The Rupa Book of Heartwarming & The Rupa Book of Wicked Stories

by Ruskin Bond

  'Finish,' said I.

  'Finish,' echoed Hepplethwaite, lounging contentedly back in his chair and puffing lazy smoke-rings towards the tropic stars.

  'And golden silence cometh to her own again.'

  Hepplethwaite nodded.

  Suddenly I jerked upright in my chair both ears pricking, from somewhere out in the dark bush came a faint whirr, a tinkle and the distant nasal intoning of a familiar, a very familiar tune, the indomitable Bluebells of invincible Scotland.

  'Mackintyre!'

  Hepplethwaite bounced from his seat, poised rigid for the moment like a pointer pointing, whirled on his heel and dashed into the hut.

  Another second and he raced past me, brandishing a native battle-axe that ornamented his walls, and the darkness engulfed him.

  A minute later a startled yell pierced the night air, followed by a metallic crash and a whirring as if all the clock-springs on earth were tearing out.

  Then silence, golden silence, I lay back in my chair and laughed and laughed—which is a silly way I have.

  The Cat-Lovers

  E.H.W. MEYERSTEIN

  Mr Justice Grist and Mr Justice Leanjer had been friends from the days when they confronted one another as advocates in assize courts. They had played into one another's hands then, through the strength of their joint atachment to cases of robbery with violence, and now, exalted to the Bench, they had earned the pleasure of pronouncing those sentences, of which, by means best known to practitioners of the Criminal Bar, it had previously been their earnest wish to ensure a good annual return.

  Both were of the type that regretted the obsolescence of the good old judicial harangue before the death sentence. As youths, not crueller than most, they had married masterful women earlier in life than their careers warranted, and groaned under the lashes of tongues for which their professions allowed no unpunishable redress. Being childless, they could not 'take it out of their offspring. Nagging breeds severity in the nagged; the severity of these went into their profession, and was ultimately wreaked on the backs of the judged.

  They were now getting old, and, like the retired naval officers of the 1840s, deplored the milk-and-water discipline of the modern penitentiary. Seldom, very seldom nowadays, they were treated to an offender who would plead: 'I know what punishment to expect—the cat; it is the only punishment for such a cowardly action,' and have the precious opportunity of replying: 'You are perfectly right, and I am going to sentence you to twenty strokes with the cat.' This, for them, had been the high-water mark of delight, to agree with the delinquent, by preference a strapping young miner of, say, twenty-two, and actually to order him what he asked for. Far more often today it was their fate to observe: 'The medical report states that you are not fit for a flogging with the cat-o'-nine-tails. I therefore reluctantly award you (so many) strokes with the birch.' Latterly, indeed, the power of the medical profession had become so menacing that they were reduced to prescribing the longest term of imprisonment allowed by statute, with no corporal hors-d'œuvre whatever.

  Both were in the public eye, and the Sunday papers, as often as they could, published their awards together, so as to impress their readers with the survival of the Middle Ages.

  But one circumstance alone was wanting to cement their friendship; it had not yet fallen to the lot of either to sentence to imprisonment, with a whipping, a man who had already undergone such a sentence on the recommendation of the other. Though many a prisoner had been flogged twice, or even three times, by Grist's or Leanjer's orders, there was, oddly enough, no instance of a Grist victim's back smarting under Leanjer or a Leanjer victim's back smarting under Grist. The learned brothers had often commented in talk or correspondence on the queerness of this fact. Had they been literary critics matters might have been arranged to suit their convenience, but the divine impartiality of the English judicial system subjected them to the divagations of chance. They had come to the philosophical conclusion that the hand of Providence was shown here; life had still something more to offer, and dreary hours on the Bench or opposite a partner for life were sustained by the hope of the right permutation occurring at last.

  It came and, as neither could have anticipated, in double strength. In the same month, and on the same day, Edward Round and Derek Bollow, aged twenty-four and twenty-six, were sentenced to fifteen strokes with the cat and eighteen months' hard labour at the Old Bailey, Round for a post-office raid with pepper, Bollow for robbing an impatient landlord of his gold watch and chain after bruising him. Their judges obtained remission from their wives for that evening, and at their club over a bottle of Anjou '24 celebrated the astonishing coincidence.

