“Rubbish,” said Mrs. Berry, tartly, “you’re too easy with him.”
Mrs. Cox sighed, and, leaving the room, returned with a bottle of wine which was port to the look and red-currant to the taste, and a seedcake of formidable appearance. The visitors attacked these refreshments mildly, Mr. Piper sipping his wine with an obtrusive carefulness which his niece rightly regarded as a reflection upon her friend’s hospitality.
“What Cox wants is a shock,” she said; “you’ve dropped some crumbs on the carpet, uncle.”
Mr. Piper apologised and said he had got his eye on them, and would pick them up when he had finished and pick up his niece’s at the same time to prevent her stooping. Mrs. Berry, in an aside to Mrs. Cox, said that her Uncle Joseph’s tongue had got itself disliked on both sides of the family.
“And I’d give him one,” said Mrs. Berry, returning again to the subject of Mr. Cox and shocks. “He has a gentleman’s life of it here, and he would look rather silly if you were sold up and he had to do something for his living.”
“It’s putting away the things that is so bad,” said Mrs. Cox, shaking her head; “that clock won’t last him out, I know; he’ll come back and take some of the other things. Every spring I have to go through his pockets for the tickets and get the things out again, and I mustn’t say a word for fear of hurting his feelings. If I do he goes off again.”
“If I were you,” said Mrs. Berry, emphatically, “I’d get behind with the rent or something and have the brokers in. He’d look rather astonished if he came home and saw a broker’s man sitting in a chair—”
“He’d look more astonished if he saw him sitting in a flower-pot,” suggested the caustic Mr. Piper.
“I couldn’t do that,” said Mrs. Cox. “I couldn’t stand the disgrace, even though I knew I could pay him out. As it is, Cox is always setting his family above mine.”
Mrs. Berry, without ceasing to stare Mr. Piper out of countenance, shook her head, and, folding her arms, again stated her opinion that Mr. Cox wanted a shock, and expressed a great yearning to be the humble means of giving him one.
“If you can’t have the brokers in, get somebody to pretend to be one,” she said, sharply; “that would prevent him pawning any more things, at any rate. Why wouldn’t he do?” she added, nodding at her uncle.
Anxiety on Mrs. Cox’s face was exaggerated on that of Mr. Piper.
“Let uncle pretend to be a broker’s man in for the rent,” continued the excitable lady, rapidly. “When Mr. Cox turns up after his spree, tell him what his doings have brought you to, and say you’ll have to go to the workhouse.”
“I look like a broker’s man, don’t I?” said Mr. Piper, in a voice more than tinged with sarcasm.
“Yes,” said his niece, “that’s what put it into my head.”
“It’s very kind of you, dear, and very kind of Mr. Piper,” said Mrs. Cox, “but I couldn’t think of it, I really couldn’t.”
“Uncle would be delighted,” said Mrs. Berry, with a wilful blinking of plain facts. “He’s got nothing better to do; it’s a nice house and good food, and he could sit at the open window and sniff at the sea all day long.”
Mr. Piper sniffed even as she spoke, but not at the sea.
“And I’ll come for him the day after to-morrow,” said Mrs. Berry.
It was the old story of the stronger will: Mrs. Cox after a feeble stand gave way altogether, and Mr. Piper’s objections were demolished before he had given them full utterance. Mrs. Berry went off alone after dinner, secretly glad to have got rid of Mr. Piper, who was making a self-invited stay at her house of indefinite duration; and Mr. Piper, in his new rôle of broker’s man, essayed the part with as much help as a clay pipe and a pint of beer could afford him.
That day and the following he spent amid the faded grandeurs of the drawing-room, gazing longingly at the wide expanse of beach and the tumbling sea beyond. The house was almost uncanily quiet, an occasional tinkle of metal or crash of china from the basement giving the only indication of the industrious Mrs. Cox; but on the day after the quiet of the house was broken by the return of its master, whose annoyance, when he found the drawing-room clock stolen and a man in possession, was alarming in its vehemence. He lectured his wife severely on her mismanagement, and after some hesitation announced his intention of going through her books. Mrs. Cox gave them to him, and, armed with pen and ink and four square inches of pink blotting-paper, he performed feats of balancing which made him a very Blondin of finance.
