’ on?’

  This time he received an answer startlingly, but though it was illuminating it merely threw light upon himself. A thin beam shot across the room, played on him for an instant, and vanished.

  He leapt to his feet, to be out of its path if it reappeared. He stood stock-still in the new spot to which he had leapt. For five seconds nothing happened. Then the beam shot across the room again, picked him out as before, and vanished as before. It was following him.

  ‘Lumme, it’s one o’ them death rays!’ he thought, palpitating. A second thought was more comforting. ‘Then why ain’t I dead? So I ain’t!’

  A sound outside the door switched his mind to a fresh unpleasantness.

  ‘She’s still outside!’ he reflected. ‘She’s bin there orl the time, listenin’. Crikey, ’ave I bin torkin’ in me think?’

  The key turned. The door slowly opened. Once more the thin streak of light revealed Ben’s features. Its source was an electric torch, held in the hand of a tall, thin, shadowy figure.

  4

  The Man in the Next Room

  ‘Good-evening, Mr Lynch,’ said a soft, effeminate voice. ‘That is, I take it you are Mr Lynch?’

  Ben also took it that he was, and struggling to conceal his fright, he replied, with hoarse gruffness:

  ‘That’s me!’

  ‘It is a sweet name,’ went on the soft voice. It reminded one vaguely of dressmaking. ‘Almost too sweet to believe. So perhaps, after all, we need not believe it?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I expect you have chosen it to indicate your habits?’

  A thin, ghostly hand moved up to the speaker’s collarless neck, engaging it in a pale and flabby clasp.

  ‘The last one called himself Churchyard, but I always thought that was a grave mistake. It proved prophetic. Yes.’

  ‘I s’pose you know wot yer torkin’ abart?’ inquired Ben.

  The visitor’s attitude was not balm to the spine, but at least he did not appear immediately menacing, and this circumstance assisted the process of recovery.

  ‘You,’ he answered. ‘Mr Harry Lynch. You will look charming one day in wax. Meanwhile, I am very pleased to meet you in the flesh and to welcome you to our little home. Do you like it?’

  ‘Well, I ain’t seen much of it,’ remarked Ben.

  ‘You will see more of it.’ He had been standing in the doorway, but now he suddenly entered, closing the door quietly behind him. ‘Perhaps more than you want, but that is only a guess. I spend a lot of my time guessing. Life is terribly boring, apart from its occasional highlights—yes, there are occasional highlights—and you must fill in the time with some occupation. Even staying in bed tires you, after a certain number of hours. Once I played golf. Yes, really. I got so I could hit the ball. But you can’t play golf here. So I guess. I guessed right about Mr Churchyard. Do you mind if I examine you a little more close
ly? You seem an unusually interesting specimen.’

  Once more the electric torch—the only source of illumination—nearly blinded Ben.

  ‘’Ere, I’ve ’ad enough o’ that!’ exclaimed Ben.

  ‘Yes, I hope you will forgive me for having used my private peepholes. They are in the wall. My room is next to yours. Isn’t that nice? But it will be better—do you mind?—if you speak a little more quietly.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, it’s rather late, isn’t it? Now, then, your face. Yes, I do like it. Not classic, of course. Not aesthetic. But—as I have already implied—manna for wax. And you can see it on the front page of a newspaper, with interesting titbits under it. I do a lot of reading.’

  ‘Yus, well, that’s enough abart my fice,’ growled Ben. He disliked the analysis, and he was sure Mr Harry Lynch would have objected also. ‘Wot abart your fice?’

  ‘Oh, certainly.’ The torch swung round, and the visitor’s chin became grotesquely illuminated. Above the chin were a weak mouth, very pale cheeks, and light blue eyes. The crowning hair was yellow-gold; perfectly waved. ‘Not your fancy, eh?’

  ‘I saw worse once,’ replied Ben.

  ‘How you must have suffered,’ sighed the visitor. ‘Personally, I like my face. I spend a lot of time looking at it. My theory is that you either attend to your appearance, or you do not. No half-measures. I attend to it. My life is different from yours, but, having accepted it—and again there are no half-measures—I am quite as happy as you, or a politician, or a member of the Stock Exchange, before we all go to hell. Now tell me something else. This is important. What do you think of your hostess?’

