Detective Ben

by J. Jefferson Farjeon

  ‘It is his hot head that will hang him,’ remarked Paul contemptuously. ‘He should be hanged three times already, I think.’

  ‘The last occasion—just now—was with your approval!’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Don’t prevaricate! And the second occasion was due to a fool you picked yourself.’

  ‘It is true, our Mr Smith was too easily frightened—’

  ‘Yes, if he hadn’t pulled out his revolver, Fred would never have shot him.’

  ‘If Fred had not frightened him by appearing so abruptly and unnecessarily, Mr Smith would not have pulled out his revolver. I am sure he produced the weapon for protection, not aggression. But Fred, as always, could not wait. And so, I understand from you, it was the first time when he shot the detective.’

  ‘Quite right, Paul. I called him plenty of names for that. But at least he saved Joe Lynch for us.’

  ‘Ah—Joe Lynch,’ murmured Paul, contemplatively. ‘Yes—Joe Lynch. I come to him in a minute. But there is another fool you have picked.’

  ‘You can’t forget Mr Sutcliffe, can you?’

  ‘I may, when you do.’

  ‘Forgive me for calling you an idiot, Paul, but at times you are. Probably this mist is clouding your sense, too! When we have completed our present business I shall forget Mr Sutcliffe, and Fred, and the whole bagful. Do you suppose I shall want them trailing after us across the Continent? I am turning over a new leaf in my book of purity, Paul, and you fill the page. Satisfied?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She frowned a little as she regarded his almost irritating composure.

  ‘You’re a queer man, Paul,’ she murmured. ‘I wonder if that is why you attract me? No one would think there was any heat in your blood! Unless they knew you. Sometimes you’re like a cold fish … Well, Joe Lynch. What about him?’

  ‘That is what I am wondering,’ he answered. ‘He is a long time.’

  ‘We’re not wasting it. It’s nice weather for a chat.’

  ‘The one thing I do not understand about you is your sense of humour,’ he said. ‘But that, after all, is just a strange English characteristic. The question is not whether we are wasting time, but whether he is. It is half an hour since he received his last instructions. The business could have been concluded in ten minutes.’

  ‘I agree it could have been, not that it necessarily should have been.’

  ‘You are happy, then, about Mr Lynch?’

  ‘He is the oddest creature I have ever come across, but he seems to have carried out all our instructions so far.’

  ‘I asked if you were happy about him?’

  ‘If you mean am I certain about him, then no,’ she retorted. ‘I am not certain of anybody. Not even of you. If it suited your purpose, I have no doubt … well, never mind. But I told you of the tests I put him through. He could have given us away to a policeman—at least, he thought he could.’

  ‘Did it occur to you, Helen,’ asked Paul, ‘that he might have realised it was a test?’

  ‘Of course it occurred to me! But I was watching him very closely, and I know he believed Fred was a genuine policeman till the last moment. And don’t forget, my dear, you were quite impressed yourself with his sleeping face!’

  ‘It is easier to judge the faces of one’s own countrymen. I wish, now, I had seen him with his eyes open. I accepted your judgment.’

  ‘And now you don’t?’

  Before he could respond a figure loomed into view with startling suddenness. It grew like a rapidly developing smudge on a large white plate.

  ‘How much longer have we got to wait?’ demanded the figure.

  It was the chauffeur Fred, who had arrived too late to hear doubtful compliments.

  ‘We are wondering the same thing,’ answered Paul, ‘but you see we have not deserted our post.’

  ‘Who’s deserting any post?’ frowned Fred.

  ‘You are supposed to be watching the back entrance.’

  ‘Yes, and I’ve watched till I’m sick of it! Even if anyone did slip out of the back door the moment I left it for a second—and why should they?—they’d have to follow the path I’ve just come along to the front, so we’d see them.’

  ‘Who has been the leader of this party since I joined it?’ inquired Paul coldly.

  ‘You have, and don’t we know it!’ retorted Fred.

  ‘Apparently you are forgetting what you know,’ said Paul. ‘If it had not been necessary to have the back door watched, you would not have been sent to watch it.’

  ‘Don’t quarrel, for God’s sake!’ interposed Helen nervily. ‘You must forgive him, Paul, if he is a little bored—he hasn’t killed anyone for over half an hour.’

