by Otto Penzler
An Unposted Letter
NEWTON MACTAVISH
THIS ODD LITTLE STORY derives from an unlikely author: Newton McFaul MacTavish (1875–1941), a much-honored Canadian art critic and early art historian. Born in Staffa, Ontario, he began his career as a journalist at the age of twenty-one when he took a job as a reporter at The Toronto Globe and was assistant financial editor there until 1900. At that time he began to study English literature at McGill University while working as a correspondent and business representative of The Globe in Montreal. In 1906, MacTavish became the editor of The Canadian Magazine in Toronto, a position he held for twenty years. He acted as a trustee of the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa from 1922 to 1933. He received honorary degrees in 1924 (M.A.) and 1928 (D.Litt.) from Acadia University, Nova Scotia. He was a member of the Civil Service Commission of Canada from 1926 to 1932. A founder of the Arts and Letters Club (Toronto), he served on the editorial advisory board of the Encyclopedia of Canada (1932–1935), to which he also was a contributor. In addition to his articles, essays, and short stories, MacTavish authored Thrown In (1923), a collection of essays about rural life in nineteenth-century Ontario; The Fine Arts in Canada (1925), the first full-length history of Canadian art; and Ars Longa (1938), stories about Canadian art and artists, with anecdotal reminiscences by the author. A fourth work, Newton MacTavish’s Canada: Selected Essays (1963), was published posthumously.
“An Unposted Letter” was originally published in the February 1901 issue of The Canadian Magazine.
AN UNPOSTED LETTER
Newton MacTavish
OUTSIDE, A HAMMER POUNDED mockingly; the gallows were under construction. Through the iron bars of the prison window shone a few straggling shafts of sunlight. My client rested on his elbows, his chin in his hands. The light glistened on his matted hair. He heard the hammering outside.
“I guess I may’s well write a line to Bill,” he said, not raising his head. “Kin you get a pencil and paper?”
I got them, and then waited until he had written:
“Dear Bill,—By the sound of things, I reckon I’ve got to swing this trip. I’ve had a hope all along that they might git scent on the right track; but I see that Six-Eye’ll be ’bliged to kick the bucket, with head up—the galleys is goin’ up mighty fast.
“I say, Bill, there ain’t no good in burglarin’. I swore once I’d quit it, and wish I had. But a feller can’t allus do just as he fancies; I guess he can’t allus do it, kin he, Bill? You never knew how I got into this scrape, did you?
“One day I was standin’ around, just standin’ around, nothin’ doin’, when I saw a pair of runaway horses a-comin’ down the street like mad. I jumped out and caught the nigh one by the bridle. I hauled ’em up mighty sudden, but somethin’ swung me round, and I struck my head agin the neck-yoke, kersmash.
“When I come to, I was sittin’ back in the carriage with the sweetest faced girl bendin’ over me, and wipin’ my face with cool water. She asked where she would drive me home; and, do you know, Bill, for the first time, I was ashamed to say where. But I told her, and, so help me, she came clear down in there with me, and made Emily put me to bed. She left money, and every day till I got well she come out and sat and read the Bible and all them things. Do you know, Bill, it wasn’t long afore things seemed different. I couldn’t look at her pure, sweet face and plan a job. The last day she came I made up my mind I’d try somethin’ else—quit burglarin’.
“I started out to get work. One man asked me what I’d served my time at. I said I’d served most of it in jail, and then he wouldn’t have anythin’ to do with me. A chap gave me a couple of days breakin’ stones in a cellar. He said I did it so good he guessed I must have been in jail. After that I couldn’t get nothin’ to do, because no one wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with a jail-bird, and I had made up my mind to tell the truth.
“At last Emily began to kick and little Bob to cry for grub. I got sick of huntin’ for work, and it seemed as if everybody was pushin’ me back to my old job. I got disgusted. I had to do somethin’, so I sat down and planned to do a big house in the suburbs. I’d sized it up before.
“The moon was high that night, so I waited till it went down, long after midnight. I found the back door already open, so it was a snap to git in.
“I went upstairs and picked on a side room near the front. I eased the door and looked in. A candle flickered low, and flames danced from a few coals in the fireplace.