“I shall have to get something to do,” he said, gloomily, laying down his pen.
“Yes, dear,” said his wife.
Mr. Cox leaned back in his chair and, wiping his pen on the blotting-paper, gazed in a speculative fashion round the room. “Have you any money?” he inquired.
For reply his wife rummaged in her pocket and after a lengthy search produced a bunch of keys, a thimble, a needle-case, two pocket-handkerchiefs, and a halfpenny. She put this last on the table, and Mr. Cox, whose temper had been mounting steadily, threw it to the other end of the room.
“I can’t help it,” said Mrs. Cox, wiping her eyes. “I’m sure I’ve done all I could to keep a home together. I can’t even raise money on anything.”
Mr. Cox, who had been glancing round the room again, looked up sharply.
“Why not?” he inquired.
“The broker’s man,” said Mrs. Cox, nervously; “he’s made an inventory of everything, and he holds us responsible.”
Mr. Cox leaned back in his chair. “This is a pretty state of things,” he blurted, wildly. “Here have I been walking my legs off looking for work, any work so long as it’s honest labour, and I come back to find a broker’s man sitting in my own house and drinking up my beer.”
He rose and walked up and down the room, and Mrs. Cox, whose nerves were hardly equal to the occasion, slipped on her bonnet and announced her intention of trying to obtain a few necessaries on credit. Her husband waited in indignant silence until he heard the front door close behind her, and then stole softly upstairs to have a look at the fell destroyer of his domestic happiness.
Mr. Piper, who was already very tired of his imprisonment, looked up curiously as he heard the door pushed open, and discovered an elderly gentleman with an appearance of great stateliness staring at him. In the ordinary way he was one of the meekest of men, but the insolence of this stare was outrageous. Mr. Piper, opening his mild blue eyes wide, stared back. Whereupon Mr. Cox, fumbling in his vest pocket, found a pair of folders, and putting them astride his nose, gazed at the pseudo-broker’s man with crushing effect.
“What do you want here?” he asked, at length. “Are you the father of one of the servants?”
“I’m the father of all the servants in the house,” said Mr. Piper, sweetly.
“Don’t answer me, sir,” said Mr. Cox, with much pomposity; “you’re an eyesore to an honest man, a vulture, a harpy.”
Mr. Piper pondered.
“How do you know what’s an eyesore to an honest man?” he asked, at length.
Mr. Cox smiled scornfully.
“Where is your warrant or order, or whatever you call it?” he demanded.
“I’ve shown it to Mrs. Cox,” said Mr. Piper.
“Show it to me,” said the other.
“I’ve complied with the law by showing it once,” said Mr. Piper, bluffing, “and I’m not going to show it again.”
Mr. Cox stared at him disdainfully, beginning at his little sleek grey head and travelling slowly downwards to his untidy boots and then back again. He repeated this several times, until Mr. Piper, unable to bear it patiently, began to eye him in the same fashion.
“What are you looking at, vulture?” demanded the incensed Mr. Cox.
“Three spots o’ grease on a dirty weskit,” replied Mr. Piper, readily, “a pair o’ bow legs in a pair o’ somebody else’s trousers, and a shabby coat wore under the right arm, with carrying off” — he paused a moment as though to make sure—
“with carrying off of a drawing-room clock.”
He regretted this retort almost before he had finished it, and rose to his feet with a faint cry of alarm as the heated Mr. Cox first locked the door and put the key in his pocket and then threw up the window.
“Vulture!” he cried, in a terrible voice.
“Yes, sir,” said the trembling Mr. Piper.
Mr. Cox waved his hand towards the window.
“Fly,” he said, briefly.
Mr. Piper tried to form his white lips into a smile, and his knees trembled beneath him.
“Did you hear what I said?” demanded Mr. Cox. “What are you waiting for? If you don’t fly out of the window I’ll throw you out.”
“Don’t touch me,” screamed Mr. Piper, retreating behind a table, “it’s all a mistake. All a joke. I’m not a broker’s man. Ha! ha!”
“Eh?” said the other; “not a broker’s man? What are you, then?”
