Death Makes a Prophet

by John Bude

  “In heaven’s name—!”

  “All in good time, Mr. Boot. Now where shall I begin? Might I suggest Moldoni’s Dive in Soho? It should prove a familiar starting-point.”

  “Moldoni’s?” Hansford’s face underwent a transformation that was startling. His rather bland amiable expression gave way to a look of wild apprehension. His eyes, behind their horn-rims, stared at Penpeti, fearfully, incredulously. “What do you know about Moldoni’s?”

  “Far more than is good for my peace-of-mind, Mr.Grew.”

  “Grew? What the—?”

  “Yes—Sam Grew. For a long time I’ve been worried by your likeness to somebody I knew in earlier days. Now I’m no longer worried.”

  “But it’s nonsense! Piffle!” blustered Hansford, his eye roving unhappily over his cosy familiar little study. “Ridiculous mistake. Often happens. We all have doubles.”

  Penpeti shook his head.

  “I’m sorry you’re going to be obstinate.” His voice hardened and he flashed out viciously: “If you refuse to admit that I’m right, I’ll go to the police. I’ll tell them I’ve a strong suspicion that a certain Sam Grew, who disappeared some years ago, has turned up in Welworth. A one-time dope pedlar with a hide-out in Soho. I think Scotland Yard might be deeply grateful for the information.”

  “By God!” cried Hansford with a cornered look, “You wouldn’t do that. What proof have you?”

  “Oh, I should leave all that to the police. They have a neat way of getting at the truth. No, Mr. Grew, you wouldn’t stand a chance under cross-examination, and you know it.”

  “You want to ruin me?” groaned Hansford, no longer trying to brazen it out but pale and trembling. “Is that the idea? But why? I’ve done you no harm.”

  “Really?” observed Penpeti coldly.

  “For God’s sake, give me a chance. Once I was a fool. I admit it. But that’s over and done with. My heart’s genuinely in my work here. I tell you, I’m a reformed man. A new man. A different man. Sam Grew’s dead. D’you understand? Dead and done for. Forgotten.”

  “Not by the police,” Penpeti reminded him with a sarcastic smile. “Do you know, you’re in a devilish awkward position, Mr. Grew?”

  “What do you want?” asked Hansford on a sudden note of practicality. “What’s your price, eh? What’s your silence going to cost me. You didn’t come here without a definite idea in mind. I’m not a fool, you know!”

  “Shall we say a regular three-monthly donation to the upkeep of my official position as Prophet-in-Waiting? As a reward for my future discretion.”

  “Blackmail, eh? Just as I thought.”

  “Sound business, Mr. Grew.”

  “I always sensed that you were a twister. I’ve tried to warn the others. You’re a fake, Penpeti. Using the Movement for your own ends.”

  “Oh and that reminds me,” went on Penpeti smoothly, “from now on you will work to rehabilitate me in the eyes of Mildmann and our dear Mrs. H-S. You’ll scotch the foul suspicions you’ve roused against me. Understand?”

  “Is that part of our…bargain?”

  “It is.”

  “I see. And how much…?”

  “Oh I shan’t be unreasonable. As the first of four quarterly instalments, shall we say fifty pounds?”

  “Fifty pounds!”

  “Preferably in one pound notes. Shall we say…by to-morrow, Mr. Grew? That will give you time to cash a cheque.”

  Hansford Boot at that moment had a murderous gleam in his eye, but he nodded dumbly as Penpeti took up his gloves and fez and crossed jauntily to the door. There he turned and said with a casual air:

  “Oh, and by the way, it may interest you to know that I didn’t steal that Crux Ansata. You were off the rails there, Mr. Grew. Your little chat with Alicia was dangerously near libel. But as you’ve enough trouble to cope with at present, I’m prepared to overlook the matter. I told you that I was never unreasonable. Au revoir, Mr. Boot. I shall expect you to return my visit to-morrow. And I advise you not to forget!”