  ‘I may soon give him an opportunity to end the boredom,’ replied Paul, and turned again to Fred. ‘You will be ready then, if necessary, to earn a fourth hanging?’

  Fred snapped, ‘I’ve told you before, Your Imperial What-Not, that if there’s going to be any hanging, we shall all hang together.’

  ‘In that case—if I interpret your idiom correctly—we must hang together to prevent the catastrophe.’

  ‘Yes, yes, get back!’ exclaimed Helen, with a warning glance. ‘There can’t be two leaders!’

  ‘There speaks wisdom,’ added Paul. ‘But you need not go back. Stay where you are, if you are certain there is no other way round from the back?’

  ‘There’s another way down, but not round,’ said Fred. ‘The other way ends in a precipice.’

  ‘You have discovered that?’

  ‘By nearly ending there myself.’

  ‘That is satisfactory. Then remain in your present spot, for then you can watch the front of the house too. Fortunately the mist is not quite so thick—’

  ‘What’s the idea?’ interrupted Fred. ‘Aren’t you watching the front of the house?’

  ‘He will never be satisfied,’ sighed Paul. ‘He will even complain to the hangman that the rope is too tight. No, we are not going to watch the front of the house. We are going to watch the inside of the house … No, Helen, I am not content with your judgment—our judgment, if you prefer it—of Mr Lynch. The mist may breed fancies, but I have a feeling—what is that more expressive word I heard you use once—?’

  ‘Hunch?’

  ‘Ah, hunch. Yes. I have a hunch that things are not progressing too smoothly in there—that we have waited too long—and that it is time for us to discover things for ourselves. Because—and this I may impress again upon you both—there is no—future?—for either of you, or for myself—if we do not complete without any shadow of doubt what we have journeyed here to complete. We needed such a man as Mr Lynch to direct us to the spot. It may transpire that this direction will end Mr Lynch’s service to us. You agree?’

  ‘I’m not particularly anxious to go in that house a second time, if that’s what you mean,’ answered Helen. ‘Once was enough.’

  ‘You went alone. Ill prepared. And the odds then were two to one against you.’

  ‘What are the odds now?’

  ‘Excluding the boy, four to one—in our favour.’

  ‘I thought you were doubtful of Lynch?’

  ‘Of his competence … You mean?’ He paused. ‘In that case, it would be three to two. But, even so, the odds would be in our favour, both in number and in brain, and I think, under my direction—and by curbing undue haste and hot-headedness’—he turned to Fred for an instant—‘we should be more than a match for a doddering old man and Mr Lynch.’

  Then the front door opened, and, outlined against a dim background of candlelight, Mr Lynch beckoned to them.

  24

  Dead Men’s Ears

  Standing at the open door, Ben watched two figures change from two-dimensional shadows into three-dimensional solidarity as they approached the porch in response to his beckoning. One figure he knew. The other he could merely identify by his own nickname of the Jack of Clubs; and that was merely a guess, although a correct one.

  ‘Now,
don’t fergit,’ he reminded himself at this moment of crisis. ‘You’re Joe Lynch. You don’t care abart nobody. You’ve jest bin the blinkinest blackguard anybody could be, and you ’aven’t got no ’eart, it’s a bit o’ stone.’

  He did his best to justify this conception while Helen Warren and Paul regarded him.

  ‘Well?’ said Paul, for Ben did not move out of the way, but stood blocking the entrance.

  ‘’Oo are you?’ replied Ben. ‘And don’t tork so loud!’

  The admonition was unnecessary, for Paul’s voice had been low, but Joe Lynch had to show that he was up to his job and not afraid of anybody.

  ‘He is your chief,’ said Helen quickly. ‘You needn’t worry about his name.’

  ‘I see—you’re standin’ fer ’im?’

  ‘Would I be with him if I were not, you idiot!’ she retorted.

  ‘I ain’t an idiot, and keep yer voice dahn,’ replied Ben. ‘You engiged a careful man when yer engiged Joe Lynch. Are you two the lot, or is there any more of yer?’

  ‘What does that matter?’

  ‘I’ll tell yer. I’ve done with workin’ any more in the dark. It’s that’s wot near ruined it. ’Ow I’ve got through to ’ere with all this guessin’ and pertendin’ beats me, and that’s a fack. Is there anybody else outside?’

  Helen glanced at Paul, then answered:

  ‘Fred is outside.’

