He examined the hard thing he had hit. It was wood. Then he examined the thing he had hit it with, and found that another bump was in the agony of birth on his already well-populated forehead. ‘Fifty hup!’ he muttered. Even in his most poignant moments Ben kept inventories.
He stood still and listened. He was in a world of white silence. Surely this was not London? Go on! It was more like a desert!
But now the silence was broken by a tiny sound. It came from a long way off. Softly and faintly. Tick—tick. Pause. Tick—tick. Pause. Tick—tick.
‘So long as it don’t git no closer,’ decided Ben, ‘it’s a brarnch. So long as it don’t git no closer,’
Branches sometimes did funny things. They rubbed against each other, or cracked, or offered little complaints about the weather. Tick—tick. Pause. Tick—tick. Tick—tick.
In the act of examining the wood again, Ben suddenly changed his mind. The last ticking had lacked its little pause! And then came another tick, and another, and another, and the theory of the branch was replaced by a less pleasant theory of tiptoes. For here there was no grass; and if you cross gravel delicately, on tiptoes, you can avoid the scrunching of the heel.
In a dense fog, a light is often invisible until you are within a few inches of it. Sound can be similarly cloaked. Ben was still developing this theory of the distant tiptoes when suddenly, without warning, they became ten times as loud. They were no longer distant; they were disconcertingly close. Much too close for comfort. He put his head down again, and ran.
He ran nine inches, and this time his head hit something soft.
‘Got you!’ said a voice equally soft. ‘Don’t move! Kicking won’t help!’
‘Lemme go!’ yelped Ben.
‘Hardly!’ replied the voice.
‘Lemme go! You ain’t got no right ter keep me ’ere—’
‘On the contrary, I’ve a perfect right to keep you here till I learn why you’ve come here. Oh, very well—if you won’t stay still!’
Ben felt his arm being whipped behind him by a deft movement. In response to the necessity of retaining some connection with his arm, his body swung round and he found himself facing the wood again. He knew by this time that the wood was a door.
‘Now, then,’ remarked his captor. ‘Let’s hear you talk!’
‘Orl right,’ muttered Ben. ‘’Ow are yer?’
‘I wasn’t referring to polite conversation.’
‘No, I can see yer ain’t the perlite sort.’
‘Then suppose you act upon your knowledge?’
‘’Oo’s that?’
‘Of course, my man, if you won’t speak sense—’
‘Well, let go me arm! ’Ow can a feller speak sense when ’e’s tied hup in a blinkin’ knot? You couldn’t speak sense not if yer helbow was trying ter scratch the back o’ yer neck!’
‘But if I let go, you’ll run away again.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Is it?’
‘Wot?’
‘This fellow is the world’s congenital idiot,’ said the old man, to the mist. ‘Listen! If I let go your arm, will you run away?’
‘Corse, you’d let me!’
‘But you would if you could?’
‘’Oo wouldn’t?’
‘Guilty conscience, eh?’
‘Guilty me ’at!’
‘Indeed? H’m! Do you remember that policeman I was talking to just now?’
‘Yus.’
‘Weren’t you running away from him?’
‘Yus. No.’
‘Meaning?’
‘No. Yus.’
‘You know, you ought to have brought an interpreter along with you. The balance between positive and negative is still unaltered. Does “No, yus,” mean no, you were?’
‘Yus, I wasn’t,’ explained Ben.
‘Very amusing, I’m sure,’ commented the old man, dryly. ‘Just the same, I think we’ll cut the comic stuff, and have the truth.’
A sudden pain darted up Ben’s imprisoned arm.
‘Oi! Wotcher doin’ of?’ he gulped. ‘I am tellin’ the troof. And, look ’ere, if yer thort I was runnin’ away from the bobby, why didn’tcher tell ’im I was ’ere? Oi! Stop that! Think me arm’s a corkscrew?’ Driven by pain, as the pain was designed to drive him, Ben continued unwisely, ‘Yus, and I’ll tell yer why yer didn’t want the perlice in ’ere! It was becos’ o’ that there corpse—’
He stopped abruptly. His twisted arm had been suddenly released, and now it fell limply to his side while the old man peered closer into Ben’s perspiring face.