  IV

  Mrs. Hagge-Smith, who had always looked upon Hansford as one of the most reliable and intelligent Children of Osiris, had good cause in the few days left before her return to Old Cowdene to modify her opinion. Hansford’s volte-face concerning Penpeti bewildered her. Without the slightest warning he substituted praise for vilification, admiration for suspicion, and left poor Alicia in a flat spin. Hansford’s explanation for this change of front, however, was both subtle and ingenious. He had, so he said, dreamed a dream in which the great god Osiris himself had appeared out of a cloud and spoken to him in a voice of thunder. His message was brief and to the point. Peta Penpeti was a good and noble man, worthy of the select position he held in the order. To believe anything else was to display a miserable lack of faith and perception. Hansford was to spread news of this important revelation. He was to make amends for his own wicked persecution.

  It is easy to imagine what it had cost poor Hansford to concoct this beautiful story. But this was his story and he stuck to it. With the result that Mrs. Hagge-Smith, before she returned to Sussex, was once more prepared to accept Penpeti as her closest ally and confidant. Eustace’s stock again slumped. Hansford breathed more freely.

  But from that moment onward he was a man without any real peace-of-mind. He realised that as long as Penpeti held the threat of exposure over his head he was destined to walk the tight-rope. And Penpeti’s silence was going to prove an expensive luxury, a sad strain on his finances. He could see no end to the situation—at least, no happy ending. After ten years of comparative ease and safety, his past, like a bolt from the blue, had struck him down. It was a bitter blow, for during those ten years he had worked energetically to wipe out the disgrace of his earlier activities. His devotion to Eustace and the Movement was genuine and wholehearted. He believed in Cooism. His one thought now was to serve the Cause.

  And now this! Damn Penpeti! How had he discovered his guilty secret? Where had Penpeti seen him before? How was it he knew all about Moldoni’s Dive in Soho?—for to know that cesspit was to be branded as a criminal. Hansford had only to close his eyes to see again the green-chequered table-clothes, the hardwood chairs, the reckless, ferrety, slick, sly clientele that patronised that basement inferno. But amidst that shifting and shifty crowd he had no recollection of Penpeti, not even of a man who might have been a younger, clean-shaven and less oddly-garbed Penpeti. If only he could place Penpeti in that nightmare of his past, then without doubt he, in turn, would discover something to hold against him. And with that knowledge he could bargain and free himself from his predicament. His silence for Penpeti’s. And failing that? Sam Grew shuddered. To think along that line was madness! Silence was one thing, but everlasting silence…murder! No! By heaven, no! He must not and could not add any further burden to his conscience.

  And yet?

  A shadow of Hansford’s tormented state of mind darkened the existence of the one man to whom he was blindly devoted. With the departure of Mrs. Hagge-Smith and Denise for Old Cowdene, Eustace found himself with far more time for uninterrupted reflection. True, Terence’s return did something to mitigate the sudden silence that descended on “Tranquilla”, but Terence was in a decidedly untalkative mood. Grunts and nods seemed to have usurped the place of speech. He eyed his father with a surly expression, determined to show him that his resentment was still on the boil. But it was not Terence’s uncompromising attitude that tortured poor Eustace. It was his own over-deepening infatuation for Penelope Parker.

  He had within ten days stepped far beyond the boundaries of pretence. Now he was writing her quite openly, without a blush, as My very dearest and sweetest Penelope. His moral deterioration had been so rapid that Eustace had barely noticed it. He only knew that when Penelope smiled on him and was kind, the sun blazed from a cloudless sky; that when she was cross or critical he was encompassed by a p
ea-soup fog of depression. He thought out a score of little ways to see her alone. He wrote her every day. He sent her expensive little gifts which he thought might amuse or charm her. And the more effective he became as a man, a male, the less efficient he was as a High Prophet of Coo. Disciples began to notice his air of distraction, his fumblings and absent-minded gaffes.

  As for Penelope, launched on a full-blooded affair with her dark-eyed Penpeti, she felt she could afford to be generous. Eustace’s outpourings at first piqued, then amused and, finally, touched her. He was so naïve, so pathetic in his frank adoration. Oh yes, she could afford to be generous. So Penelope replied to his impassioned letters and occasionally granted Eustace the luxury of seeing her alone. Once she squeezed his hand in the vestry. On another occasion she kissed him on the brow. But all the time she took the greatest care to conceal from Eustace the full significance of her relationship with Penpeti. She knew that they were hostile to each other and she didn’t want to further any more enmity. In his present mood even the mild Eustace, bitten by jealousy, might prove a veritable demon of wrath!