  ‘Wot abart Perjarmer Percy? You know ’oo I mean—that Mr Suttercliff.’

  ‘He is not here,’ snapped Helen, ‘and mend your manners!’

  ‘Yer didn’t engige me fer me manners, so we’ll fergit ’em,’ returned Ben. ‘Git Fred in ’ere.’

  ‘Mr Lynch is quite interesting,’ observed Paul, now interposing. ‘I will continue the conversation. Why do you require Fred’s presence, Mr Lynch, as well as ours?’

  ‘I’ll tell yer that when ’e’s ’ere.’

  ‘You will tell us now.’

  ‘Wot, will I? Orl right. There carn’t be too many witnesses, that’s why.’

  ‘Witnesses of what?’

  ‘That’s wot I’m goin’ ter tell yer when ’e’s ’ere.’

  ‘This is your first experience of Mr Lynch,’ remarked Helen, with a faint smile. ‘I ought to have warned you, Paul.’

  ‘You warned me he was unusual—that I do not mind,’ answered Paul. ‘If he were also disobedient it would be another matter. Mr Lynch, there is no need for Fred’s presence here yet. If the need arises later, I will decide. Is that clear?’

  ‘Well, it’s clearer than the weather,’ admitted Ben. ‘’Ave you bin follerin’ me orl along the line? Right from the word Go?’

  ‘We have.’

  ‘Didn’t trust me, eh?’

  ‘We had to make sure that you completed your work.’

  ‘Well, that’s wot I’ve brort yer in for! No meetin’ at the gate, thank yer—when p’r’aps yer mightn’t be there, or might give me a push like. If you ain’t trusted Lynch, then p’r’aps ’e ain’t trustin’ you. See, ’e means ter ’ave ’is fifty quid afore ’e leaves this ’ouse—and yer carn’t put ’im orf with flash notes!’

  Helen gave a little exclamation of exasperation.

  ‘You shall have your fifty pounds, and the notes will be as real as the other notes you’ve had!’ she said. ‘But if you delay any longer, you won’t get a penny!’

  ‘We’d see abart that!’ muttered Ben. ‘Orl right. Let’s git on with it. Walk inter the parler, as the spider sed ter the fly.’

  They stepped in, watchfully. Ben closed the door behind them, and then crossed to the small table on which still lay the box of chocolates. Only now it was open, and some of the chocolates were missing.

  ‘Nice things, chocklits,’ he remarked, taking up the box. ‘’Ave one?’

  He turned with the box in his hands. He noticed that both Paul and Helen had produced revolvers.

  ‘Corse, you’re barmy!’ he said scornfully. ‘Do yer s’pose I’d be runnin’ abart loose if yer needed them things?’

  ‘You mentioned a moment or two ago that you were a careful man, Mr Lynch,’ replied Paul. ‘We are merely acting with the same care. Bring the box to us.’

  ‘That’s wot I’m goin’ ter do.’

  He took the box to them. They regarded the contents, Paul calmly, Helen with visible distaste.

  ‘Those big ’uns with the vi’lets on their nobs are good,’ advised Ben. ‘Or if yer like corfee creams, those in the corner—’

  ‘For God’s sake, stop that!’ exclaimed Helen.

  ‘Wot’s the trouble?’ inquired Ben, suddenly fixing her with his eyes. ‘No one’s comin’!’

  A silence followed his words. Helen glanced towards the door at the back, then raised her eyes to the ceiling.

  ‘Don’t ’ear nobody, do yer?’ asked Ben.

  ‘There are six chocolates gone,’ said Paul.

  ‘Yus, orl gorn,’ nodded Ben. ‘Three each.’

  ‘What!’ exclaimed Helen. She seemed to be having difficulty with her voice. ‘Do you mean—’

  ‘That’s right,’ Ben nodded again. ‘Old ’uns like sweets, sime as young ’uns. There’s a packet on the table over there. Yer can ’ave it back—it won’t be wanted now.’

  One of the four candles spluttered. The sound made Helen jump. Ben enjoyed the moment. He wondered how many more moments, enjoyable or otherwise, remained for him.

  ‘Where are they?’ asked Paul.

  ‘Up aloft,’ answered Ben.

  ‘Then, if we go up, we need not fear them?’

  ‘Well, that derpends on ’ow yer mide. See, there’s more’n one kind o’ fear.’