“I entered noiselessly.
“A high-backed chair was in front of the hearth. I sneaked up and looked over the top. A young girl, all dressed in white, with low neck and bare arms, laid there asleep. Her hair hung over her shoulders; she looked like as if she’d come home from a dance, and just threw herself there tired out.
“Just as I was goin’ to turn away, the flames in the fireplace flickered, and I caught the glow of rubies at the girl’s throat. How they shone and gleamed and shot fire from their blood-red depths! The candle burned low and sputtered; but the coals on the hearth flickered, the rubies glowed, and the girl breathed soft in her sleep.
“ ‘It’s an easy trick,’ I said to myself, and I leaned over the back of the chair, my breath fanning the light hair that fell over marble shoulders. I took out my knife and reached over. Just then the fire burned up a bit. As I leaned over I saw her sweet, girlish face, and, so h’lp me, Bill, it was her, her whose face I couldn’t look into and plan a job.
“Hardly knowing it, I bared my head, and stood there knife in hand, the blood rushin’ to my face, and my feelin’s someway seemin’ to go agin me.
“I looked at her, and gradually closed my knife and straightened up from that sneakin’ shape a feller gets into. I remembered a verse that she used to read to me, ‘Ye shall not go forth empty-handed,’ so I said to myself I’d try again. But just as I was turning to go, I heard a shot in the next room; then a heavy thud. I stood stock-still for a jiffy, and then ran out in time to see someone dart down the stairs. At the bottom I heard a stumble. I hurried along the hall and ran straight into the arms of the butler.
“I guess someone else was doin’ that job that night. But they had me slicker’n a whistle. ’Twas no use; everythin’ went agin me. I had on my big revolver, the mate to the one you got. As it happened, one chamber was empty, and the ball they took from the old man’s head was the same size. I had a bad record; it was all up with me. The only thing they brought up in court to the contrary was the top of an ear they found in the hall, where someone must have hit agin somethin’ sharp. But they wouldn’t listen to my lawyer.
“Give up burglarin’, Bill; see what I’ve come to. But I hope you’ll do a turn for Emily if ever she’s in need, and don’t learn little Bob filchin’. Do this for an old pal’s sake, Bill.”
The doomed man stopped writing, as the last shaft of sunlight passed beyond the iron bars of the prison window. Outside the hammering had ceased; the scaffold was finished.
“You’ll find Emily, my wife, in the back room of the basement at 126, River Street,” said my client, handing me the letter. “She’ll tell you where to find Bill.”
I took the letter, but did not then know its contents. I started, but he called me back.
“You have a flower in your button-hole,” he said. “I’d like to wrap it up and send it to Emily.”
Next day, after the sentence of the law had been executed, I went to find Emily. I descended the musty old staircase at 126, River Street, where all was filth and squalor. At the back room I stopped and rapped. A towzy head was thrust out of the next door.
“They’re gone,” it said.
“Where?”
“Don’t know. The woman went with some man.”
“Did you know him?”
“I saw him here before sometimes, but the top of his ear wasn’t cut off then. They called him Bill—sort of pal.”
“And where’s the little boy?”
“He’s gone to the Shelter.”
I w
ent out into the pure air, and, standing on the kerbstone, read the letter:
“…The only thing they brought up in court to the contrary was the top of an ear….”
When I had finished, I remembered the flower in my hand. I didn’t throw it away; I took it to my office and have it there still, wrapped in the paper as he gave it to me.
Rogue: Smiler Bunn
The Adventure of “The Brain”
BERTRAM ATKEY
MOST REMEMBERED, if remembered at all, for the creation of Smiler Bunn, a not-quite-gentleman-crook, Bertram Atkey (1880–1952) also invented a wide range of eccentric and original characters for his many works of fiction, notably Winnie O’Wynn, a charming gold-digger; Prosper Fair, an amateur detective who is really Duke of Devizes; Hercules, a sportsman; Nelson Chiddenham, a crippled boy detective who has an immense knowledge of dogs and the countryside; Captain Cormorant, a widely traveled mercenary adventurer; and Sebastian Hope, a henpecked husband with a peculiar gift for disarming his wife by feeding her alibis of great verisimilitude.