  'I recall your man very well,' said Mr Justice Leanjer. 'He brought up the rear of a very dismal day some five years ago. He was reported fit for modified Borstal treatment, but I had the satisfaction of prescribing a modified whipping.'

  'And I recall yours,' said Mr Justice Grist. 'Not quite so long ago that was. Every attempt was made to prove that the assault on the girl was unaccompanied by robbery, but I put a question to her before she left the box; it convinced the jury that the shilling missed from her purse was picked up by the prisoner.'

  In prison, a few days before undergoing the corporal part of their sentences, Round and Bollow during exercise snatched a word or two about their careers. Idleness and a doting mother had propelled each to crime, but the inspiration of the birch and the anticipation of the cat made them avengers, though outwardly respectful and subservient. Moreover, as readers of a Sunday paper, they appreciated the relation in which they stood to their judges, though they had not seen the report of their trials.

  'I should like to get Leanjer when I'm out,' said Round, a squat, snub-nosed, ruddy ironmonger's assistant with black hair and hazel eyes.

  'I'm with you,' said Bollow, a tall, freckled, cocksure, blue-eyed plumber with huge red hands and a ginger crest. 'You should have just seen his face when he ordered me that dose. I wonder he don't come and have a look at us here. I suppose you can't be a judge and a visiting magistrate.'

  'The papers would probably get wind of it if our judges stood by while we were being bashed. It will be next week, I think. The cruellest part is not letting us know when it's coming.'

  Round was not far out. Three mornings later, at about 10.30, an officer popped his head into Bollow's cell (and into Round's some few minutes later) with: 'Bollow, get your coat on, and come with me.'

  The doctor was waiting, and two more officers were in the offing. After an examination of throat, lungs, and heart, the officers marched in, each seizing an arm, and conducted Bollow to an isolated part of the prison, where the triangle and the volunteer flogger, a 'screw' who earned an extra pound that day, stood, strap in hand, ready to receive him. 'Bollow,' remarked the Governor later, 'did not cry out more than men generally do under punishment. Round didn't take it nearly so well, I thought. Short men seldom do. Doctor, you stood the ordeal very creditably.'

  On some natures the cat acts as the law requires it should. They are ashamed of themselves, only wish to skulk for the rest of their lives, and, like the women whom Pericles addressed, be heard of neither for evil nor for good. Some few anticipate the law's purpose by taking their lives in the interval between their sentence and its performance. But Round and Bollow fell into neither of these categories. For them their bashings were dramatic inspirations. They looked forward now to the execution shed— 'cold meat shop' they styled it—but only after a double murder that would be completely satisfactory to their now thoroughly warped intellects. Lest tender domestic influences should wean them from their joint decision, they found on their release (they were 'model prisoners,' and obtained remissions) that their partners had left them for good. Round's wife had gone off with her lodger, and Bollow's girl had married his first cousin. They obtained plumbing and bricklaying jobs in the same district, thanks to the nervousness of the prison authorities, who did not wish to shoot two such persons out on to the world without occupation
s, and set up house together in one room, saved from quarrelling by the force and urgency of their mission.

  The two judges lived on different sides of the same street, not a dozen streets away from the small newspaper shop over which the ex-convicts lodged. Scarce a day passed but the latter took a stroll down that respetable privet-bordered thoroughfare, and often they were rewarded with a sight of the elderly gentlemen walking side by side. Their wives' appearance they knew quite well after a few days in that neighbourhood. Every Tuesday Lady Grist went to Lady Leanjer's for Bridge, and the players could be seen in the front room from the pavement. Their husbands did not play, and in vacation would sometimes join forces at Mr Justice Grist's, while the ladies were thus engaged. More often than not, when the rubbers were over, Lady Leanjer would leave the house with her friend to bring the judge back to his evening meal. She would not trust her friend to send him home, as she felt uneasy if he was out of her sight and in another woman's company for even five minutes.