  ‘Ah, well, there you are,’ answered Ben noncommittally, while trying to work out what Harry Lynch’s opinion should be.

  ‘Am I?’ murmured the visitor. ‘I wonder! I see you believe in caution. You may be right—especially to one who has not been introduced and who has peepholes in walls. Do you always sit on the floor, by the way? I may be a policeman. Only I am not a policeman. If I were, I should be very careful not to put the idea into your head. My name is Sutcliffe. No relation to the Yorkshire Sutcliffe. Cricket tires me. Stanley Sutcliffe. Sometimes our hostess calls me Mr Sutcliffe. Then I call her Miss Warren. Sometimes she calls me Stanley. Then I call her Helen. sometimes—in strict private—she calls me Stan. What I call her then is not for your ears. Are we better acquainted? I hope so. I am feeling rather tired, and want to get back to bed. I hope you like my dressing-gown. But what I am asking you is whether you like your hostess?’

  ‘She’s a good looker,’ replied Ben.

  ‘She is certainly a good looker. She has one look that is so good it melts me. Be careful.’

  ‘It ’asn’t melted me.’

  ‘I don’t expect you have seen it yet.’

  ‘It won’t melt me when I does!’

  ‘I wish I could still paint. I used to, you know. Futuristic. But I gave it up. I found the brushes so heavy. I’ve given up a lot of things.’ His pale blue eyes grew sad. ‘I would like to paint you. I am sure we could startle Art between us. Your face must be preserved somehow!’

  ‘Yus, well, we’re torkin’ of Miss Warren’s fice,’ Ben reminded him, secretly grateful for the valuable information of her name.

  ‘Ah—Miss Warren’s face,’ murmured Stanley Sutcliffe. ‘Yes. Miss Warren’s face.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Dangerous, Mr Lynch. Dangerous. Why, even—’ He paused, and opened his eyes. ‘But it will not melt you, eh?’

  ‘Nothink melts me,’ asserted Ben. ‘Not even when me victims ’oller!’

  ‘Mr Churchyard made the same boast,’ smiled Mr Sutcliffe sympathetically. ‘Standing in the very spot you are standing in. “She can’t make me do what I don’t agree to do,” he said. And he would agree to most. Then she came in—’ He paused again, and turning to the door, directed his torch towards it. ‘Well, well, we shall see. Of course, Mr Churchyard was not the first. In my own case, I made no boast. I just gave way at once. Much the simplest. I believe in ease. One day—if we’re allowed the time—we must discuss philosophy.’

  ‘P’r’aps yer could do with a bit,’ suggested Ben.

  ‘Perhaps I could, and perhaps I could not,’ replied Mr Sutcliffe thoughtfully. ‘And perhaps, after all, it would be a mistake to discuss it. Discussion is rather fatiguing, though, of course, one can always train. Well, now I have seen you and know what is on the other side of the wall, I shall return to my room. Good-night.’

  ‘’Ere, ’arf a mo’!’ exclaimed Ben, quickly. ‘If you’ve done, I’ve got a few things I’d like to ask!’

  ‘Be sure they are few,’ said Mr Sutcliffe, ‘and don’t count on getting answers.’

  ‘Well—corse, I knows a lot,’ began Ben, cautiously feeling his way. ‘I knows I’ve bin engaged fer a job—’

  ‘But you don’t know what the job is,’ interposed Mr Sutcliffe, helpfully. ‘No. And you won’t, till she chooses to tell you.’

  ‘Meanin’ you won’t!’

  ‘I certainly won’t.’

  ‘P’r’aps yer can’t?’

  ‘Perhaps I can’t. Perhaps is such a useful word. It means nothing.’

  ‘Oh, well—I can wait!’

  ‘Since you will have to, that is fortunate. I have no doubt, Mr Lynch, that in your own slum, or castle, or service flat, or Soho restaurant, you are the monarch of all you survey—but there is only one monarch here!’

  ‘Meanin’ Miss Warren?’

  ‘Meaning Miss Warren.’

  ‘Well, I’m ’ere to do ’er instrucshuns,’ said Ben, ‘but she can’t twist ’Arry Lynch rahnd ’er little finger!’