It is the scores of stories about Smiler Bunn that continue to have charm in the present day. Also known as Mr. Wilton Flood, Bunn is an ingenious crook, blessed with great courage, resourcefulness, and humor, who “makes his living off society in a manner always devious and sometimes dark, but never mean.” Bunn and his friend Lord Fortworth have lived in bachelor partnership for years, specializing in taking portable property (such as cash and jewels) from those who have no right to it, thereby avoiding encounters with the police.
Born in Wiltshire, Atkey moved to London as a teenager to write stories. He published his first book, Folk of the Wild, a collection of nature stories, in 1905. Two years later he created Smiler Bunn, later collecting the stories in The Amazing Mr. Bunn (1912), the first of nine books about the genial crook.
“The Adventure of ‘The Brain’ ” was first published in the January 1910 issue of The Grand Magazine, and first collected in The Amazing Mr. Bunn (London, Newnes, 1912).
THE ADVENTURE OF “THE BRAIN”
Bertram Atkey
“I SHALL NOW PROCEED to give my celebrated imitation of a gentleman pinching a blood-orange,” mused Mr. “Smiler” Bunn, the gifted pickpocket of Garraty Street, King’s Cross, to himself, as he stood thoughtfully before a fruiterer’s shop in a small street off Oxford Street. “A real gent hooking of the biggest blood-orange in the bunch!”
With this laudable intention he turned his gaze upon a fine pineapple that reposed aristocratically upon pink paper behind the plate-glass window, as the shopman came out and stood for a moment near the door, leaning against the shopfront extension, which was piled with fruit—chiefly oranges, “blood” and otherwise. This part of the shop was in front of the window, and was unprotected save by the watchful care of the shopman.
“Nice little pineapple, that,” said Mr. Bunn casually.
“Pretty fair for the time of year,” replied the shopman. “Will you take it?”
“Well, ’ow much is it?”
“Half a guinea,” said the shopman.
Mr. Bunn shook his head. His resources at the moment totalled sevenpence only.
“Too dear,” he decided, both hands plunged deep into his coat-pockets. “What’s the little black-looking thing that keeps on running round the pineapple? Not a mouse, is it?”
The shopman plunged inside suddenly, with a frightful threat against all mice, and—Mr. Bunn’s right hand flickered. Only flickered. Few people watching him would have cared to wager that his hand had left his pocket at all. Then he moved tranquilly away, and the biggest blood-orange on the shop-front went with him. The celebrated imitation was over, and the performer had strolled calmly round an adjacent corner before the shopman had given up his search for the mouse.
“Very well done, old man,” muttered Mr. Bunn. “I ain’t sure but what you ain’t improving. Your ’and has not lost its cunning, nor your heye its quickness.”
He turned into Oxford Street, feeling distinctly encouraged by this small success, and mingled unobtrusively with the crowd of women who were looking at the shop windows and wondering why their husbands did not earn as much as other women’s husbands.
Mr. Bunn had skilfully worked his way through the thickest of the crowd for over a hundred yards before he marked a lady who seemed sufficiently careless in the handling of her bag to call for his closer attention. He moved quickly to her. She was a handsome woman of middle age, with a determined face, and rather too strong a chin. She was exceedingly well-dressed, and carried her bag in the bend of two fingers. At first she did not appear to be interested in the shops, but a hat dashingly displayed in a corner window suddenly caught her attention, and she stopped to look at it. Mr. Bunn paused for the fraction of a second immediately behind her. Then he went quietly on—round the corner (corners were a speciality of Smiler Bunn’s). He did not look behind—he knew better. He simply lounged very slowly on, hoping the bag did not make too pronounced a bulge in his pocket. He looked quite the most unconcerned man in London, until he heard a sudden rustle of skirts behind him and felt a quick, firm grip on his arm.
“You are very unintelligent,” said a sharp voice, and he turned to see the well-dressed woman who had been carrying her bag carelessly.
“Give me what you have in your right-hand coat-pocket at once,” she requested him coldly.
“I dunno what you mean. I don’t know you. What d’you mean?” asked Smiler, rather nervously.