  True to type, as some who have frequented lawyers' chambers will be aware, the judges were extremely averse to making the fabric of their domiciles more secure. This was the one point on which no conjugal nagging could be brought to bear effectively. But at last something really had to be done. There was a great fissure in the porch of Mr Justice Leanjer's, and there were loose bricks above the study window at the back of Mr Justice Grist's, and it was there that pointing operations were first begun. The building firm chosen was not that which employed Bollow, but it was not hard for him to scrape acquaintance with one of the men on the job, and learn a little about the internal economy of Number 18. Every Tuesday, the day of the Bridge party, one of the two servants had the afternoon off, so it was evident that for a successful battue a Tuesday afternoon in vacation when the two judges were alone in the house, with either the cook or the house-parlourmaid in charge, must be selected.

  Worked had ceased at 18, and had begun at 23. It was a raw drizzly twilight when Round and Bollow, in appearance two lounging capped and belted working men, with the corner of a white card peeping out of the torn coat-pocket of either, appeared at the front-door of Mr Justice Grist's, taking their stand one behind the other. Bollow knocked and rang, according to the instructions on the brass plate, and the cook appeared.

  'Me and my mate have called for a bag of tools what we left here a day or two back.'

  'I don't remember your face,' the cook began. 'Where's the other one?' But while she spoke Round had been pushing his mate forward, and now both were in the hall, the door was shutting, and the chloroformed gag being applied by Bollow. Round cut the telephone wire. During this joint procedure not a word was spoken. Then, still one behind the other, they advanced quickly towards a room at the back of the long hall.

  The judges, both a little deaf, were sitting at a table in full view of the garden, playing chess. An open box of cigars, a sherry decanter, and two glasses stood on the projecting rim of a large mahogany bookcase with double doors in the lower section opposite the fire-place. 'I have moved,' said Mr Justice Grist.

  'It is your last move,' said Bollow audibly, and Round removed the key of the door to his pocket.

  The elderly gentlemen turned spectacled eyes simultaneously on the intruders. They did not rise from their chairs; they were lifted from them. By a preconcerted arrangement each man took a victim. Though the owner of the house was not so spare as his colleague, he was a baby in the grip of Round.

  'This is an outrage,' spluttered short-sighted Mr Justice Leanjer, as his glasses fell on the floor. Bollow trod on them. The owner of the house was tongue-tied—he had recognised the men at once. 'We're not going to waste words on you,' said Round; 'You're going to be killed first, and flogged after. But you'll know what a bashing is like before you get one. Steady him, pard! Ready! Now kiss your learned brother! "Kiss," I say!'

  With tremendous force the heads of the judges were driven against one another; Mr Justice Grist's glasses broke on the side of his colleague's nose.

  'Won,' roared Round.

  The dazed and shaking forms were placed again in position, 'Kiss!' Another resounding crack.

  'Tew,' roared Bollow.

  Three, four, five, six followed in sharp succession. The two heads were now dangling, the floor prickly with broken glass. At the eighth impact Round called 'Enough! Strip them!'

  A scuffling noise was heard in the passage, 'She's waking up,' said Round.

  'Never mind her! She'll have to go out for the police. Get to with the work!'

  In a quarter of an hour's time Round unlocked the door and tok his place opposite Bollow at the chess table. So neatly had the affair been handled that not a piece was overturned. The men had swept them aside, poured themselves out sherries, taken a cigar apiece, and sat, wine-glasses before them, contemplating their work. Each smoked, his stout leather belt hanging across his knees.

  Lady Grist, accompanied by her friend Lady Leanjer, let herself in with her key before the cook returned with four policemen. The two ex-convicts were not the first things the ladies saw before they fainted. They saw the naked plum-coloured backs of their husbands side by side on the library carpet. Neatly balanced on the nape of each neck was a card. These were inscribed in block capitals:

  Exhibit 1

  Exhibit 2

  Cat-Lover Grist

  Cat-Lover Leanjer

  Merrily laughed Round and Bollow three months later, as each stood on the drop.

