J. JEFFERSON FARJEON
Murderer’s Trail

Copyright

COLLINS CRIME CLUB

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain for Crime Club by W. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1931

Copyright © Estate of J. Jefferson Farjeon 1931

Cover design by Mike Topping © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

Cover background images © shutterstock.com

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008155919

Ebook Edition © August 2016 ISBN: 9780008155926

Version: 2016-06-28

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1: Invisible Fingers

Chapter 2: Ben Versus Ghosts

Chapter 3: The Stomach of a Ship

Chapter 4: Confidences in the Dark

Chapter 5: What Happened at Hammersmith

Chapter 6: The Third Officer

Chapter 7: The Faggis Jigsaw

Chapter 8: In the Captain’s Cabin

Chapter 9: Cross-Examination

Chapter 10: The Man with the Sack

Chapter 11: On the Boat Deck

Chapter 12: Hanging Over Space

Chapter 13: Grim Preparations

Chapter 14: Re-Enter Faggis

Chapter 15: Death Tries Again

Chapter 16: Six in a Boat

Chapter 17: The End of the Voyage

Chapter 18: The Landing

Chapter 19: The Mountain Track

Chapter 20: Arrival at the ‘First Hotel’

Chapter 21: The Conference in the Hut

Chapter 22: The Binding of Ben

Chapter 23: The Chamber of Horrors

Chapter 24: Spain Intervenes

Chapter 25: How Mr Sims Killed Ben

Chapter 26: Life Grows Worse and Worse

Chapter 27: The End of the Bridge

Chapter 28: Through the Night

Chapter 29: In a Spanish Bedroomio

Chapter 30: En Route for Villabanzos

Chapter 31: Exchange Is No Robbery

Chapter 32: Ben’s Passenger

Chapter 33: Flying Knives

Chapter 34: Confidences in a Cellar

Chapter 35: An Official Visit

Chapter 36: ‘The Last Resort’

Chapter 37: The Events on the Road

Chapter 38: The Battle in the Cellar

Chapter 39: The Fruits of Actions

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also in This Series

About the Publisher

1
Invisible Fingers

‘Now, then,’ frowned the policeman, ‘where have you come from?’

The human scarecrow, of no address and with only half a name—the half he had was Ben, and the other half had been lost years ago—removed his eyes from the poster he had been staring at. The poster said, ‘Old Man Murdered at Hammersmith,’ and it was a nasty sight. But the policeman wasn’t much improvement. Policemen were blots on any landscape.

Where had he come from? Queer, how the world harped upon that unimportant question! As a rule it was an Embankment seat, or a coffee-stall, or a shop where they sold cheese, or an empty house where one could pass a night rent free. What did it matter? But the nosey-parker world seemed to think it mattered, and was always worrying him about it. Policemen in particular.

‘Didn’t you hear me?’ demanded the policeman. ‘Where’ve you come from?’

‘Not ’Ammersmith,’ answered Ben.

His eyes wandered back to the poster. The policeman’s frown increased. Bent on being a nuisance, he persisted, with a tinge of sarcasm:

‘Quite sure of that?’

Faint indignation stirred within the scarecrow’s meagrely-covered breast. That was another thing about the world. Ben couldn’t do anything, but the world was always accusing him of everything!

‘Orl right, ’ave it yer own way,’ he said, with a sarcasm that far exceeded the constable’s. ‘I was walkin’ by ’im and I didn’t like ’is ’ead, so I chopped it orf.’

‘I suppose you think that’s funny?’ inquired the policeman.

‘Yus,’ retorted Ben. ‘There’s nothink like a nice little murder ter mike yer larf!’

Then the policeman decided that, unless the interview were concluded, the law stood a good chance of losing its superiority in the encounter without gaining anything in return; so, uttering a warning generality against the dangers of loitering and of back-chat, he leisurely adjusted his belt, turned, and trudged away.

Ben shivered. Despite the way in which he stuck up to them, policemen always made him shiver in his secret heart. If they never did anything to him, they always carried the threat! It wasn’t only the policeman, however, that made Ben shiver as he stood blinking in the gloaming. He had holes in his clothes, and the gloaming got through. There was a place on his knee open to three square inches of breeze. He had torn it on a nail seven weeks ago, and it occurred to him that it was about time to try and bump into someone with a needle and cotton. After seven weeks, the spot was getting cold.

But, even more than the holes and the policeman, the poster made Ben shiver. At first he had stared at the words vaguely. You know—as one does, when one is hard up for hobbies. Then the words impressed themselves upon his mind, with all their unpleasantness. This murderin’ business—it wasn’t no joke! Yet Ben had made a joke about it, as he often did about the things that scared him most. He had suggested that he had committed the murder himself, and had cut the old man’s head off! There was a nasty idea! And suppose the policeman had believed him …

‘Oi!’ he gasped.

Somebody had blundered into him. He hit out wildly—the rule is to hit first and to think afterwards—but his fists went wide, and the somebody toppled in between them. For an amazing moment he held the somebody in his arms. It was an amazing moment because the somebody wasn’t in the least like the somebody he had expected to find there. It was a rather small somebody who clung to him, limply, gasping; a somebody with a bit of hair that tickled his cheek, and a little ear, and a rather nice sense of soft warmth. Then the amazing moment passed, and the somebody shot away from him in a panic.

Ben saw her more distinctly now. He saw her eyes, bright with fear, and the flutter of her heaving breast, and her slender legs, slim and taut, beneath her short brown skirt. For an instant she stood there, poised before the grim background, ‘Old Man Murdered at Hammersmith.’ The word ‘Murdered’ leered between her knees, and ‘Hammersmith’ between her ankles. Pretty ankles, alive with grace and elasticity. Then the ankles got to work, twisted as though suddenly touched by electricity, and bore their owner round a corner.

‘’Ere! ’Arf a mo’!’ called Ben.

But the girl had vanished.

Ben decided that it was time he did a bit of vanishing. The sensation was creeping over him that unpleasant things were happening, and that invisible fingers were stretching towards him to draw him in. He knew the signs. He’d been drawn in before. He’d been drawn into cupboards and coffins and corpses, into cellars and wells and dark passages, and had been tossed about by the invisible fingers like a blinkin’ shuttlecock! Well, he wasn’t having any more of it. All he wanted was a quiet life, same as he’d heard about, and he meant to get it, if there wasn’t an old man left alive in Hammersmith!

So he departed from the corner where a poster had delayed his aimless wanderings, and shuffled along the moist streets to a coffee-stall a couple of blocks away. It wasn’t raining, but the streets were moist as though with their environment. Water was in the atmosphere, and the damp aroma of London docks.

‘Cup o’ tea,’ he said, to the stall-keeper.

The stall-keeper looked up from a coin he was holding. In the pleasant little glare of his temporary shop, and surrounded by cheering edibles, hungry folk would have described him as handsome.

‘Who’s going to pay for it?’ he asked.

‘You are,’ replied Ben.

‘Oh, am I?’ exclaimed the stall-keeper, and reached the conclusion, after a close scrutiny of his impecunious customer, that perhaps he would. We’ve all got to try and get into heaven somehow, and the ticket would be cheap for a cup of tea. ‘Well, you can share my bit o’ luck, if you like. Last customer left in too much hurry to take his change.’

He held up the coin he had been examining. It was a two-shilling piece. A new one. Then he turned his head and glanced along the road, where the last customer was vanishing into the murk.

‘One o’ them—well, jerky chaps,’ the stall-keeper went on, as he slopped tea into a thick cup. ‘Up they come like a jack-in-the-box. “Sandwich!” And they’ve hardly got their fingers on it before they’re off. I reckon when they say their prayers they jest say, “Hallo God, good-bye!”’ He chuckled at his little joke while he shoved the cup across. He always served spoons with his saucers, to prove that he knew Ritz manners, but the spoons were always drowned. ‘Couldn’t have gone quicker, not if a bobby’d been after him.’

Ben did not offer any comment at once. The tea claimed first attention. But when he had drunk half of it and the warmth began to percolate through the chills in his soul, he observed, meditatively:

‘P’r’aps one was!’

‘Well, you never know, do you?’ replied the stall-keeper, now becoming meditative himself. ‘New money and old clothes always makes me suspicious if it ain’t Christmas-time. And, then, there’s another thing. There was a nasty mark on his face. That’s right. A nasty mark. And not one he’d got in the war.’ He paused, to visualise the nasty mark. It had been on his left cheek. ‘Read about the bloke they’ve done in at Hammersmith?’