“Do not let us have any nonsense, please,” was her chilly comment. “Give it to me at once.”
Smiler put his hand in his pocket with desperate calmness and drew out—a remarkably fine blood-orange.
“It’s the only one I got, but you can have it——” he began; but she interrupted.
“Do you want me to call the police?” she said. “Give me the bag instantly.”
Smiler gave a sickly smile, put his hand into the other pocket, and, with a badly-feigned start of surprise, produced the bag.
“Why, what’s this? However did this get there? This ain’t mine—it don’t belong to me!” he began, making the best of a very bad job.
But she cut him short. She took the bag, her quick grey eyes playing over him in a singularly comprehensive glance. She saw a clean-shaven, rather stout, butlerish-looking man of about thirty-eight, with a good-humoured mouth and a solid chin. He was extremely shabby, but neat, and obviously was in a state of considerable embarrassment. She was about to speak, when Mr. Bunn pushed back his hat and passed his hand across his brow—a gesture evidently unconscious, and born of the mental stress of the moment. But her eyes brightened suddenly as they lighted upon his forehead, and her lips relaxed a little. For it was unquestionably a fine frontal development—a Brow among Brows. Assisted somewhat by a slight premature baldness, the forehead of Mr. Bunn was a feature of which its owner was acutely conscious. There was too much of it, in his opinion. It had never been of much use to him, and he was in the habit of considering its vast expanse a deformity rather than a sign of intellect. He was quite aware that it saved his features from being commonplace—he fancied it made them ridiculous instead. But evidently the lady of the bag did not think so. She was actually smiling to him.
“I should like to ask you a few questions,” she said, “if you have no objection.”
Mr. Bunn did not answer.
“Have you any objection?” she inquired sweetly, glancing across the road, where a dozen policemen were solemnly walking in Indian file towards their beats. Smiler regarded them for a moment—a most unpleasant sight, he considered.
Then, “No, no objection—not at all—not by no means,” he said.
“Be good enough to accompany me, then,” continued the woman, in a singularly businesslike way. She moved slowly on, and Mr. Bunn walked by her side.
“Why are you a pickpocket?” she said curtly.
Mr. Bunn muttered to the effect that he was not—strike him lucky if he was. But the woman ignored his
denial.
“It is so foolish,” she said. “So obviously unsuitable a profession for a man with your intellect. Why, with your forehead you should be carving out a great future, a career, a reputation.”
Smiler stared suspiciously at her.
“You leave my forrid alone,” he requested her. “I can’t help having a thing more like a balloon than a ’eadpiece on my shoulders, can I?”
“But, my good person, don’t you see what a great thing it is to have such a brain, and what a terrible thing it is for such an intellect to lie dormant? If all men had such intellect as your forehead tells me plainly you possess, you do not think we women would ever have asked for votes? Certainly not. It is because not one man in a hundred thousand possesses such a brain as yours that we have decided to fight for our rights. And when I think of the possibilities of yours, when I think of the latent power in your glorious head, that only needs training and shaping to the Idea. When I think, here I have in its practically fallow state a Brain of Brains which belongs to me, and is my own to mould as I like—unless its owner wishes to be sent to prison for six months in the third division with hard labour—can you wonder that my whole spirit takes fire, and I cry aloud, yet again—‘VOTES FOR WOMEN!’ ”
It was a truly lusty yell, and it gave Mr. Bunn an unpleasant shock. Everyone within hearing turned to stare at the woman, but she seemed blandly unconscious of their scrutiny. She gripped the unnerved Smiler’s arm and became business-like again.
“Understand me,” she said. “I consider you a Find, and I propose to keep you—unless, of course, you prefer to be handed over to the police. I can see that you are a man with immense possibilities, and those possibilities I intend to develop with the ultimate aim of devoting them to the Cause. Do you understand me? I propose to educate you. You shall become a lecturer, a champion of women’s rights, a pursuer of the Vote. You shall be paid while you are being taught—and paid well—and when, in the course of time, I have stirred that great Brain out of its present inaction, it shall be devoted to our service and rewarded in proportion. No—not a word. Come with me. I am Lilian Carroway.”
