Number Nineteen Page 7

  The candle spluttered and nearly went out. He stretched forward and slid it out of the draught that was coming through the crack under the front door.

  ‘All right! Nah where do we git? If ’e wasn’t no constable, wot did ’ooever ’e was want ter go pertendin’ for? Well, that’d depend on ’oo ’e was, wouldn’t it, and ’e wasn’t Smith, that I’ll lay. I’d ’ave twigged Smith fust go. But s’pose ’e was Smith’s pal wot ’elped ter bring me along ’ere? Then corse ’e’d know the answers to orl the questions ’e arsked, and ’e’d on’y arsk ’em ter see if I’d give the show away, or if I could be trusted like. “Are yer sure of this bloke?” p’r’aps Smith’s pal sez, meanin’ me. “I put the fear o’ Gawd on ’im,” sez Smith, wich is right, ’cos ’e did! “But wot if you’ve mide ’im more afeard o’ you than of the pleece?” sez Smith’s pal. “Ah, I git yer,” sez Smith, “yer mean ’e might spill the beans if ’e got the charnce, but ’ow’s ’e goin’ ter git the charnce?” “’E’d ’ave one if a bobby called,” sez Smith’s pal. “Well, we’ll ’ave one call,” sez Smith, “and see if ’e tikes the charnce? If ’e doesn’t we’ll know ’e’s okay, but if ’e does and spills the beans, we’ll finish ’im.”’

  He paused, surprised and gratified by his own cleverness, and then completed his reconstruction.

  ‘So then, Sammy, they decide that the pal’s the one ter come, ’cos ’e’s the one I wouldn’t reckernise, see, but don’t arsk me ’ow they got the bobby’s clothes and ’elmet, I’ll let that one go. Any’ow, along ’e comes, and if I’d fallen fer it I’d of bin Corpse Nummer Three! But I keeps me ’ead, and I don’t let on nothink, and now orf ’e’s gone agine ter tell Smith wot a good boy I am! “’Ow did it go?” sez Smith. “It went a fair treat,” sez ’is pal. “’E didn’t give us away?” sez Smith. “Not a heyelash,” sez ’is pal, “and I fooled ’im proper.” “Then ’e’s the bloke we want,” sez Smith, “and termorrer we can git on with it.”’

  Ben paused again, this time not so happily. ‘Git on with wot?’ he muttered.

  Well, that was what he was staying on at Number Nineteen to find out, wasn’t it? Course it was. To find out. But his tired brain, rebelling against overwork, now refused to help him any more, and his tired eyes blinked enviously at the sleeping cat on his lap. What about a bit of sleep himself? Time you and me moved, Sammy, ain’t it? He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he rubbed them.

  The candle was out, and the first hint of dawn was creeping greyly through the hall, and he was still on the stairs.

  ‘Go on!’ he said. ‘Am I ’ere?’

  11

  Discoveries in the Dawn

  Well, after all, it was not so surprising, for Ben had slept in plenty of other unusual places. Once he had slept up a chimney, to the mutual discomfort of himself and the maid who had come down in the morning to light the fire. Compared with that, a staircase was a palace.

  He did not move for a little while. He had to play a little game with himself first. It was by no means the first time he had played it. You won if you could wrap the solid realities of the night before into the filmy substance of a dream. Of course, you never won it, and Ben did not make history now by winning it. The corpses wouldn’t stay in the parcel. And after all, even if they had, what would he be doing here, sitting on a stair with a cat in his lap?

  No, not the cat. That had dissolved, anyway. He looked around for it vaguely.

  ‘I s’pose yer ’as ter ’ave a walk sometimes,’ he reflected, ‘but I wish yer wasn’t so fond o’ the vanishin’ act!’

  He felt a bit lost and lonely without it. The day that was beginning to percolate around him wasn’t going to be nice, it wasn’t going to be at all nice, and you wanted someone to talk to. How about looking for it?

  He called. ‘Oi, Sammy! Where’ve yer got ter?’ The sound of his voice was unsatisfactory. Different, somehow. Something gone wrong with his swallow? It did sometimes first thing in the morning. See, you don’t swallow in your sleep, so it needs sort of oiling. But another reason might be that things sound different in different lights. A cough in the sunshine isn’t the same as a cough by a flickering candle, and the acoustics of dawn have a special quality of their own, though Ben could not have put it in those words.