Ben frowned. Wasn’t there any way of keeping this old man from continually popping up?

‘It’s in the paper,’ said the stall-keeper.

‘Well, I ain’t read it,’ answered Ben. ‘I belongs to one o’ them inscripshun libraries.’

The stall-keeper’s head disappeared behind the expanded pages of an afternoon journal. Invisible, it announced:

‘Ah, here we are. “Old Man With His Throat Cut. Hunt in Hammersmith. Rich Recloosey.” Don’t seem no end to ’em. But they’ve got the knife, I see, and it ses here that the police are on the track of an important clue.’

‘Well, the dead bloke’s a clue, ain’t ’e?’ queried Ben, making an effort.

‘And we’re to look out for a feller six foot one, in a dark suit.’

‘And wot do we do when we finds ’im?’ inquired Ben. ‘Go hup ter ’im and hask, “Beg pardon, guv’nor, but do you ’appen to ’ave done a murder terday?” They tike us fer blinkin’ mugs, don’t they?’

But the stall-keeper wasn’t listening to Ben. He was thinking. ‘Six foot one. Six foot one. And a dark suit. Well, that’s queer—or am I barmy?’

A couple of sailors came along. They were noisy and half-drunk. Not feeling social (and you need to feel social if you are going to get any change out of half-drunks), Ben finished his tea, thanked the good-natured stall-keeper, and slipped away. In two minutes, the pleasant coffee-stall was merely a memory, and the dark, moist streets were closing in upon him again.

From beyond the dimness on his left came the depressing sound of a tram. The sound was some way off, and painted no sylvan picture. Ahead, moist vistas. On his right, a wall. A high wall. An interminable wall. Every now and then the wall was punctuated by an opening guarded by a gate or a door. The doors, being solid, revealed no glimpse of what lay beyond the wall, but through the occasional gates one got little peeps of a queer, derelict land, of unpopulated spaces, of rails that seemed to have no purpose, of large, barren buildings and of other walls. One could not see water, but one knew it was there. It hung in the greyness, and breathed up above its level. It was both depressing and invigorating—it whispered of lapping ooze and of vivid colours, of blue seas and blackened bodies. It gave you the taste of salt and the tang of wet rope. It filled your subconscious soul with a prayer for liberty and a knowledge of captivity, even the subconscious soul of a scarecrow like Ben, who had no knowledge of his soul or of what it was passing through.

‘Gawd, wot a smell!’ he thought once. ‘Tork abart dead fish!’

Yes, even his nose was shocked. Yet there was something about the smell … Ben, in almost-forgotten days, had been to sea …

Hallo! One of the doors was ajar! Hardly conscious that he did so, he slipped through. Perhaps he thought that, on the inner side of this wall, there would be fewer inquiries when he found his pitch for the night. Perhaps the water’s breath, or that queer, dead-fish smell, had led him to follow an unreasonable impulse. Or perhaps the invisible fingers from which he was endeavouring to escape had stretched out through the open door, had closed round his frail frame, and had drawn him in. A moment of sudden terror, born of he knew not what, supported the latter theory as he stood on this threshold of dockland.

‘Garn, yer idgit!’ he rounded on himself the next instant; and he comforted himself by his time-worn philosophy, ‘One plice is as good as another, ain’t it, when there ain’t nowhere helse?’

So, quelling his fear and imagining himself a hero once more, he advanced over the derelict spaces of the dock to find a corner where he could lie down and dream of kings and queens.

And the invisible fingers closed the door in the wall behind him.

2
Ben versus Ghosts

‘Oi! Git orf me!’

Ben sat up abruptly, with a clammy sensation that a nightmare had pattered over him. Then fear of death was succeeded by indignation against life. Why had life, as momentarily represented by a black and shadowy dockyard, nothing better to offer a weary man than the horrible spot on which he lay?

Ben did not often sleep between clean sheets, but he had his standards. A bit of a carpet, with a footstool under your head—the corner of an empty attic, particularly if the attic were triangular to improve the wedge-like snugness of the angle, and if the peeling wall-paper kept off your nose—a couple of chairs with a minimum of seven legs—even a table, either on it or under it, according to which least reminded you of granite—these were supportable and permitted you to retain the one per cent of self-respect unfeeling life had left you. But cold and slippery stone, an equally cold and slippery post that vanished from behind you every time you moved your head half an inch to scratch it, leaving you outstretched, and rats!—these were conditions that even a worm might turn at, destroying its faith in the god that looks so inadequately after the Lesser Things!

Yes, the rats in particular. Ben hated rats. Nasty, slimy creatures, with evil eyes and bodies four sizes too large. Mice, now—they were different. You could chum up with a mouse when you knew how, and give them little bits of cheese. But rats took the cheese without waiting to ask. They just watched you from a dark corner or a crack, then darted forward with a swift swish, clambered heavily over you like giant slugs fitted with feet, used your face as a floor, and left their foot-marks on your soul.

‘Next rat I see,’ thought Ben, ‘I’ll wring its neck!’

A large dock rodent accepted the challenge, leapt at his cheek, and bounced away again into the blackness. Ben’s eyebrows only escaped contact through being raised out of the rat’s route in terror. A month previously an Asiatic’s eyebrows had been less fortunate in Smyrna.

‘Blimy, wot a life!’ muttered Ben, wiping his forehead with a red handkerchief. The handkerchief was already four weeks late for its annual laundering, but, even so, handkerchief was preferable to rat, and he wiped hard to make certain that no trace of rat remained. ‘I ’opes I’m born somethink dif’rent nex’ time!’ He carried the thought a stage farther. ‘I ’opes there ain’t no nex’ time!’

Indeed, it was a life! Why did one hang on to it? Not far away dark water oozed and sucked around big, stationary ships. All one had to do was to get up, feel one’s way over the damp ground, avoiding posts and chains and ropes—there wasn’t any need to hurt yourself on the way, was there?—until there wasn’t any wet ground, but only the dark water. ‘Couple o’ gurgles, and yer’ve done with knocks,’ he reflected. Then he chided himself. Wot, ’im a swizzicide? ’Im wot ’ad been in the Merchant Service and ’ad once asked a captain for a rise? ‘Ben, yer potty!’ he announced to his weaker nature. ‘Come orf it!’ And so, instead of seeking the dark water, he sought the post again, with the more temporary sleep it offered, discovered too late that the post wasn’t there, and found himself flat.

He gave a yelp. The yelp was echoed. Now Ben was no longer flat. He was on his feet, shaking like a struck tuning-fork. For if the second yelp had really been an echo of the first, its character had changed uncannily in the tiny space of time between!

Ben’s yelp had been the yelp of one in sudden pain. The other seemed to have come from one in sudden panic.

‘Well, I’m in a panic, ain’t I?’ chattered Ben, struggling for comfort in the thought.

He stood, listening—for thirteen years. The echo was not repeated. Then, deciding that any place was better than where he was, a condition which possibly explains the source of most human energy, he groped his way through darkest dockland in search of a happier spot. He did not know in what direction he was walking saving that, if the second cry had come from the north, he was unerringly walking south.

He came upon another post. It wasn’t a nice post. It was unnaturally white, and it fluttered. All at once it occurred to Ben that it wasn’t a post at all, and that he had better hit it. The blow proved, painfully, that it was a post, but the fluttering white costume still needed explaining. A match explained it. Matches, at certain moments, are wonderful company. The service performed by the present match, however, might have been improved on. The costume turned out to be a newspaper poster tied round the post with a piece of string, and the poster said:

OLD MAN

MURDERED

AT

HAMMERSMITH

‘Gawd! Ain’t I never goin’ ter git away from it?’ muttered Ben.

For a few seconds the match-light flickered on the gruesome words—words against which the holder of the match might have laid his head. But sleep was no longer in the immediate programme. A rat, an echo, and a placard had combined to demonstrate that dockland—or, at any rate, this particular corner of dockland—was unhealthy, and that the best thing to do was to get right out of it.

The match-light touched his fingers. He dropped it spasmodically, but suppressed the exclamation. He had an idea that ears were listening, and in the darkness that followed the match’s descent the policy of retreat became instantly more appealing. Even in the darkness the horrible placard was still visible. It shivered palely as a little night breeze slithered from the sides of ships, and suddenly Ben turned and darted away. His foot caught in a chain, and he made a croquet-hoop over it.