  He looked at Helen. Through Joe Lynch he was doing his best to pile on the agony, and he did not feel a grain of sympathy as he watched her fighting her nerves. In the warmth and comfort of a luxurious bed she had plotted for the tragedy that was supposed to have occurred in the room above them. In the warmth and comfort of that bed she would have heard of the tragedy’s occurrence without turning a hair—probably manicuring her nails the while. Yes, it was right that she should have come to the spot, where she could ironically sense the atmosphere of the tragedy that had not happened!

  ‘No kind of fear troubles you?’ she inquired, with an undercurrent of defiance.

  ‘Lumme, no!’ scoffed Ben. ‘I seen a person ’anged once. Fer wot they calls comperlicity. You know, one bloke does it, but the other bloke tells ’im to.’

  ‘I think we do not need any of your memories, Mr Lynch,’ suggested Paul. ‘But tell me this. If, as you say, we have no need to fear anybody—’

  ‘Well, where’s anybody?’

  ‘As you say, where is anybody? And why, therefore, did you warn us to keep our voices low?’

  ‘Oh, I see wot yer mean. But don’t you always git a feelin’ that corpses is listenin’?’

  Helen drew a sharp breath.

  ‘Get this over, Paul!’ she said. ‘There’s a limit, you know!’

  ‘Go on!’ exclaimed Ben. ‘Yer ain’t really worryin’?’

  Paul made a sign with his revolver towards the door.

  ‘Show us the way,’ he ordered, ‘and waste no more time.’

  ‘Right,’ answered Ben, and moved to the table. A quick word from Paul stopped him. ‘Wot’s up?’ he asked.

  ‘Keep that box of chocolates,’ replied Paul.

  ‘Why? We’ve no more use for ’em!’

  ‘Yes, I have another use for them. While you are holding that box—with both hands, please—you cannot hold anything else.’

  ‘Oh, I see! I’m s’posed to ’ave a gun on me!’

  ‘Just a continuation of that carefulness we all believe in, Mr Lynch. Walk ahead. We shall follow.’

  ‘Seems to me yer spends yer life follerin’!’ grumbled Ben. ‘Never mind, yer’ll go fust at the funeral.’

  ‘I shall stay here, Paul,’ said Helen. ‘Your eyes will be enough. And I couldn’t identify him, anyway.’

  ‘As you like.�
�

  ‘I do like!’ As he looked at her rather doubtfully, she added, ‘I shan’t move from this spot—I’ll be here when you come down again.’

  ‘I ’ope she don’t move from the spot,’ thought Ben, as he led the way to the hall. ‘That’s a noosense!’

  Things were not going too well. He had planned that all three should accompany him upstairs, so that the lower floor and the grounds should be clear of the enemy for a short while. Instead, Fred was somewhere outside, Helen was in the sitting-room, and only the tall Jack of Clubs was following him up the staircase to the climax of this episode. What the climax was going to be Ben had no notion. He had planned for the old man and the boy, and was trusting to luck for himself.

  Other thoughts raced through his mind as he mounted the stairs, pressing upon him with a kind of hopeless weight. There was MacTavish. If MacTavish had indeed shared the fate of Mr Smith of Boston and the detective on the bridge, he made another reason why the enemy should not merely be thwarted in their present design, but should be captured for the designs they had already put into execution. On Ben alone rested that responsibility to justice and the law. And there was Jean. What about her? With MacTavish gone, she would be alone …

  Six steps from the top Ben slipped deliberately. He had to do something to gain a few more seconds. His mind was wandering from the moment, and it was the moment on which all the rest depended. He had to find a solution of the situation that would face him when the bedroom door was opened. ‘Now, then, think o’ somethink!’ he urged himself while he slipped. ‘Door opens—in we go—and then—think o’ somethink!’

  ‘If corpses can hear, they will hear that,’ said a low voice behind him.

  Yes, and so would the woman waiting in the room below! Suppose his tripping brought her out into the hall, and she got a glimpse of the backdoor … Idiot, he was!

  ‘It’s these durned sweets,’ he mumbled, picking up the box. ‘If yer carn’t swing yer arms yer loses yer balance. That’s ’ow maids drops trays.’

  ‘Well, get your balance again.’

  ‘I’m gettin’ it. The things I’ve bin through, it’s a wunner I ain’t lorst it orl together!’