In eager, trembling tones Mr. Piper told him, and, gathering confidence as he proceeded, related the conversation which had led up to his imposture. Mr. Cox listened in a dazed fashion, and as he concluded threw himself into a chair, and gave way to a terrible outburst of grief.
“The way I’ve worked for that woman,” he said, brokenly, “to think it should come to this! The deceit of the thing; the wickedness of it My heart is broken; I shall never be the same man again — never!”
Mr. Piper made a sympathetic noise.
“It’s been very unpleasant for me,” he said, “but my niece is so masterful.”
“I don’t blame you,” said Mr. Cox, kindly; “shake hands.”
They shook hands solemnly, and Mr. Piper, muttering something about a draught, closed the window.
“You might have been killed in trying to jump out of that window,” said Mr. Cox; “fancy the feelings of those two deceitful women then.”
“Fancy my feelings!” said Mr. Piper, with a shudder. “Playing with fire, that’s what I call it. My niece is coming this afternoon; it would serve her right if you gave her a fright by telling her you had killed me. Perhaps it would be a lesson to her not to be so officious.”
“It would serve ’em both right,” agreed Mr. Cox; “only Mrs. Berry might send for the police.”
“I never thought of that,” said Mr. Piper, fondling his chin.
“I might frighten my wife,” mused the amiable Mr. Cox; “it would be a lesson to her not to be deceitful again. And, by Jove, I’ll get some money from her to escape with; I know she’s got some, and if she hasn’t she will have in a day or two. There’s a little pub at Newstead, eight miles from here, where we could be as happy as fighting cocks with a fiver or two. And while we’re there enjoying ourselves my wife’ll be half out of her mind trying to account for your disappearance to Mrs. Berry.”
“It sounds all right,” said Mr. Piper, cautiously, “but she won’t believe you. You don’t look wild enough to have killed anybody.”
“I’ll look wild enough when the time comes,” said the other, nodding. “You get on to the White Horse at Newstead and wait for me. I’ll let you out at the back way. Come along.”
“But you said it was eight miles,” said Mr. Piper.
“Eight miles easy walking,” rejoined Mr. Cox. “Or there’s a train at three o’clock. There’s a sign-post at the corner there, and if you don’t hurry I shall be able to catch you up. Good-bye.”
He patted the hesitating Mr. Piper on the back, and letting him out through the garden, indicated the road. Then he returned to the drawing-room, and carefully rumpling his hair, tore his collar from the stud, overturned a couple of chairs and a small table, and sat down to wait as patiently as he could for the return of his wife.
He waited about twenty minutes, and then he heard a key turn in the door below and his wife’s footsteps slowly mounting the stairs. By the time she reached the drawing-room his tableau was complete, and she fell back with a faint shriek at the frenzied figure which met her eyes.
“Hush,” said the tragedian, putting his finger to his lips.
“Henry, what is it?” cried Mrs. Cox. “What is the matter?”
“The broker’s man,” said her husband, in a thrilling whisper. “We had words — he struck me. In a fit of fury I — I — choked him.”
“Much?” inquired the bewildered woman.
“Much?” repeated Mr. Cox, frantically. “I’ve killed him and hidden the body. Now I must escape and fly the country.”
The bewilderment on Mrs. Cox’s face increased; she was trying to reconcile her husband’s statement with a vision of a trim little figure which she had seen ten minutes before with its head tilted backwards studying the sign-post, and which she was now quite certain was Mr. Piper.
“Are you sure he’s dead?” she inquired.
“Dead as a door nail,” replied Mr. Cox, promptly. “I’d no idea he was such a delicate little man. What am I to do? Every moment adds to my danger. I must fly. How much money have you got?”
The question explained everything. Mrs. Cox closed her lips with a snap and shook her head.
“Don’t play the fool,” said her husband, wildly; “my neck’s in danger.”
“I haven’t got anything,” asseverated Mrs. Cox. “It’s no good looking like that, Henry, I can’t make money.”
Mr. Cox’s reply was interrupted by a loud knock at the hall door, which he was pleased to associate with the police. It gave him a fine opportunity for melodrama, in the midst of which his wife, rightly guessing that Mrs. Berry had returned according to arrangement, went to the door to admit her. The visitor was only busy two minutes on the door-mat, but in that time Mrs. Cox was able in low whispers to apprise her of the state of affairs.