He remained, croquet-hooped, for nearly half a minute. Only by utter staticism, he felt, did he stand any chance that Fate would lose him and pass him by. He knew for certain by now that Fate was hunting him, and that the invisible fingers were groping to make their catch. It was only when he considered that it would not be dignified to be caught in the shape of a croquet-hoop that he cautiously rose and proceeded on his miserable way.

He trod gingerly. He raised his feet high over many chains that were not there, and failed to raise them over another that was. He didn’t fall this time, however. As the ground rose up towards him, like the deck of a rolling ship, he lurched his left leg forward with a bent knee, recalling a trick of his old sea days. ‘Not this time, cocky!’ He glared at the chain. But a couple of seconds later he looped over some fresh obstacle, and his hands descended on something soft.

‘Wot’s ’appened?’ he wondered. ‘Is the bloomin’ ground meltin’?’

Or was it grass? But what would grass be doing here? Soft. Soft and warmish. Now, what was soft and warmish?

The solution came to him in a sickening flash. Suddenly weakened, the human croquet-hoop went flat, doing a sort of splits north and south from the stomach. Then it bounded up towards the unseen stars. It is doubtful whether anything in dockland had risen so high in the time since the days of bombardments.

Obeying the laws of gravitation, Ben came down on the spot from which he had vertically ascended. In other words, he came down on a dead man. After that, he ran amok.

He ran without knowledge of time or direction. Actually, the time was five minutes, and the direction was a very large circle. He fought imaginary foes all the way, and at every fifth step he leapt high over imaginary corpses. By the time he had completed the circle, his breath was spent. But, as events were soon to prove, that needn’t stop you. You can always borrow a bit of breath from the future if you’re really pressed.

Back at the spot where he had started from, he paused. He knew it was the same spot for various reasons. One was the chain—the chain over which he had nearly tripped just before falling over the dead body. There it was. No mistaking it. Another reason was a shape looming on his left. A bit of a boat. He remembered that too. Another reason—the strongest reason—was instinct. He knew this was the same spot. Couldn’t say why. Just knew it. It was as though he had stepped back into a picture he had temporarily deserted, completing it again … Yes, but one thing wasn’t in the picture. What was it? What was missing?

He stared at the ground ahead of him. His eyes glued themselves to the spot.

‘Lummy!’ he murmured. ‘Where’s ’e got ter?’

A splash answered him.

Several nasty things had happened during the last few minutes, but this splash was among the nastiest. If it had been followed by a cry, or by further splashing, or by any sound denoting movement, it would have seemed less ominous. But it was followed by nothing. Just silence. Whatever had caused the splash had made no protest.

And then, suddenly and without warning, a dark form came vaguely into view, and stopped dead.

The form was tall and shadowy, and the reason of its abrupt halt was obvious. If it had come into Ben’s view, Ben had also come into its view. Each was a dim shadow to the other. Too frozen to move, Ben stared at the spectre, while the spectre stared back. Then, when the silence at last became unbearable, the weaker broke it.

‘’Allo!’ said Ben stupidly.

He heard himself saying it with surprise. He did not recall having instructed his tongue to say it. And, now he came to think of it, had he said it? The spectre made no sign of having heard it.

‘’Allo!’ He tried again.

He was sure he had said it that time. His voice rattled like hollow thunder. But the spectre still made no sign. Slightly encouraged by the astonishing fact that he was still alive, Ben became informative.

‘There was a deader ’ere jest now,’ he said.

The spectre moved a little closer. Ben backed a little farther.

‘’Ere, none o’ that!’ he muttered, and then added, in nervous exasperation, ‘’As somebody cut out yer tongue?’

He closed his eyes tightly the next instant. He was afraid the spectre would answer the question by opening its mouth and revealing that its tongue had been cut out. He couldn’t have stood that. The darkness of closed lids was momentarily consoling, for it not only shut out the spectre, but it induced the theory that perhaps there really wasn’t any spectre at all. The whole thing might be just imagination. There were not many things, come to think of it, Ben had not imagined in his time. Once he had even imagined a transparent tiger with all its victims. ‘Wot you gotter do,’ he told himself soberly, ‘is ter stop bein’ frightened. See?’ Then he felt two arms around him, and forgot the advice.

Ben’s accomplishments were few, but he could carve little statues out of cheese, and he could bite. He bit now, and fortunately what he bit proved vulnerable. The spectre emitted a savage oath—there was no doubt now that it possessed a tongue—and Ben felt a pain somewhere. He didn’t know where. There wasn’t time to find out. But he knew he felt it, and the knowledge was so acute that he was urged to give a second bite. The second bite produced a second oath and a temporary loosening of the tentacles around him. He slid down, dodged left, slid up, dodged right, twisted, turned and ran.

He heard a heavy fall behind him. The chain that had once proved his enemy now proved his friend. His pursuer had tripped over it.

Profiting by this incident, Ben ran as he had never run before. That is to say, his legs moved as they had never moved before. For some reason, born of the nightmare atmosphere, his body seemed to be insisting on slow-motion, and as his legs raced beneath him he had a queer feeling that he was travelling in first gear.

That wasn’t the only trouble. As he ran, everything about him appeared to have increased in size and in height. The posts he sped by had grown four yards. The iron rings in the posts could have encircled Carnera. A wooden partition actually became taller as he passed it. The roof of a vast shed was as distant as the stars. And while his eyes grappled with these grim illusions, his brain grappled with the grim realities that had brought him to this sorry pass. The realities formed themselves into another chain, a chain this time in his mind. It was a chain of six links. Rat—cry—poster—body—splash—spectre. Rat—cry—poster—body—splash—spectre. But wasn’t there something else? Wasn’t there a girl somewhere? A girl who had blundered into his arms? And a man who had hurriedly left a coffee-stall without waiting for his change? Girl—man—rat—cry

Oi! What was this? Another link? The dark world began to swim. The spectre was behind him, twenty feet, or two, but this new apparition was before him. Short, thick-set, and stumpy. And motionless.

Ben, also, became motionless. When you’re the middle of the sandwich, you just wait to see which way you get it from. He expected to get it from the new apparition, and couldn’t understand the delay. Then, all at once, he discovered the reason. The new apparition had his back to him.

Fate was giving him a chance, and he took it. He could not advance, and he could not retreat, and on his right was a brick wall. On his left was another wall, but this was of iron, and in the iron a black hole gaped. It was a short distance from Ben’s feet to the hole. Just the length of a board that spanned a few inches of water.

‘’Ere goes fer Calcutter!’ thought Ben.

And into the hole he shot.

3
The Stomach of a Ship

The ship you know is probably a very pleasant affair. It has scrupulously scrubbed decks, luxuriously carpeted stairways, palatial dining-rooms, and snug cabins. In these surroundings you meet clean, trim officers, talk with some of them on polite subjects, stretch, yawn and play shovel-board. But the ship you probably do not know—the ship that provides the real service for which you pay—is a very different matter.

It is dark, and it is hot. It is honeycombed with narrow passages and iron ladders. You go up the ladders or down the ladders or along the ladders. Some are fixed at an angle, some are vertical, and their only object seems to be to lead to other ladders. Your Mecca may be the scorching side of a huge boiler, or a little gap in the blackness through which hell peeps, or a metal excrescence bristling with a thousand nuts, or a mountain of coal. None invite you to stop, unless economic pressure has forced them upon you, or some other strange necessity has brought you to seek their ambiguous consolation. On you go, sweating, through the bewildering labyrinth, from ladder to ladder, from passage to passage, from dimness to dimness, from heat to heat. A germ in the ship’s stomach.

And so Ben went on. When he had first entered the black hole in the ship’s side he had shot across a dark space in a panic, and then, striking something—whether human or not he had no notion—he had shot across another dark space in another panic. He had stopped dead on the edge of a dip. He had heard a movement near him. Human, this time, he swore. He had shot down the dip, fallen, clutched, and discovered a rail. Thus he had arrived at the first of the interminable ladders.

Now he was in a maze of ladders. A metallic city of descents. But he did not always descend. Sometimes he went up. The main thing was to keep moving, and to move in the least impossible direction. Presently one would come to a dead end, and then one would stop because one had to.