‘Corpse?’ he inquired, quietly.
‘Yus,’ growled Ben. It was clear to him, from the old man’s grim expression, that a denial would merely revive the livecoal joy-riding along his funny-bone.
‘A corpse!’ murmured the old man, thoughtfully.
‘Say it agine,’ suggested Ben.
‘I probably shall, though it’s not a pretty word. And where is this—corpse supposed to be?’
‘Yer don’t need me ter tell yer that!’
‘Oh! Why not?’
‘Well, seein’ as ’ow it’s in your garden!’
‘Believe me, my man, that increases my desire that you shall tell me! Yes, yes—now I’m beginning to see things a little more clearly. So that’s why the policeman was after you, eh?’
‘’Ere—!’
‘Quick, now! Where is this corpse?’
‘Look ’ere, guv’nor, it ain’t nothink ter do with me—’
‘Quiet, quiet! We’ll see about that,’ the old man chipped in. ‘And don’t raise your voice so much! You’re speaking too loudly. Once more, I ask—where is this corpse of yours?’
‘Near the gate.’
‘Near the gate? Right! And you can take me to it?’
‘Wot—in this fog?’
‘If I take you first to the gate?’
On the point of continuing his objections, Ben paused. Take him to the gate, eh? Something in the idea after all! For if the old man took him to the gate, biff—bang—bunk, and Ben might be over the gate!
‘Well, p’r’aps I might be able ter find it,’ answered Ben, non-committally.
‘Then come along!’ exclaimed the old man, briskly. ‘You won’t mind if I take hold of your arm, will you? The fog, you know—it would be so easy to lose each other!’
Whether Ben minded or not made no difference. He was swung round again the next instant, and felt himself being piloted along the gravel way.
En route, he made one protest.
‘Yer ain’t goin’ ter put it on me, so doncher think it!’ he declared, defiantly. ‘I got proof, see?’
‘What proof?’ demanded the old man, pausing.
‘Why, if I’d killed ’im, I wouldn’t ’ave bin the mug ter mention ’im to yer, would I?’ explained Ben. ‘There yer are!’
‘If you didn’t kill him, how do you know he was dead?’ inquired the old man.
‘Eh?’
‘Do you know he was dead?’
‘Yus.’
‘Are you sure he is dead?’
‘Yus.’
‘How?’
‘There’s—somethink abart ’em. Yer can tell!’
‘I see,’ mused the old man. ‘I see. Well, now we won’t talk any more. Loud voices might bring that policeman back, mightn’t they? And we wouldn’t like that, would we?’
It appeared that they wouldn’t, for from now until they reached the gate, only their feet talked upon the gravel.
All at once the gate loomed up out of the mist. It looked unnaturally large and black. Ben regarded it speculatively, while the old man regarded Ben speculatively.
‘I don’t think I’d try,’ said the old man.
‘Try wot?’ jerked Ben.
‘What we’re both thinking of,’ replied the old man, and swung Ben round towards the grass on their right. ‘You were somewhere over there, weren’t you?’
‘Owjer know?’ inquired Ben.
&
nbsp; ‘I heard you arrive.’
‘Oh! Didjer?’
‘I’ve said so. Let me see you walk to the spot.’
Ben hesitated. Escape was impossible. Perhaps it would be better to go through with it.
He took his bearings. He remembered just how he had come through the gate, and just how he had turned. That’s right—he’d turned just where the old chap was pointing. In quick; up the path; back again; bump into post—yes, there was the post—on to the grass—that’s right, just along there—and then …
The mist grew momentarily thinner. A branch stretched towards him. The end of it hung loose, almost detached. It was a branch he had convulsively seized when his boot had touched the soft thing at his feet …
Where was the soft thing?
‘Well?’ queried the old man.
‘It was—’ere,’ muttered Ben.