  But when the cat did not respond with its reappearance, it was not merely dislike of his own early morning voice that prevented him from calling it again. He had been asleep for a number of hours, and this meant that he had lost touch with the immediate sequence of events. A lot can happen while you are asleep. In a house like this it was a gift if you ever woke up again! Ben had woken up again, however, and his priority job was to go over the place to see whether everything was just as he had left it. He wanted to be sure there were no more corpses lying around.

  He went upstairs first, keeping an eye skinned for the cat as he went. He didn’t want it to come slithering through his legs while he wasn’t watching. He found no change on the first floor, apart from its changed appearance in the gradually growing daylight. There was one little thing that vaguely troubled him, though. A drip-drip-drip from the bathroom turned out to be the cold tap over the bath. That was better than the blood he had at first imagined it might be, but he thought he had turned the tap off after putting his head under it. He made a special point of turning taps off, because the sound of dripping was nobody’s nerve cure. Well, he supposed that this time he had been a bit careless, concentrating his attention instead on his dripping head.

  The second floor gave him another small worry. Nothing looked different bar the door. ‘Didn’t I leave it open?’ he asked himself. The last time he had left the room was when he had woken up and chased the unknown Thing that had awakened him. He cast his mind back to that unpleasant occasion, trying to recall details. ‘I gits orf the bed, and I goes ter the door, and I runs aht. No, ’arf a mo’! Afore I runs aht I remembers the candle, yus, that’s right, so I stops and I turns, and I goes ter the mantingpiece.’ He looked towards the mantelpiece. Okay. One candlestick still there, t’other gone. ‘I lights the candle, and I goes back ter the door—I goes back ter the door—yus, I goes back ter the door—and when I’m ahtside—?’

  In vain he tried to visualise himself closing the door behind him. The picture would not come. Of course, you often did things and forgot you had afterwards. Take a kitchen clock. You wind it and put it back, and as like as not you say a couple of minutes later, ‘Oh, I must wind the kitchen clock,’ and find you’ve wound it. So he might have closed the door. Only why would he close it? He was in a hurry, wasn’t he? When you’re in a hurry, you don’t waste time closing doors.

  Trying not to feel depressed, and still having found no sign of his feline companion, he went down again, investigated the ground floor, and then, taking a deep breath, descended to the basement. And in the kitchen he found something which, without any doubt whatever, was not as he had left it. The kitchen table had been without anything upon it, barring a soiled tablecloth, when he had last been in the room. Now the table bore a pint bottle of milk and a sandwich loaf!

  ‘Some ’un ’as bin ’ere!’ muttered Ben. ‘Bin ’ere while I slep’! Lummy!’

  Who? The question was answered a moment later when he moved the milk bottle to reveal a sheet of paper under it. On the sheet was scribbled the following note:

  ‘Dear Mr Jones Je Ne Pense Pas,

  ‘If you are awake when I pay my next call, and you may not be as I intend to call very early and you are sleeping most soundly at this moment (why have you chosen the stairs, by the way—isn’t the bed comfortable?) I shall be interested to learn how you have been getting on. So far you seem to have been quite a good boy, but before I can be perfectly, perfectly certain of you and trust you with fuller responsibility I shall require a complete account of all that has happened since our last happy meeting, whether there have been any incidents or discoveries that need discussing, and whether there have been any callers. You will find me particularly inte
rested in the callers, so be sure you do not leave any out. That, I assure you, Mr Jones, would be very, very foolish indeed. The fact that I have called myself without your knowing anything about it until you read these words will prove to you that you are not immune from observation, and that you may be watched at times when you least suspect it. Can you even say for certain that you are not being watched at the very moment you are reading these lines? Life is very uncertain, Mr Jones, as someone found yesterday on a park seat, you may remember, and it is so easy to make a fatal slip, is it not? But life also has its compensations, two of which you will find on this table. I do not want you to go out and do any shopping this morning, so the milk and bread will save you the trouble. Also, you might meet a paper-man who is selling your picture to the British Public. Outside this house you will be famous today, Mr Jones. That is why you will be so wise to stay in it.