It is probable that if Ben had never been in a ship’s stomach before he would have been killed or caught during the early stages of his journey. A ship’s interior is not designed for the speed of those who dwell in it. In his zenith, however, Ben had stoked with the best of them, and a long-dormant instinct was now reasserting itself and leading him towards coal.

But it was the simple law of gravitation that finally brought him there. He was descending a particularly precipitous ladder, a ladder that seemed to be hanging down sheerly into space, and all at once something caught his eye between the rungs. He became conscious of a sudden flutter. A small shape, like a detached hand, loomed momentarily, and it gave him a shock that loosened his grip. ‘Oi!’ he gulped. The rung he had been grasping shot upwards, while he shot downwards. A short, swift flight through space, and he landed on the coal

He was oblivious to the impact. As his long-suffering frame rebelled at last against the indignity of consciousness, he swam into a velvet blackness, and this time the blackness was utterly obliterating.

Thud-thud! Thud-thud! Thud-thud!

Ben opened his eyes. He came out of the greater blackness into the lesser. Cosmos was replaced by coal.

Coal was all about him. Under him, beside him, on top of him. He could understand the coal that was under him and the coal that was beside him, but he couldn’t understand the coal that was on top of him. When you fall upon coal, it doesn’t usually get up and lay itself over you like a counterpane.

But that wasn’t the only thing that puzzled him. There was something else. Something new. Something …

Thud-thud! Thud-thud! Thud-thud!

‘Gawd—we’re movin’!’ thought Ben.

Yes, undoubtedly, the boat was moving. The engines were thudding rhythmically, like great pulses, and although there was nothing visible by which to gauge movement, Ben’s body felt a sense of progress. How long had he been unconscious, then? More than the minute it seemed, obviously. Was it ten minutes, or an hour, or twelve hours, since he had seen the little waving hand and had pitched down here from the ladder? Or … even longer?

He moved cautiously. Very cautiously. This surprising roof of coal must be treated with respect, or it would cave in. As he moved, his foot came into contact with something that, surely, was not coal. Something soft. Something warm. Then he remembered the last warm, soft thing he had touched, and he stiffened.

The fellow he had tripped over in the dockyard! Was he here, beside him?

No, of course not! Steady, Ben! There was that splash, don’t you remember? That fellow had been pitched into the water. And, anyhow, this soft thing was different, somehow. Quite different. Ah, a cat! That was it! The ship’s cat, come to see him, and to give him a friendly lick!

Now Ben moved his hand, groping carefully through the cavern towards the cat’s body. ‘Puss, puss!’ he muttered. ‘’Ow’s yer mother?’ He opened his fingers, and prepared to stroke whatever they made contact with. His fingers met other fingers. The other fingers closed over his.

‘That’s funny!’ thought Ben. ‘Why ain’t I shriekin’?’

It wasn’t because he wasn’t trying. He was doing all he could to shriek. Well, wouldn’t you, if you were lying in a cavern of coal, and somebody else’s hand closed over yours? But the shriek would not come. It was merely his thought that bawled. P’r’aps he had a bit of coal in his throat? That might be it! How did you get a bit of coal out of your throat when one hand was under you, and the other was being held, and your nose was pressing against another bit of coal?

Then Ben realised why he wasn’t screaming. The other person’s hand, in some queer way, was ordering him not to. It kept on pressing his, at first in long, determined grasps, but afterwards in quick, spasmodic ones. ‘Don’t scream—don’t scream—don’t scream!’ urged each pressure. ‘Wait!’

What for?

A moment later, he knew. Voices were approaching.

At first they were merely an indistinguishable accompaniment to the thudding of the engines, but gradually they drew out of throb and became separate and individual. One voice was slow and rough. The other was sharp and curt. Ben had never heard either of them before, yet he had an odd sensation that he had done so, and instinctively he visualised the speakers. The first, tall; the second, short, thick-set and stumpy.

‘This the spot?’ drawled the first speaker.

‘Yes. Charming, isn’t it?’ said the second.

There was a pause. When the first speaker answered he had drawn nearer, and seemed so close that Ben nearly jumped. He might have jumped but for another little pressure of the fingers still closed over his.

‘Can’t say I’d choose to live in it,’ came the slow voice.

‘Well, no one’s asking you to live in it,’ came the curt one. ‘It’ll do, anyway. That is, if we’re driven to it. But there may be another way.’

‘Seems to’ve been made for us.’

‘P’r’aps it was! Old Papa Fate hands one a prize once and again, doesn’t he? He handed you to me, for instance!’

‘And he handed you to me!’

A short laugh followed. Then the curt voice said:

‘Well, it’s fifty-fifty. Only, don’t forget, son of a gun, you don’t get your fifty unless I get mine!’

‘I’m not forgetting anything,’ retorted the slow voice; ‘and if there’s any damned double-crossing, I sha’n’t forget that, either! What’s beyond there?’

‘Water.’

‘Don’t be funny. Is all this coal?’

‘Ay.’

‘Just coal?’

‘Of course, just coal! D’you suppose we feed the fires with diamonds? Have a feel!’

Ben bared his teeth to bite. God spared him the necessity.

‘What’s all this curiosity, anyhow?’ demanded the curt voice abruptly.

‘Nothing special,’ responded the slow voice. ‘But there’s no harm in knowing, is there?’

‘None at all. And you can trust me with the knowing! I expect I know my own ship, and—hallo! What’s that?’

The curt voice broke off suddenly. Four pairs of ears listened tensely. Two pairs by the coal, two under it.

‘I didn’t hear anything,’ growled the slow voice.

‘P’r’aps I didn’t either,’ muttered the other.

‘Getting nervy, eh?’

‘Nerves your hat!’

‘Then what was it?’

‘A blankety rat, probably, running across the coal. Oh, shut your mug and let’s get back to it! Do you think you can find your way here all right? That is, supposing you have to?’

‘I suppose so. But wouldn’t you be coming with me?’

A contemptuous snort followed the question.

‘Bit of a darned fool, aren’t you?’ said the curt voice. ‘How am I going to manage that?’

‘How am I going to manage fourteen ladders and seventeen corners and ninety-six passages?’ came the retort, delivered with warmth.

‘You may have to!’ The warmth was reciprocated. ‘Anyway, Sims would manage the first half of the journey for you.’

‘What! With that load?’

‘Yes, with that load! Sims has muscles. And d’you expect I’d have taken you on board if I hadn’t seen yours?’

‘Maybe one of these fine days you’ll feel ’em!’

‘Maybe elephants grow grass on their heads! You’re a useful sort of a tyke, aren’t you? How the blazes could I get away? It’ll be all hands on deck if this little business comes along, don’t you worry!’

‘Yes, but s’pose—’

‘Do you suppose an officer can afford to be missing during an affair of that sort?’ cried the officer under consideration. ‘God, you used your brains at Hammersmith, didn’t you?’

Hammersmith! Ben stopped breathing. Hammersmith …

‘I used something else, as well, at Hammersmith,’ snarled the other; ‘and you’re going the right way to get a taste of it.’

‘Say—have you ever been at a murder trial, and seen the old man put on his black cap?’ asked the curt voice, after a momentary pause. ‘I reckon you’re going the right way to get something too. Now, listen! We’ve been here long enough. Get back to your quarters, Mr Hammersmith Stoker, and lie low till you’re wanted. And if you think of using that pretty little spanner I see in your hand, just remember the black cap.’

There was a silence, and the sound of moving feet. Then the slow voice observed, contemplatively:

‘We’ve all got to die some time, you know.’

‘Like hell, we have,’ agreed the curt man. ‘But there’s ways and ways. I prefer a bed to a rope.’

The voices were farther off. Now they ceased altogether. But Ben did not move. His spirit was lying, frozen, in Hammersmith.

A whisper close to his ear brought him back to coal.

‘For God’s sake, let’s get out of this before we suffocate!’ it said. ‘You and I’ve got to talk!’

Thud-thud! Thud-thud! Thud-thud!

4
Confidences in the Dark

‘’Oo are yer?’ muttered Ben.

‘Wait till we’re out,’ came the whispered response.

‘Yus, but ’ow do we git aht?’ Ben whispered back.

This time a brilliant little light answered him. It illuminated the improvised coal cavern, and revealed it as considerably smaller than he had imagined it to be. A few points and sharp edges dazzled close to his eyes; then, as the little light became more distant and the shaft changed its direction, shadows shot towards him from the points and edges, which now became blurred outlines beyond moving pools of black.