‘Was?’
‘Yus.’
‘But isn’t!’
‘Yus.’ He stared at the spot. Mist curled over it. It became obliterated.
‘Are you sure it ever was?’ inquired the old man.
Ben was quite sure. There are some things you know just because you know. But was it going to help him if he insisted on his knowledge?
Still staring downwards at vacant space and endeavouring to dispose of its depressing similarity to his mind, Ben strove to work things out, while piercing eyes watched him from beneath white eyebrows. If he insisted on the existence of the corpse, and they found the corpse, the old man would say that Ben had had something to do with it. Every murder committed within a four miles radius of Ben came home to him! Of course, Ben hadn’t had anything to do with it. Somebody else had had something to do with it. But the old man would say he had …
And suppose it was the old man himself who had had something to do with it? Would that make him any fonder if Ben insisted that he had seen a corpse?
‘P’r’aps I was mistook,’ murmured Ben.
‘That may well be the happiest thing for us both to assume,’ replied the old man, slowly. And then added, after a pause, ‘One can make queer mistakes in a fog, you know. Eh?’
Ben nodded.
‘And if this wasn’t a mistake, it might be pretty awkward for you, mightn’t it? You see, then I would have to go to the police about it. Yes, I’d have to. So—for the moment—for the moment—we’ll leave it. But I’m still waiting—since you say it wasn’t to avoid the police that you came here—to know why you came?’
Ben hesitated. Should he give the real reason? And, if not, what plausible alternative could he invent? His mind became vacant again. Because he could not invent a good lie, he spoke the bad truth.
‘I—I bin sent ’ere arter a job,’ he said.
Something leapt into the old man’s eyes. At the same moment, a faint moan came from the direction of the house.
12
The House of Dimness
The moan that had risen in the mist sank back into it. Silence followed. Then, suddenly, the old man spoke.
‘Confound that dog!’ he exclaimed sharply. ‘Let’s be getting back to the house.’
He laid his hand on Ben’s arm, but Ben drew away quickly. He did not want to go back to the house.
‘What’s the matter?’ demanded the old man.
‘I’m—I’m wonderin’ if I’d suit yer,’ faltered Ben.
‘You can leave me to judge that!’
‘Yus, but—’
‘Now, listen!’ interrupted the old man, and now Ben found his arm gripped again. There was no mistaking the determination behind that grip. ‘I’ve had enough of your nonsense! You come to my house blabbing about corpses that disappear, and about jobs that you want one moment and don’t want the next. Do you think you’re out of the wood yet? Not by a long shot, my man, not by a long shot! You’ll come to the house, as I say, and when you get to the house you’ll do as I tell you. Is that clear?’
It was quite clear. Even if the words had not been, the grip on his arm was painfully so. Ben gave way. The next moment they were returning towards the house along the gravel path at a pace that, in Ben’s case, far exceeded zeal.
‘What are you lagging for?’ asked the old man.
‘Thorn in me boot,’ mumbled Ben.
The answer appeared to amuse the old man. He laughed softly. But he did not accept the explanation.
‘Sure it wasn’t the thought of my dog?’ he inquired.
‘Oh! Dog, was it?’ murmured Ben.
‘Of course! Didn’t you hear me say so? What else?’
Ben offered no alternative theory.
Soon, they reached the house. It loomed up suddenly, as had the gate, and appeared to rise as high as heaven. There was a clink of a key. The wooden door against which Ben had bumped his head swung inwards. Ben was shoved inwards, after it.
Then the door closed, and something else clinked. Ben had his back to the door, but he turned round quickly. The second clink had sounded very like a bolt.
‘What’s the matter with you, my man, what’s the matter with you?’ demanded his host, irritably. ‘All jumps and jerks! I never knew such a fellow!’
Ben glanced beyond the speaker. There wasn’t much light to see by. The thick white mist outside, combined with the beginnings of gloaming, rendered the visibility bad in the hall, and the old man showed no immediate intention of providing artificial illumination. In the heavy, cold whiteness, Ben studied the door.