  ‘Yours till our next,

  ‘Mr Smith, also Je Ne Pense Pas.’

  Ben read the letter through slowly, and then read it through again more slowly. It was all pretty clear barring Je Ne Pense Pas and Immune. ‘I expeck they’re somethink rude,’ he decided. Anyway, the important thing was that Mr Smith had been here—corse, ’e’d ’ave a latchkey—and that he was coming again. Meanwhile, food was necessary to stoke up for the troubles to come.

  As he was about to start his breakfast preparations it occurred to him that he had not quite completed his search, and that the dark passage containing the locked door was still to be investigated. Should he go there now, and get it over? On the other hand, why go there at all? He knew what lay on the other side of the locked door, and could not see what was to be gained by a second penny peep. Moreover, the Thing had come down the basement stairs, and if it was still anywhere about, up that dark passage it was most likely to be! Surely that was a most excellent reason for staying where one was?

  So Ben stayed, voyaging no farther than the larder, which was reached through a door from the kitchen. In the larder he found Mr Smith.

  ‘Gawd!’ he gasped.

  ‘You could not have put it better,’ answered Mr Smith. ‘How are you?’

  For a moment, indignation overcame all other emotions.

  ‘Wotcher want ter go playin’ tricks like this for?’ exclaimed Ben.

  ‘Being in the larder is not a trick,’ replied Mr Smith.

  ‘Well, never mind wot yer calls it, I won’t be no use to yer if yer give me ’eart disease! If yer was ’ere why did yer write me a note like yer wasn’t?’

  ‘The note warned you. Didn’t it say perhaps you were being watched while you read it? Well, you were. Every moment. I had an excellent view. You scratched yourself five times and rubbed your nose twice. Now let me watch you have your breakfast, and we can talk while you eat.’

  ‘No, thanks,’ retorted Ben. ‘When I torks I torks, and when I eats I eats, I don’t berlieve in mixin’ ’em. So we’ll tork fust, if it’s orl the sime ter you!’

  His indignation had given him a brave start, and he decided to keep up the bravery as long as he could. Once you let the other fellow get on top of you, you’re sunk.

  ‘I’ve no objection,’ Mr Smith responded, now moving out of the larder and sitting down on a kitchen chair. ‘I haven’t really come to see a show, and you know what you’ve got to talk about.’

  ‘There’s one thing I’d like ter tork abart,’ said Ben. ‘’Ow did yer git in?’

  ‘You don’t really suppose I have to ring, do you?’

  ‘Oh. Yer got a latch-key?’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘I see. But s’pose I’d bolted the door?’

  ‘Why suppose it, since you didn’t?’

  ‘If I did next time, yer’d have ter ring?’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘Oh! Yer mean—?’

  ‘Never mind what I mean,’ Mr Smith interrupted sharply. ‘Don’t waste more time, but give me your report!’

  ‘Oh! It’s a report wot I’m givin’, is it? Okay. ’Ere’s one. Some’un come in the ’ouse in the night, and ’e went up inter the bathroom and left the tap drippin’.’

  ‘Probably myself. Next?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Have you had any callers while you were awake?’

  ‘I ’ad one.’

  ‘Who?’

  Now they were coming to it. Ben kept his mind steady.

  ‘Yus, and yer won’t like ter ’ear this!’

  ‘You alarm me?’

  ‘If yer want the truth—’

  ‘I want nothing else.’

  ‘Orl right, yer gittin’ it! It alarmed me, too. See, it was a bobby!’

  Ben stared at Mr Smith with what he hoped was the proper expression of apprehension. He felt he was not doing too badly, and he prayed he could keep it up. Meanwhile, Mr Smith gazed back, his own expression giving nothing away.

  ‘Really? A bobby?’ repeated Mr Smith.

  ‘Yus. And ’e come abart the—you know what!’

  Mr Smith nodded thoughtfully. ‘And what did he ask you?’ he enquired.

  ‘’E wanted ter know if I knoo anythink abart me,’ answered Ben, ‘if yer git me, and ’e showed me that photo you took! Yus, and I ain’t thankin’ yer fer that!’

  ‘I wouldn’t expect you to,’ responded Mr Smith. ‘Yes? Go on.’