  Chapter VI

  Mayblossom Cut

  I

  Sidney Arkwright was a young man with an excellent sense of humour. It would be more correct to say that he was two young men—the smart, well-mannered, plum-coloured chauffeur and the smart, slick-haired lady-killer who sallied forth when his day’s work was done. His deferential manner was simply a bit of professional blah. He touched his peaked hat, opened doors, arranged the rugs and cushions because he was paid a decent salary to do so. When in Mrs. Hagge-Smith’s employ, before being loaned to Eustace, he had professed a keen interest in the cult of Coo because he could see that such an interest would pay good dividends. And it did. He became more than Mrs. Hagge-Smith’s under-chauffeur. He became her protégé, her latest “find”, with privileges that were not extended to the less diplomatic members of her staff and a far bigger salary than was normally paid to under-chauffeurs. She, herself, instructed him in the elementary ethics of the Movement. When finally he was transferred to Welworth to drive for the High Prophet, he was selected as one of the two Temple Sistrum-Shakers. As, at one time, he had served as assistant behind Charlie’s Cocktail Bar at Southend, he could shake a very pretty sistrum indeed. Older disciples of the Movement said he was the greatest virtuoso on the instrument that they had ever heard. Sidney Arkwright smiled modestly and said nothing.

  But once clear of the atmosphere which surrounded his job, Sidney was a different cup of tea. His pin-stripe suits were the envy of the other lads about town. His ease and success with the local belles filled them with admiration or racked them with jealousy. In his private life he “shook a leg” at the local hops with as great a mastery as he shook his sistrum in the temple. On one occasion only had his particular cronies tried to bait him about his connection with the Children of Osiris. He selected the heftiest of the gang and, with consummate skill, knocked him down. After that he cooled off and explained just why he attended the meetings and services in Carroway Road.

  “It’s this way—see? It pays me pretty handsome to act a bit soft with that crazy gang. Lots of ‘perks’ attached to my job just because old Haggie thinks I’m a bit of a High Lifer.” Sid winked. “But you fellahs get this straight unless you want one bloody nose apiece. I’m not listening to any wisecracks about the Guv’nor. That Penpeti guy makes me feel hot under the collar, but Mr. Mildmann’s a proper sort of chap—a decent, straight-dealing, honest sort of chap. And don’t you forget it!”

  And Sidney made a prolonged and vibratory noise which in those enlightened circles was known technically as “a raspberry”.

  His whole-time girl at that period was Violet Brett—a flashing brunette with a perfect pair of legs and big ideas. Sid found her expensive to run, but with a classy kid like that he didn’t mind throwing his money around a bit. On the dance-floor she was the tops and no mistake about it. She and Sid had been hitting the Garden City high-spots for about three months, when the Rollup Corset Factory advertised the fact that their annual fancy-dress dance was due to take place on the first Saturday in December.

  Actually Sid had known for some time that this great event was on the way and he had prepared for it in advance. He had even managed to slip up to Town and visit a theatrical costumiers. Naturally he was taking Violet to the dance.

  “Tell me, Sid, what are you going as?” she asked one evening as they were coming out of the pictures. “I’m fixing myself up as a pierrette.”

  “You wait and see,” said Sid cryptically. “I reckon I’m going to raise a laugh.”

  II

  Sid did raise a laugh! There was no question about his supposed identity. The moment he walked into the crowded canteen of the Corset Factory, where the dance was held, people nudged each other, pointed, sniggered, giggled and then started laughing. Sid had gone to considerable pains to get his sartorial details correct. His make-up was admirable. From the fez to the purple umbrella, from the black beard to the long black caftan, the illusion was without flaw. And having had ample opportunity to study his original at close quarters, even the walk and the accent were passably good imitations. At first glance one or two of the more gullible actually thought it was Peta Penpeti. Violet was enchanted. Sid was the hit of the evening and since he danced only with her, she was able to wallow in reflected notoriety. The sight of the well-known, dignified Prophet of Coo dancing the rhumba with the verve and abandon of a Carmen Miranda more or less brought the house down.