Suddenly the little light went out, and all was darkness again. Ben tried to hold his breath, and discovered that he was already holding it. When terrified, he had not the power to keep anything in reserve. That was why he frequently went beyond the reserve. Five long seconds ticked by. He thought he heard them ticking, but couldn’t be sure. Then the light was switched on again, almost blinding him.

‘Wotcher put the light aht for?’ he demanded weakly.

The situation was complicated by the fact that he did not know whom he was talking to. He was entirely vague as to what attitude he ought to adopt.

‘I thought I heard them coming back,’ replied the person who held the light.

‘Oi!’ said Ben. ‘Yer got yer foot in me marth.’

The foot moved away. So did the rest of the little warm bulk to which it belonged. Cautiously, Ben followed.

By painfully slow degrees, the journey proceeded. It seemed a mile long, but actually its length was only a yard or two. The foot that had been in his mouth proved, subsequently, of use as a sign-post. It was small and shoeless, and Ben developed a strange affection for it. While he saw it, there was hope. When it disappeared, overwhelming loneliness descended upon him, accompanied by a kind of panic. It must be remembered that Ben had been through a lot.

Once he caught hold of the foot just as it was vanishing, and hung on to it like an anchor.

‘What are you doing?’ came the sharp whisper.

‘Not gettin’ fresh,’ mumbled Ben; ‘but I ain’t got nothin’ helse ter go by.’

The foot slipped out of his grasp. He glued his eyes on it. Then it slipped over a precipice and vanished.

‘Oi!’ chattered Ben.

As there was no immediate response, he repeated his observation, and then a voice whispered up from somewhere below him.

‘You seem to love that word,’ said the voice; ‘but I wish you’d say it a bit softer.’

‘Where are yer?’ asked Ben.

‘On the ground.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Be quick! Want any help?’

‘Yus. Me boot’s got on top of me some’ow, and seems to ’ave caught on a ’ook.’

Two small hands appeared from the precipice over which his companion had vanished. He stretched one of his own hands towards them, giving the hooked boot a jerk at the same time. There was a crackle overhead, and the roof descended upon him.

Fortunately the roof caved in where it was thinnest, or Ben might not have replied to the anxious question, ‘Are you hurt?’ As it was, he was able to answer, ‘Dunno,’ and to feel about himself to find out. He couldn’t feel very fast, because heavy things lay all about on top of him, but the two small hands were deftly removing them, and when his back had been cleared he was able to report, to his considerable astonishment, that he was still alive.

‘On’y I think me spindle’s broke,’ he added.

‘What’s that?’ asked his companion.

‘Dunno,’ blinked Ben. ‘Ain’t I got one?’

The only thing he was certain of was that he wouldn’t want anything more to eat for a week.

The two hands gripped him, and assisted him down to the ground; but when you reached the ground it wasn’t easy to keep your feet. You swayed, and had to catch hold of something. And then you missed the something, and it caught hold of you …

As Ben stared at the something that caught hold of him, he had a confused sensation that history was repeating itself, only inversely. Yes, there had been a situation similar to this only a few hours ago! A few hours? More like a few years! In that previous situation, however, it was Ben’s outstretched arms that had received a tottering form. Now, the form he had received was supporting him!

The same hair, the same eyes—bright this time with concern, not with terror—the same slight, girlish figure, the same short brown skirt, now much blackened, the same soft warmth …

‘’Corse, miss, this beats me!’ muttered Ben dizzily.

‘Beats me too,’ responded the girl. ‘Don’t move for a jiffy, if you’re groggy.’

Ben overstayed the jiffy. He did feel groggy. Then he leaned back a little, tested himself without her, and found that, with great care, it could be done.

‘O.K.,’ he reported. ‘I got me legs back. And, now—’oo bloomin’ are yer?’

‘Who are you first,’ she answered.

‘Oo am I?’

‘I want to know.’

‘’Corse yer does!’ nodded Ben. ‘Heverybody wants ter know. That’s the way, ain’t it? Hothers does the haskin’, and I does the tellin’.’

‘Please don’t get huffy.’

‘Oo’s ’uffy? Well, ’ave it yer own way. I’m Hadmiral Beatty. Now fer your’n!’

A faint smile flickered in the torchlight. Then the smile vanished as the light was snapped off sharply. Admiral Beatty swung round with a gulp.

‘Keep steady, admiral!’ said the girl’s voice, through the darkness. ‘It just occurred to me that we’ll be fools if we show our lights.’

‘Yus, that’s orl right,’ complained Ben; ‘but don’t do things so sudden—’

‘Or if we raise our voices,’ continued the girl. ‘Sometimes you forget there’s a war on!’

‘It’s never orf, fer me!’ muttered Ben. ‘But wot’s the pertickler war yer torkin’ abart?’

‘Meaning you can’t guess?’

In the darkness her hand stretched out, and took hold of his sleeve again. He was beginning to know the touch of those firm little fingers. He liked the touch of them. At least, when he got a bit of warning it was coming.

Could he guess? He tried hard not to. Then he faced it.

‘’Ammersmith?’ he whispered sepulchrally.

The grip on his sleeve tightened. He was answered. The answer wound round them as they stood there motionless, binding them grimly and inexplicably together. It sifted through the blackness, coiled through the unseen coal, and journeyed on invisible sound-waves to the engines, wedding itself to their muffled thudding.

‘Yus, but—you ain’t done it?’ muttered Ben, in a sudden sweat.

‘No,’ she answered. ‘I do bar that!’

Her voice came in a sudden choked hiss. Something in the vehemence of the denial brought consolation to Ben. Wot—she done a murder? This bit of a gal? There’s a blinkin’ idea! Still, it was good to be sure.

‘It was done by the bloke wot was ’ere jest nah, wasn’t it?’ said Ben.

‘How do you know?’ shot out the girl.

‘Well—you ’eard wot they sed.’

‘Yes, yes, I heard! But—is that all?’

‘I don’t git yer.’

‘As far as you are concerned?’

‘Oh, I see. No, it ain’t. It’s never all as fur as I’m concerned! Things jest go on ’appenin’ as soon as they sees me comin’ and I can’t stop ’em. Gawd, they’ve ’appened ternight orl right!’ He shuddered. ‘It is ternight, ain’t it?’ Then, suddenly becoming conscious again of the fingers gripping his arm, he went on, ‘Yus, and you’re one of ’em, miss. Ain’t yer never goin’ ter tell me ’oo yer are, and ’ow yer got ’ere?’

‘What else has happened to you—tonight?’

‘Tork abart oysters!’

‘Please! What else happened? Why did you come on this boat? Were you following me?’

‘’Corse not!’

‘Well, you might have been. After the way I blundered into you like that.’

‘Yus, that did git me thinkin’, miss. But yer was too quick. Like a rabbit. Any’ow, I didn’t know you was on this ship.’

‘Then why are you here? Stowaway?’

‘That’ll be the nime, when they finds me. And you too, eh?’

‘They’re not going to find me!’

‘I ’ope yer right.’

‘I’ll see I’m right!’ Then she added quickly, ‘I don’t suppose you’ll give me away?’ She paused for a moment, and ran on, ‘I’ve done you a good turn, you know. Don’t forget that! When you pitched down from the ladder I got you under the coal with me. Some job! I—looked after you.’

Ben nodded. He knew that he owed his present security to her, and he also knew why she was informing him of the fact. She was trying to enlist his gratitude.

That puzzled him. Why should she do that? Wasn’t it obvious that he would not give her away? Bit of dirty work that’d be, wouldn’t it? The world had got its heel on both of them, and he’d hardly turn upon a fellow-sufferer. Perhaps there was something else, though! Yes, there might be something else. Perhaps …

Ben thought hard for several seconds. He was trying to straighten things out with insufficient material to work upon. He fell back upon a generality.

‘Look ’ere, miss,’ he said, and the simple solemnity of his voice was not lost upon his companion, ‘you’re in trouble, ain’t yer? Well—so’m I. Ain’t that enuff?’

There was a little silence. Then the girl answered, in tones equally solemn.

‘Seems as if I’ve found a pal. You’re white, aren’t you?’

‘Like blinkin’ snow,’ replied Ben uncomfortably. He never knew what to do with compliments. He hadn’t had much practice. Then, partly to change the conversation, and partly to settle the point that was worrying him most at the moment, he asked, ‘Wot are yer runnin’ away for?’