  But Ben was discovering that it was by no means easy to go on, the situation being perplexingly subtle for his simple mind. The situation was that he had to pretend he had believed the policeman genuine, and he had to tell his story to one who already knew all its details. Nor was this all. He had to pretend further that he did not know Mr Smith knew them, and if by any slip he gave himself away it would be revealed that he had recognised the fake, and he would lose the credit he was trying to establish for having sent the constable off empty-handed.

  ‘Go on,’ repeated Mr Smith.

  ‘I’m goin’ on,’ said Ben, ‘but afore I do, you might tell me why yer showed ’em that pickcher!’

  ‘But you already know that. To keep you indoors.’

  ‘Meanin’ yer didn’t want me ter ’ave the charnce of splittin’ to a bobby?’

  ‘In spite of its rashness, you might have done so in a moment of lunacy.’

  ‘Oh! Well, did I ’ave a moment o’ loonercy larst night when I didn’t ’ave ter go ter no bobby ’cos ’e come ter me?’

  ‘You’re going to tell me that.’

  ‘Orl right. Then I didn’t. ’E arsked a lot o’ questions, but ’e didn’t git no chinge out o’ me. P’r’aps if ’e ’ad, ’e’d of bin ’ere waitin’ fer yer when yer come.’

  That, Ben thought, was rather good.

  ‘Go on,’ said Mr Smith.

  Blast him! How much longer was he supposed to go on? Why wouldn’t Mr Smith own up and end the silly game? The test had served its purpose—at least, Mr Smith would think it had—so what was the object of making Ben repeat what was already known?

  ‘I carn’t give the ’ole conversashun.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to. If you discussed the weather you can leave that out. What brought him?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘What made him come to this house?’

  ‘Well, yer give ’im the photo, didn’t yer?’

  ‘There was no address on it.’

  ‘Corse there wasn’t. You must of give it to ’im along with the photo, and if that wasn’t daft—’

  Whoa! He was getting into dangerous water! It was the daftness of this that had weakened the genuine aspect of the whole episode, for it was quite obvious that Mr Smith would never have given the address away. Yes, but half a mo’! The policeman hadn’t said anything about that. That was what Ben had thought—wasn’t it?—when the policeman had said the other thing? What was the other thing? Keep yer mind steady! What was it? The trouble was that Mr Smith was looking at him hard, and you can’t think so easy when people look at you hard. Why didn’t he own up? Lummy! Was the reason that he hadn’t anything to own up to? Was Ben wrong, and ha
d it been a real bobby, after all!

  ‘You seem in trouble,’ said Mr Smith.

  ‘It’s on’y that I jest thort o’ somethink,’ answered Ben.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s right—on’y jest remembered it.’

  ‘Let’s have it then.’

  Fortunately, at that moment, Ben did remember it.

  ‘Well, see, it was like this. Corse, you didn’t give ’im the address. Yer ain’t sich a mug as that!’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Wot the bobby sed, and wot I’d fergot, was that ’e’d come ’cos some’un ’ad seed me come in ’ere.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Do yer? Well, I don’t!’

  ‘What don’t you see?’

  ‘Well, I was brort ’ere subconshus, wasn’t I.’

  ‘That’s one way to put it.’

  ‘And it was you wot brort me, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I did perform you that service.’

  ‘Yus, one day, when I get a ’ole week, I’m goin’ ter write and thank yer. But if yer was doin’ me a service, like yer sed, I don’t s’pose yer carried me in ’ere not with nobody watchin’, and even if they was watchin’, ’ow’d they reckernise me? I was okay in the pickcher, but yer looks dif’rent when yer subconshus.’

  Mr Smith appeared amused. Ben couldn’t see what was funny.

  ‘You certainly looked different when you came out of your subconsciousness,’ he remarked, ‘but let us leave that point. You have nothing more to tell me about this policeman?’

  ‘Yus, I ’ave,’ replied Ben, suddenly realising how he could finally prove whether the policeman had been the real thing or not—or, at any rate, whether Mr Smith believed him so. ‘I’ve got ter warn yer!’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yus! ’E’s callin’ agine. In the mornin’, ’e sed. ’Is larst words was, “That’s a promise!” So we gotter look aht—ain’t we?’