  By popular acclaim Sid took the Gent’s First Prize for the most original fancy-dress.

  It was one of the grandest evenings he’d ever had in his life. Not only had he got his laugh, but he’d got it at the expense of the half-baked crowd that patronised him. He got a tremendous kick out of running with both the hare and the hounds, of having his cake and eating it too. After the last waltz, he gathered up Violet on the stretch of asphalt before the factory main-entrance and prepared to get down to the more serious business of the evening. With this in mind, he suggested escorting Violet home via Mayblossom Cut. And although Violet had no illusions about the perils which would result from agreement, she accepted his invitation with alacrity. They took a firm grip on each other’s waists and, with his fez at a cocky angle, Sid piloted his inamorata towards the inadequately lighted Cut.

  Mayblossom Cut, as its name suggests, was a narrow footpath roofed over by the interlocking branches of a double row of may-trees, running parallel with the railway embankment. Three widely-spaced lamp-posts were supposed to illuminate this arboreal tunnel. Naturally they didn’t, and it was for this reason that Mayblossom Cut was highly popular with the younger and more enterprising couples of Welworth. To take a young lady for a stroll through the Cut was the last word in doggery. Needless to say it was not Sid’s first visit there with Violet and, if Sid had his way, it wouldn’t be the last. But as Destiny is quite indifferent to the hopes and desires of mere mortals, it was very nearly his last! Death lurks where he will—so why not in Mayblossom Cut?

  Between the first and second lamp-posts, with a common-sense that Terence would have envied, Sid and Violet kissed. Then they murmured for a space and kissed again. Then Violet, with the age-old technique of her sex, suddenly went cold on Sid and refused him any further intimacy. They wrangled. Sid pleaded. Violet shook her head.

  “Aw shucks!” said Sid. “What’s come over you, Vi? Where’s the harm in a kiss?”

  “I don’t want to—that’s all. It’s time I got back.”

  “Running out on me, eh?”

  “You know it’s not that, Sid. But we’ve been hanging about here long enough.”

  “Oh well, in that case…” muttered Sid, kicking sulkily at a stone, “there isn’t time to show you something that I bought for you in London. Rotten shame, eh? Something rather slap-up, it was. I thought you’d rather like it.”

  “Coo! Let me see, S
id. There’s a sport.”

  Sid shook his head.

  “Naow! Can’t hang about here, Vi. You gotta get back.”

  “Well, I might be able to stretch a point this once and—”

  “Maybe I don’t want to give it you now,” said Sid in chilly tones. “When a chap gets something fancy for a girl, the least he expects is a bit of a come-back. Fair’s fair, Vi.”

  “I didn’t mean to go dumb on you, Sid. Come on—be a sport. Let’s see it.”

  “Gimme a kiss, first.”

  “O.K.,” said Violet, “only don’t crumple my ruff—it’s only hired.”

  They kissed—pierrette and her pseudo-Penpeti.

  Then, by common consent, they moved on to the next lamp-post, where Sid halted and plunged his hand into his pocket. He drew out a small, flat, red-leather jewel-case, nicked open the clasp, and displayed to Violet’s astounded and excited gaze a glittering bracelet.

  “Aw, Sid!—it’s luvly! Luvly! I never seen anything half so luvly before.”

  “S’gold,” said Sid nonchalantly. “Studded with dimunds.”

  “Dimunds!” cried Violet. “Go on, Sid, you’re kiddin’!”

  “No, honest, Vi. Like it?”

  Violet took the bracelet from its case and stared at it rapturously as it gleamed and twinkled in the lamplight.

  “Do I like it? Aw, Sid, I’ll never be able to—”

  But Violet never completed her sentence. There was a sudden shattering explosion, a deafening stab of sound, followed almost at once by a second. Violet let out a piercing shriek. Sid gave a curious little grunt and collapsed, moaning, on the ground. He tried to say something, then, with a sigh, he seemed to pass out in a dead faint.

  There was the sound of running feet receding up Mayblossom Cut. Then silence, save for Violet’s tearful and agitated whispers, as she crouched over Sid’s recumbent body.