‘I’ll tell you as soon as you tell me why you are?’ Ben reflected. Why was he running away? The nightmare reverted to him in all its horror—the nightmare that was still to be played out.

‘Some’un went fer me, miss,’ he said.

‘Where?’

‘In the stummick.’ No, that wasn’t right. ‘In the dock.’

‘Why?’

‘There you are!’

‘Don’t you know?’

‘P’r’aps ’e thort I’d seed too much.’

‘Oh! What had you seen?’

‘Well—it ain’t pretty, miss.’

‘Life isn’t pretty.’

‘Ah, but this—this wasn’t life. No, miss. This was—the hother thing!’

He was conscious that she shuddered. He felt her draw closer, as though for comfort.

‘You mean—someone—dead?’ she whispered.

‘I might ’ave bin mistook,’ he murmured, unconvincingly.

‘Don’t hide anything, please. Nothing’ll help but the truth. The—person you saw—was dead?’

‘As a door nail,’ Ben confessed. ‘’E’d bin done in orl right. Funny—’ow yer can tell.’

‘What did you do?’

‘Oo?’

‘What did you do, after you came upon him?’

‘Oh. Well—I tikes a little walk rahnd, see?’ There was no need to mention that it had been rather a rapid walk. ‘And when I comes back agine, the deader’s gorn.’

‘Gone!’

‘Yus.’

‘But—’

‘I’m tellin’ yer. ’E was gorn. “’Allo!” I ses. “That’s bad.” And then I ’ears a splash. Like wot—well, then I ’ears a splash.’

He paused. He didn’t like the story. The girl made no comment, and he decided to get the rest of it over in one sentence.

‘Well, arter that, this hother feller comes along and goes fer me, and so I ’ops it—well, ’oo wouldn’t, and I comes on another feller and I shoots onter the ship, see—well, ’oo wouldn’t?’

He paused again. For a while the girl made no comment. The throbbing of the engines seemed to grow louder and more ominous. Then, suddenly, she shot a question.

‘Do you know how long you’ve been on this ship?’ she asked.

‘Couple of hours?’ guessed Ben.

‘Couple of days,’ she replied.

Ben gasped.

‘Wot—couple of—days?’ he murmured. ‘Are you tellin’ me, miss, that you’ve bin lookin’ arter me fer a couple of days?’

‘That’s right,’ she nodded. ‘Hospital nurse and general provider. Part of the time, you were off your nut.’

Off his nut! Wasn’t he still off his nut! His mind swung backwards and forwards. Then, suddenly, it stopped swinging, and he shot a question.

‘That fust feller—that feller wot was called Mr ’Ammersmith Stoker,’ he said. ‘Is ’e arter you too?’

‘Like hell, he is,’ answered the girl. ‘He’s killed two people, and if he finds me, I look like being a third!’

5
What Happened at Hammersmith

Ben received the bad news numbly. For one thing, although it shocked him, it hardly surprised him. For another, his brain was getting a little dizzy and stupid. Two days …

‘Arter you too, is ’e?’ he muttered. ‘Wot for?’

‘P’r’aps—I’ve seen too much, like you,’ suggested his companion.

‘Ah!’ blinked Ben. ‘Sight ain’t always a blessin’. Wotcher seen?’ As she did not reply, he made a guess. It was a nasty guess, but they’d got to get straight with each other. ‘Was it—at ’Ammersmith—wot you seen?’ he inquired.

She nodded. He detected the faint movement of her head against a ghost of light that dimly marked the position of the iron ladder mounting above them. His sympathy for her grew. And for himself.

‘Yus, but you didn’t do it,’ he said, as though he were informing her of a fact she did not know.

Now she shook her head. She was quite aware of the fact.

‘Then you ain’t got no cause ter fear the police,’ went on Ben.

‘Haven’t I?’ she replied.

It was an unsatisfactory reply. It told nothing, but it implied a lot. He put himself in her position—as much of her position, at least, as he knew—reviewed himself from her angle, and then advised her.

‘If I was you, miss,’ he announced, ‘I’d tell me.’

‘It mightn’t do you any good to hear,’ she answered.

‘There ain’t much I can’t stand,’ he retorted, ‘in the way of ’earin’. If you was ter say Windser Castle was blowed hup, I’d ’ardly notice it.’

‘You know, but for our tight corner,’ said the girl, ‘you’d make me laugh! I hope I meet you one day at a party. Meantime—well, let’s see if you can stand this! That—murdering fellow is my working partner.’

‘Is ’e?’

‘Well done! You’re sticking it! Want some more?’

‘Well, we’re orf now like, ain’t we, miss?’

‘You’ve said it! We’re off! And the next tit-bit is that I was in on the Hammersmith affair.’

‘Was yer?’

‘Feel!’

He heard a swift little rustle, and a wad of paper was thrust against his hand. He guessed correctly, with a shiver. A dead man’s notes.

‘’Ere, you must git rid o’ them!’ he gasped, diving straight to the kernel.

Then his mind began to go back on him. He was advising a girl to get rid of evidence that would connect her with a murder. She hadn’t done the murder, but she was implicated in it. In another minute, Ben himself would be implicated. He began to speculate on how he stood. ‘I knows they can nab yer if yer knows and don’t tell,’ he thought; ‘but can they nab yer if yer knows and don’t tell abart some ’un helse as knows and don’t tell?’ It was much too difficult. He gave it up, and tried to concentrate on the words that were now being whispered to him through the darkness:

‘Get rid of them? I’m not quite a fool! They’ll have the numbers taped all right! And, anyway, I don’t feel I want to touch the wretched things. Yes, but don’t think I’m squeamish!’ The voice rose a little, in sudden defiance. ‘I’m the stuff, all right! I could pick your pocket while you winked. That’s my speciality. But—no, not murder! That’s outside the ring. I do bar that!’

‘’Corse yer does,’ agreed Ben hopelessly.

‘And when I joined with this fellow—Jim Faggis—the name’ll be in the papers soon enough—we had it all clear first. You’ve got to make sure where you stand, you know, or you’re soon in the soup. And on our very first job he—does this!’ She paused. ‘Say, I’m telling you a lot, aren’t I?’

‘Everythin’ but,’ replied Ben. ‘’Ow did it ’appen?’

‘God knows! It was Faggis’s show from the word go. He’d already marked the man and the house—sort of old miser who collects money just to keep it away from other people, and then leaves it to a cat’s home—you know—and we got in easily enough, and everything was going all right till Faggis knocks over a chair. That scared me. I don’t like inside work, anyway. Never did. God’s good air for this child! Yes, and when I heard him coming downstairs—I did a bolt, and don’t mind admitting it!’

‘So’d anybody,’ sympathised Ben.

His mind was in a terrible tangle. She had said she was telling him a lot, and it was the truth. He was learning things that were very awkward indeed for a law-abiding citizen like him—because, after all, lying down on seats and being moved on wasn’t actually breaking the law, was it? You had to lie somewhere …

‘But Faggis wouldn’t go, even then, the fool! No, he must stay and see it through. You see, we’d only done downstairs, and he knew there was more on the first floor. That’s the worst of people like Faggis. Never satisfied! Well, by God, I hope he’s satisfied now!’

It had taken her a long while to start, but she was thoroughly wound up now. Hours of emotional repression and tightly-closed lips had had their effect upon her, and now, in this queer sanctuary, before this queerer audience, her tongue was loosened, and words flowed fast from where they had waited frozen.

‘Yer can see she ain’t one o’ the real bad ’uns,’ argued Ben to himself, as he listened. He didn’t know it, but he was actually arguing her case at the gates of Heaven. ‘Never ’ad a proper chance, that’s wot it is. You gotter ’ave a charnce. And, as fer pickin’ pockets—well, didn’t I nearly pick a pocket once, on’y I didn’t ’cos I couldn’t, me ’and was too big. Well, then …’

‘When I got outside, I waited for him. I’d got the wind up properly. Faggis had been getting on my nerves, you see.’ She always tried to make it clear that she wasn’t really soft. ‘He hadn’t exactly got the bedside manner. I waited goodness knows how long. Years!’

‘I knows ’em,’ murmured Ben.

‘And then he came. And—and the moment I saw his face, I knew what had happened. “You’ve killed him!” I said. Just like that. “You’ve killed him!” He didn’t answer. But that didn’t make any difference. It was written all over him. The poor old fool I’d heard coming downstairs to look after his silly property had been bumped off!’