  The Women Avenge

  EDGAR JEPSON

  Lady Northwold gazed across the big drawing-room at Lady Mosenheim and hated her. She hated her big, sleepy brown eyes; she hated her broad, white, waxen, impassive face; she hated her big, heavy figure; she hated the feline relaxation with which it sprawled in the easy chair.

  But nowadays she hated so many things. Before Charles had been killed at Neuve Chapelle and Jack at Loos she had not even taken the trouble to despise Lady Mosenheim. She had considered her a creature of another sphere, whose appearance and attributes were of no importance. Now she hated her: she was a part of this new, dreadful, desolate life. She could not even give her credit for the firmness and skill with which she handled the committee of women, checked their chatter, drove them along and dealt efficaciously with the heavy tale of work. They were in earnest: no doubt of that. But they were a pampered, feckless crew, used to gabble and to have their gabbling listened to, incapable of sustained effort. Often she helped Lady Mosenheim, supporting her with a few incisive, frequently contemptuous, words which hushed and abashed the time-wasters. But she hated her. She was part of this welter of death into which the world had fallen, in which she herself went on living, if indeed it could be called living.

  Between them they drove another motion through and chose three women to see to the carrying out of the work it involved, one of them capable, all three in earnest, deadly earnest. They would make mistakes, silly mistakes; but they would learn from them and get the work done; hundreds of wounded men would benefit by it.

  In spite of herself Lady Northwold breathed a sigh of satisfaction at the progress they had made. Lady Mosenheim gazed with a faint, pondering frown at her handsome, high-bred face, with its clearly cut features and its disdainful air. The hair under her hat was white. Before Neuve Chapelle it had been a warm chestnut brown. Her face had been smooth; now there were deep lines in it. She looked more than her forty-nine years. But she sat upright in her straight-backed chair. Her face was serene. Lady Mosenheim made up her mind.

  The Duchess of Hammersmith was putting forward a proposal that efforts should be made to bring in the country clergy and arrange that wounded officers should become paying guests at their parsonages. Lady Northwold's eyes wandered to Clarissa Leggat. But for the war Clarissa would have been Charles's wife months ago. Lady Northwold had been doubtful about the match: Clarissa had been one of the most extravagant as well as one of the most beautiful girls in London; it had seemed not unlikely that she would ruin Charles. Yes: there was no doubt that
Clarissa had kept her beauty; but something of its colour had faded; her violet eyes were duller than they had used to be. Well, she was not extravagant now: that frock was months out of fashion and shabby; she had not bought a new frock since the war began. Hundreds of wounded men were grateful to Clarissa. With her wonderful vitality she never seemed to tire. Sometimes she complained that she never tired. Lady Northwold saw that the change in her also displayed itself in a restlessness; she changed her position half a dozen times while the Duchess of Hammersmith was speaking. No: Clarissa would not have ruined Charles.

  A sub-committee was appointed to deal with the proposal of the Duchess of Hammersmith, and the meeting broke up.

  As Lady Northwold was going towards the door, Miss Beecher, Lady Mosenheim's secretary, gave her a note. In it Lady Mosenheim asked her to stay to speak to her privately. Wondering, she consented.

  The women drifted out slowly; half a dozen of them paused to make suggestions to Lady Mosenheim, foolish, impracticable suggestions. Lady Northwold wondered at the impassive, patient politeness with which she dealt with them.

  Clarissa came to her and asked what Lord Northwold was doing now.

  'Organising—always organising,' said Lady Northwold. 'You'd better come back with me to lunch and see him.'

  'Thanks, I should like to. But Lady Mosenheim wants to speak to me first. I'll come on later.'

  'Oh, she wants to speak to me, too,' said Lady Northwold.

  Lady Mosenheim came to them. She seemed to Lady Northwold to have lost some of her impassivity; there was a gleam in the depths of her sombre eyes, a suggestion of suppressed eagerness in her tones.

  'I shall keep you only a little while. Will you come to my room?' she said.

  Lady Northwold and Clarissa followed her. Lady Northwold disliked her smooth, noiseless movement. A woman of her weight ought not to move so silently. There was something feline and foreign in it.