  ‘She can twist Stanley Sutcliffe round her little toe,’ confessed that individual.

  ‘Then why ain’t you doin’ ’er job?’

  Mr Sutcliffe seemed intrigued by the question. He considered it as though this were the first occasion it had occurred to him.

  ‘I expect I am too gentle,’ he replied, at last. ‘I only know two or three ways of killing people, and of those only one is a certainty.’

  ‘Oh! Well, what’s wrong with the certainty?’

  ‘No one knows anything about that but myself.’ He suddenly frowned. ‘And we don’t talk about it … But the real reason,’ he went on, changing the trend of the conversation, ‘is that Miss Warren has other uses for me and likes me to remain at the flat. Do you know, Mr Lynch, I haven’t been out for five months.’

  ‘Go on!’

  ‘It’s the truth. And it’s a pity. Or isn’t it? Ease. Comfort. The pleasant passing hours. Omar Khayyám.’ He held up a soft hand and moved the fingers contemplatively. ‘I wonder whether I could still hit the ball?’

  5

  What the Morning Brought

  Ben spent one of the most unpleasant nights of his experience, and the extent of the unpleasantness may be gauged from the circumstance that his nocturnal experience was vast, including coal-bunkers, luggage-vans, dustbins, water-tanks, and once a coffin.

  When Mr Stanley Sutcliffe left the room, his strangely flabby atmosphere remained, hanging on the darkness like a nauseous scent. The possibility that his pale blue eye might at any moment be plastered against some invisible peephole assisted the illusion of his continued presence. Helen Warren, at least, was physically beautiful. She could give satisfaction to the senses if not to the soul. Mr Stanley Sutcliffe could not give satisfaction, in Ben’s view, to anything. Not even to a golf ball.

  ‘Wonner why she ’as ’im arahnd?’ he reflected. ‘Is ’e one o’ them conternental giggerliots?’

  Ben had been to Paris, and at a dance-hall had watched anæmic young men perform amorous revolutions with jewelled ladies, the latter usually stout and elderly; and when he had asked what these curious male creatures were, he had been informed. He liked a bit of French, so he had memorised the word.

  ‘That’s wot ’e is, a giggerliot,’ he decided, ‘and she keeps ’im shut ’ere case ’e runs away. Five months—lumme, no wunn
er ’e looks like Monday’s cod!’ A nasty thought followed. ‘’Ope she ain’t goin’ ter keep me ’ere five months!’

  The probability was happily reduced by the reflection that he would make a very bad giggerliot.

  After creeping to the door and discovering that Mr Sutcliffe had relocked it, Ben turned to the bed. The time had come to test it, because he did not want to spend the whole night—or what was left of the night—on the floor. If the spy-holes were used, the procedure would not reflect much credit on Harry Lynch, while even if the spy-holes were not used, the morning light, revealing a comfortable empty bed, would produce humiliation. So he felt his way carefully towards the spot where he believed the bed was, screwed up his courage, raised his fist, and brought it down hard. If anything was on the bed, he was going to get in the first whack.

  He whacked air. A second effort, however, was more successful. He whacked a pillow. It yielded with pleasant obedience to his attack, as did the rest of the bedding when the attack was continued rapidly down its complete length … Good! Just a bed. Nothing nasty in it. That was all right, then!

  He took off his boots. Or, rather, somebody else’s. They had had quite half-a-dozen previous owners, and the last had discarded them into a ditch beside a dead cat. Ben had left the cat but had taken the boots. Morally one has a right to the surplus contents of a ditch, though technically they may be crown property.

  He did not take off his collar because he hadn’t one. It saved time. He did not take off his coat because it was next to nature, and it was risky to sun-bathe when anybody might pop in on you. The same applied to his trousers. Going to bed, with Ben, was taking off your boots; getting up, putting them on again.

  He stretched himself out on the bed. Not in it. You can’t spring so far when you take the clothes with you.

  Nothing happened saving the constant expectation that something would. He listened for footsteps. He watched for the thin ray of light. The minutes slipped by in nerve-racking uneventfulness and silent blackness. Even the silence and the blackness contributed some special quality to the occasion. He had never known them so utter.