She spoke through her teeth. Suddenly, as Ben tried hard not to visualise the scene she was describing, and failed, he became conscious of the engines again and their ceaseless throbbing. They throbbed like Fate, with all Fate’s indifference and domination. ‘Go on whispering, if it amuses you,’ said the engines. ‘It won’t alter things. You’re being carried on, just the same.’

Throb-throb! Throb-throb! Throb-throb!

‘I don’t know how long we stood there, staring at each other. Only a second, I dare say. Then I got giddy, and turned to run. But he got hold of my arm, and asked me what I was going to do. “I don’t know,” I said. “You’re not going to be a damned fool?” he said. “I don’t know,” I said. I didn’t. And then I managed to get away, and he came after me. You see—he’d got the wind up too. He thought I might tell the police.’

‘Why didn’t yer?’ asked Ben, to fill in a pause.

‘D’you take me for a saint?’ she retorted. ‘It would have looked well for me, wouldn’t it? Besides—when you take on a bargain—it’s for better or worse, isn’t it? Still, I thought of it. And then, there’s another thing. If Faggis was caught, he’d drag me in. He’s that sort. Oh, he’ll do it, don’t worry! And that’s why he’d been after me all day. He knew I’d either make for a police station or a getaway, and he wanted me in either case. And he nearly got me that time I barged into your arms!… I’ve been through it!’

‘There yer are,’ said Ben to St Peter. ‘She thort o’ goin’ fer the police! Tha’s somethink, ain’t it?’ Meanwhile, to the girl whose case he was pleading, he held out a more immediate crumb of comfort. ‘P’r’aps ’e wasn’t dead, miss,’ he suggested. ‘The miser bloke. Arter all, yer never seed ’im.’

‘Yes, I did!’

Ben gulped. Seen him, had she? Seen him! Lummy! Now Ben visualised St Peter thrusting her out—thrusting Ben out, also—and slamming the golden gates in their faces. Ben’s St Peter, of course, was not known to him by name, nor was he the St Peter of your and my conception. The nearest his vision could get to heaven’s gate-keeper was a picture he had once seen of Mark Twain, with wings added.

‘So—yer seed ’im?’ whispered Ben.

‘Yes. Somehow—I had to,’ she whispered back. ‘You see—as you said—he mightn’t have been dead. And, if he hadn’t been—’

‘Yer could ’ave gorn fer a doctor and p’r’aps saved ’im?’

Ben jumped in quickly with that. Again in the dimness he caught the girl’s nod, and this time it rejoiced him. ‘Wot abart that, yer blinkin’ fool!’ he cried to his winged version of Mark Twain. ‘She went back agine, see? Might ’ave bin copped, but she goes back. Puts ’er ’ead in at a winder, eh? Ter mike sure she carn’t do nothin’ fer ’im. Bet you wouldn’t ’ave! Hopen yer gate!’

Then, leaving the future and swinging back to the more vital present, he exclaimed:

‘Gawd, and now this blinkin’ murderin’ bloke is on the boat with us!’

‘Sh!’ she warned him.

The exclamation had been rather on the loud side.

‘Yus, but does ’e know you’re ’ere?’ he asked hoarsely.

‘I don’t know,’ she answered, after a pause. ‘P’r’aps you’ve got an opinion?’

Ben held a consultation with himself.

‘Well, miss, this is ’ow I sizes it hup,’ he said. ‘’E may think yer ’ere, but ’e don’t know it. ’E may think I’m ’ere, but ’e don’t know it. ’Cos why? That ain’t why ’e come aboard, see? No. ’E’s come aboard as a blinkin’ stoker—Mr ’Ammersmith Stoker, the hother feller called ’im—and ’e’s got some gime on that ain’t nothink ter do with you—hor with me!’

‘I believe you’re right,’ nodded the girl. ‘You weren’t asleep under the coal, then!’

‘No—seems as if I jest come aht of me two days’ snooze when they comes in. Yus, and if your ’and ’adn’t give me the wink, I’d ’ave ’ollered.’

‘Then you do see you owe me something?’

‘Fifty-fifty, ain’t it? And them two blokes is fifty-fifty on that hother gime too. They said so, didn’t they?’

‘But what is the other game?’

‘That’s wot we gotter find aht,’ said Ben. ‘Orl we knows hup ter nah is that they’ve marked the spot where you and I are standin’—and that they’re comin’ back!’

His voice dropped to its most sepulchral depth. The girl did not appear to be attending.

‘Comin’ back!’ he repeated. ‘Comin’ back right ’ere!’ Then, as she still made no comment, he became worried. ‘Wot’s hup?’ he demanded.

‘Do you—smell anything?’ came the question.

Ben sniffed. The thing he instinctively sniffed for was fire. No, he didn’t sniff fire.

‘I don’t smell nuffin’,’ he said. ‘That is, barrin’ coal.’

He sniffed again. Ah, yes! There was something. He went on sniffing.

‘Where is it?’ He blinked.

He looked towards the girl and missed her. ‘Oi!’ he whispered. But she was merely bending down, and her position answered his question. The smell was coming up from below them.

Ben got a sudden queer vision. It was of a hospital. He saw rows of small white beds, and nurses moving about and doctors. He saw a man being brought in on a stretcher. He discovered himself on a stretcher, moving towards an operating room. Things happened very swiftly in Ben’s mind.

But why had this vision come to him? They were in a ship, not a hospital. Of course, he did remember coming out of gas once and hearing a throbbing something like that of the engines. Still, this wasn’t gas, even though it brought gas to his mind. Something that reminded him of gas, but not gas. Something …

‘Lummy!’ he gasped. ‘Clorridgeform!’

6
The Third Officer

The chloroform was in a small green bottle that lay on the ground in a little arc of light produced by the girl’s torch. For several seconds they stared at it. The sight brought recent events ominously close.

‘’Ow did it git there?’ asked Ben.

As he put the question, the bottle disappeared. The girl had snapped off the light again.

‘Wotcher doin’?’ demanded Ben.

He heard a swift whisper, but it was too low to be intelligible. Then another sound caught his attention. It came from above, in the vicinity of the ladder.

The swift whisper had been a warning. Gawd—now fer it! Ben whispered back:

‘Doncher move, miss! Stand steady! They’ll ’ear yer!’

There was no time to climb back to their original hiding-place and, in a matter of seconds, to re-cover themselves with coal. Perhaps, by standing perfectly still under the wall of coal, they might escape notice. The originator of the noise above, whoever it was, might pass on to another ladder, giving this dead end a miss, or he might poke his head in, see nothing during a quick glance, and then poke his head out again. Sound—that was the thing to avoid. Sound!

Why does one always want to sneeze at the most inconvenient moment? In terror Ben seized his upper lip and fought against the tragedy of explosion. He thought hard of a monkey sitting on the North Pole—he had heard this was one of the best remedies—but as the monkey sneezed this only made matters more insupportable. He hastily sent the monkey packing, and substituted a snake, which hasn’t a nose. At least, Ben’s snake hadn’t. Then a shaft of light struck him from above.

There being no object in keeping the sneeze back any longer, he let it go.

When he opened his eyes he received another shock. The light was still on him, revealing him mercilessly, but it did not reveal anybody else! The girl was no longer by his side. He appeared to have sneezed her away.

The source of the light drew nearer. He did not move. He was too stunned. A second edition of himself moved, however. His black shadow. It swelled enormously as the light approached, creating envy in the breast of its responsible substance. ‘Gawd, if I was as big as that,’ thought Ben, ‘I’d give somebody somethink!’

Then he turned round to see who the somebody was. It was the short, thick-set, stumpy man.

The unwelcome visitor did not speak until he had reached the bottom of the ladder and had settled himself securely on terra firma. Then, after a curt scrutiny, he opened fire.

‘Well, what’s your game?’ he demanded.

Ben became child-like.

‘Stowaway,’ he answered.

‘I see! Riding without a ticket, eh?’

‘Tha’s it. Somethink fer nothink.’

‘Not a hope!’ retorted the other. ‘You don’t get anything for nothing in this world. Thought you people had learned that by now.’

‘I’ve give hup learnin’,’ returned Ben. ‘Well, wotcher goin’ ter do abart it?’

His inquisitor did not answer. His eyes were on the ground. He stared at the bottle of chloroform.

‘Where did that come from?’ he inquired.