‘Have you never seen a door before?’ came the sarcastic question.
‘Yus, but ain’t it bolted?’ answered Ben.
‘Certainly, it’s bolted,’ nodded the old man. ‘That’s to prevent you from achieving a similar condition.’
Then, for the first time, the old man appeared to hesitate, and to be at a momentary loss. He glanced rapidly round the hall, and Ben’s eyes followed his. There was no sign of any other presence. The only sound came from a clock on the wall. The clock had a jerking, uneven tick, as though it were trying, without success, to prove a new theory about Time.
The hall was a spacious one. Large and square. The only two visible doors were on the left and right, near the front of the hall, but there was a sense of other doors in the shadows at the back, out of which also grew the dim outlines of a wide ascending staircase. A casement window gloomed opaquely above the staircase where it turned. White forms wreathed outside it, pausing every now and then to peep in.
‘Where can I put you,’ considered the old man, ‘while I see to that dog?’
‘Ain’t he in a kennel?’ replied Ben.
‘Why shouldn’t he be in a kennel?’
‘Well, we’re in ’ere.’
‘We are certainly in here.’
‘Oh, I see. Yer goin’ aht agine?’
‘As a matter of fact,’ the old man informed him, with a smile, ‘I am not going out again. And you were quite right—the dog is not in a kennel. The dog is upstairs.’
‘Wot for?’
‘It is ill.’
‘Wot’s ’e got? The jim-jams?’
‘That may be the untechnical name. Personally, I think it may be going mad.’
‘Eh?’
‘And that’s why I’ve brought it in. Are you fond of dogs?’
‘Not mad ’uns!’
‘What kind?’
‘Little ’uns.’
‘Before they have teeth?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well, this one has plenty of teeth. And, though ill at the moment, it is not too ill to use them. I think—yes—that room. Step this way, will you? I’ll join you again in a moment.’
He opened the door on the right. Ben entered in obedience to a push. Before leaving him, the old man stood in the doorway and delivered a short speech.
‘You will wait here until I return,’ he said. ‘I shall be gone for less than a minute. If you behave like a sensible fellow all will probably be well with you. But, if you don’t—well, you mustn’t blame me for any little accidents.’
&nbs
p; Then he stepped back into the hall, closed the door, and locked it.
‘Dog mad?’ thought Ben, desperately. ‘Wot abart ’im?’
He ran to the door and listened. He heard his host’s footsteps ascending the stairs. When they ceased to resound all was silent again, saving for the spasmodic ticking of the clock with wrong ideas.
Turning away from the door, Ben gazed round the room. Like the hall, it was large. Also like the hall, it was unilluminated. The heavy whiteness that hung about seemed to possess a malevolent spirit. There was something dirty about it.
A heavy piece of furniture blocked most of the front window, cutting off the natural light by half, but it made a good platform for examining the window, and, suddenly realising its potentialities, Ben was on it with a cat-like bound.
It was not an attempt to escape. It was an attempt to investigate position. During that little walk to the house from the gate Ben’s muddy mind had been moving slowly, and things seemed to be shaping in the mud. That corpse—that dog—that moan—would the Merchant Service expect him to turn his back upon them? And then too, even if he escaped, he could not escape far. He saw that now. Molly was making her way towards this spot, and there could therefore be no thought of leaving the spot finally until he could do so in her company.
‘Yus, but didn’t I orter be ahtside, ter warn ’er like?’ thought Ben, as he mounted to examine the window. ‘She didn’t orter come in ’ere, did she? Yus, didn’t I orter—’
The condition of the window decided his point for him. It was not merely closed and latched. It was nailed.
‘Lummy, ’e don’t like fresh hair!’ thought Ben.
He heard a sound in the hall. He nipped down from the window in a panic. True to his word, the old man had not been away more than a minute. The door opened a second after Ben had reached floor level again, and the unpleasant monarch of this house of dimness entered the room.
Ben Sees It Through Page 8