“That’s my uncle all over,” said Mrs. Berry, fiercely; “that’s just the mean trick I should have expected of him. You leave ’em to me, my dear.”
She followed her friend into the drawing-room, and having shaken hands with Mr. Cox, drew her handkerchief from her pocket and applied it to her eyes.
“She’s told me all about it,” she said, nodding at Mrs. Cox, “and it’s worse than you think, much worse. It isn’t a broker’s man — it’s my poor uncle, Joseph Piper.”
“Your uncle!” repeated Mr. Cox, reeling back; “the broker’s man your uncle?”
Mrs. Berry sniffed. “It was a little joke on our part,” she admitted, sinking into a chair and holding her handkerchief to her face. “Poor uncle; but I dare say he’s happier where he is.”
With its head tilted back, studyin Mr. Cox wiped his brow, and then, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece, stared at her in well-simulated amazement.
“See what your joking has led to,” he said, at last. “I have got to be a wanderer over the face of the earth, all on account of your jokes.”
“It was an accident,” murmured Mrs. Berry, “and nobody knows he was here, and I’m sure, poor dear, he hadn’t got much to live for.”
“It’s very kind of you to look at it in that way, Susan, I’m sure,” said Mrs. Cox.
“I was never one to make mischief,” said Mrs. Berry. “It’s no good crying over spilt milk. If uncle’s killed he’s killed, and there’s an end of it But I don’t think it’s quite safe for Mr. Cox to stay here.”
“Just what I say,” said that gentleman, eagerly; “but I’ve got no money.”
“You get away,” said Mrs. Berry, with a warning glance at her friend, and nodding to emphasise her words; “leave us some address to write to, and we must try and scrape twenty or thirty pounds to send you.”
“Thirty?” said Mr. Cox, hardly able to believe his ears.
Mrs. Berry nodded. “You’ll have to make that do to go on with,” she said, pondering. “‘And as soon as yoa get it you had better get as far away as possible before poor uncl’e is discovered. Where are we to send the money?”
Mr. Cox affected to consider.
“The White Horse, Newstead,” he said at length, in a whisper; “better write it down.”
Mrs. Berry obeyed; and this business being completed, Mr. Cox, after trying in vain to obtain a shilling or two cash in hand, bade them a pathetic farewell and went off down the path, for some reason best known to himself, on tiptoe.
For the first two days Messrs. Cox and Piper waited with exemplary patience for the remittance, the demands of the landlord, a man of coarse fibre, being met in the meantime by the latter gentleman from his own slender resources. They were both reasonable men, and knew from experience the difficulty of raising money at short notice; but on the fourth day, their funds being nearly exhausted, an urgent telegram was dispatched to Mrs. Cox.
Mr. Cox was alone when the reply came, and Mr. Piper, returning to the inn-parlour, was amazed and distressed at his friend’s appearance.
Twice he had to address him before he seemed to be aware of his presence, and then Mr. Cox, breathing hard and staring at him strangely, handed him the message.
“Eh?” said Mr. Piper, in amaze, as he read slowly: “‘No — need — send — money — Uncle — Joseph — has — come — back. — Berry,’ What does it mean? Is she mad?”
Mr. Cox shook his head, and taking the paper from him, held it at arm’s length and regarded it at an angle.
“How can you be there when you’re supposed to be dead?” he said, at length.
“How can I be there when I’m here?” rejoined Mr. Piper, no less reasonably.
Both gentlemen lapsed into a wondering silence, devoted to the attempted solution of their own riddles. Finally Mr. Cox, seized with a bright idea that the telegram had got altered in transmission, went off to the post-office and dispatched another, which went straight to the heart of things:
“Don’t — understand — is — Uncle — Joseph — alive?”
A reply was brought to the inn-parlour an hour later on. Mr. Cox opened it, gave one glance at it, and then with a suffocating cry handed it to the other. Mr. Piper took it gingerly, and his eyebrows almost disappeared as he read:
Works of W. W. Jacobs Page 159