‘Fell out of me button ’ole,’ said Ben.

‘Joking won’t help you,’ frowned the other. He stooped and picked the bottle up. Then he looked at Ben quizzically. ‘Do you know what this is?’

‘Yus.’

‘What?’

‘Ginger beer.’

‘Ginger beer! A pretty strong brand! Ever heard of chloroform?’

A bit of coal shifted somewhere, and made them jump.

‘What’s that?’ exclaimed the officer.

‘Ever ’eard o’ rats?’ asked Ben.

The officer frowned. Not long since, in this very spot, he had himself offered the same explanation to another man. All at once he looked at Ben sharply.

‘Say, you—how long have you been in this little funk hole?’

That was an awkward question. Two days, apparently. But if he admitted it, the officer would know that Ben had overheard a certain conversation. In a panic he responded:

‘Jest come ’ere.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Fack.’

‘I didn’t see you as I came along.’

‘Tha’s why I come along.’

‘Damned fool!’

‘’Oo?’

‘Look here, do you know you’re speaking to an officer?’

‘On’y third.’

‘Only—’ Indignation was succeeded by interest. ‘So you can read a uniform, eh?’

‘Better’n the Bible.’

‘How’s that? Been to sea before?’

‘Yus. Ain’t you never ’eard o’ the Battle o’ Jutland?’

‘And haven’t you heard that even third officers are called “sir?”’

About to submit, Ben suddenly changed his mind. His ear had caught the sound of coal shifting again, and his brain was working.

‘Git on with it!’ he retorted, deliberately rude. ‘This ain’t a children’s party!’

‘By God, it isn’t!’ cried the third officer angrily. ‘You’ll learn what sort of a party it is before you’re many minutes older.’ He held up the bottle of chloroform. ‘This isn’t going to help you, you know!’

‘Wotcher mean?’ asked Ben uneasily.

‘Clear enough, I should think! Stowaway! We’ll see about that!’

Ben blinked at the bottle, and backed a little. The third officer was brandishing it rather close. That, however, was not the point that worried him most.

‘That ain’t nothing ter do with me!’ he declared, with vehemence.

‘Oh, isn’t it?’

‘No, it ain’t!’

‘I thought it dropped from your button hole?’

‘Go on! I was bein’ funny! Doncher know a joke when yer sees one?’

The third officer suddenly grinned. Apparently he was seeing some joke at that moment.

‘I tell yer, w— I fahnd it on the grahnd!’ He just saved himself from saying ‘we.’ ‘I was lookin’ at it when you come along.’

‘Really, now?’ responded the third officer, still grinning. ‘Without a spot-light?’

Ben perspired. The joke had passed out of his hands. Staring at the grin in front of him, he wondered how hard he could hit, if he really tried. But he did not hit the grin. He suddenly interpreted it, instead. And perspired more freely afterwards.

‘So that’s yer gime, is it?’ he thought. ‘You dropped it ’ere, did yer, and now you’re puttin’ it on me! Orl right, Sunny Boy, I got a gime too, that’ll send the sun in!’

Aloud he said:

‘’Oo wants a spot-light fer clorridgeform? I got a nose, ain’t I?’

‘Yes, and you’ll feel something on it, if I have any more of your back chat!’ exclaimed the third officer. ‘Now, then—up the ladder with you. And step lively!’

Ben hesitated. ‘I gotter go fust?’ he asked.

‘Bet your life, you have!’ retorted the third officer. ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’

He was waiting because he didn’t want to go first. He wanted to see the third officer out of the place before he followed. Those movements among the coal were troubling him. He knew who was making them. She’d nipped into cover somehow … Lummy! There was another one!

‘Have I got to help you?’ cried the third officer angrily.

‘No, you ain’t!’ shouted Ben suddenly. ‘I don’t want no ’elp, not from you—no, nor not from hanyone. See? Not from hanyone!’

The third officer thought Ben was speaking to him. As a matter of fact, Ben was addressing the coal. A piece of coal responded, by dislodging itself and toppling to the ground.

‘Hey! What’s that?’ exclaimed the officer, and flashed his torch towards the spot.

‘Gawd—now ’e’s got ’er!’ thought Ben, and clenched his fist, just to give the world one good bash before it crushed you.

Two bright eyes gleamed from the illuminated coal heap. Then their owner sprang at the third officer.

‘Damn these blasted rats!’ he cried.

Ben felt himself feeling sick.

7
The Faggis Jigsaw

More ladders. More dark passages. More climbing and squeezing through the tubes and arteries of the ship’s stomach. But this time Ben did not have to select the tubes and arteries himself. They were selected for him by the third officer.

And thus he was free to grope among other dark passages—the dark passages of his mind. He tried to illuminate them. Some of them needed illumination badly. To avoid further tripping.

Where was he going now? That was one question. What was he going to do when he got there? That was another. Answer to the first question—captain. Answer to the second—Gawd knows!

Other questions: How was he going to re-establish contact with the strange little pickpocket down among the coal? If she were caught, what would happen to her? And if he were caught, and had prevented her from being caught, what would happen to him?…

‘Now, then, look where you’re going!’ barked the third officer.

Then there was that murdering chap. Faggis, she’d called him, hadn’t she? Where was Faggis now, and what new game was he up to?

In order to obtain some clarity on this particularly vital question, Ben took his mind back to Hammersmith, and tried to piece together Faggis’s actions and motives. Perhaps if he could complete the first part of Faggis’s story, he might make something out of the second part …

‘Of course, if you want to step straight into a hole, it’ll be your funeral, not mine,’ said the third officer.

Faggis had been working on his own. Right. Fell in with the girl, and got her to join forces with him. Right! And this Hammersmith affair had been their first job together. The girl had said so. Right. All clear so far.

Why hadn’t Faggis continued to work alone? P’r’aps he had had his eye on the old miser’s crib but required a partner to help him crack it. P’r’aps he needed someone small, like this girl, to shinny up a water-pipe, and then slip in through a window. P’r’aps he was tired of his own company, and liked the girl’s face. Anyway, into the house they get, and start collecting. Find plenty of new money. (The chap at the coffee-stall, who had left in a hurry, had paid in new money.) Then the old miser comes down, the girl does a bunk into the garden, Faggis attacks the old man, and kills him. Didn’t mean to kill him. But kills him. And, once you’ve started killing, you ain’t too pertickler if you have to go on …

‘Turn to the right, man, unless you want to get your face scorched off!’

Faggis rushes out into the garden. The girl scoots. Faggis follows. She gives him the slip, runs back to the house for a quick squint—plucky, that was!—and then off she goes again, with Faggis after her.

P’r’aps Faggis never let her out of his sight at all. That might be. Anyhow, he must have stuck pretty close, and he gave her a scare when she came barging round that corner, and bumped into Ben. Then Faggis probably lost sight of her till he picked her up again near the coffee-stall. That was why he slipped away from the coffee-stall so quickly. And after that, one by one, all three of them—the girl, Faggis, and Ben went into dockland through that open gate!

The girl got into the ship. Either to escape from Faggis, or from the police, or from both. By this time, she’d probably decided not to tell the police, but to concentrate on her own get-away. Her mind would be in a terrible tangle.

Yes, but something happened to Faggis before he got into the ship!

Ben’s mind grew dark, and he shuddered, for now he was dealing with the evidence of his own eyes, and not with mere theory. In spite of the unpleasantness of the business, however, he grappled with it, and tried to complete the story. He realised that his future actions, and possibly his future fate, might depend upon the extent of his knowledge.

Now, then! Get on with it! Girl in the ship. Faggis, not yet. Ben, asleep against a post. What happens?

Faggis wants to get into the ship, if he knows the girl has got in. If he doesn’t know, then he’s still poking around for her. Along comes a man.

‘Who are you?’ says the man.

‘Who are you?’ replies Faggis.

Something like that. Or perhaps Faggis doesn’t wait to inquire! He’d be in a stew. Anyway, there’s a tussle. P’r’aps the man is from the ship, and is trying to stop Faggis getting on it. P’r’aps the man recognises Faggis, and threatens to give him up. Or p’r’aps the man doesn’t know anything, but is going to make a row, and that’s the last thing Faggis wants. Slosh! The man goes down, hit with a spanner or a knuckle-duster. Probably a spanner. The third officer had referred to a spanner in the conversation in the coal bunker, and the report in the paper had said that the knife had been found by the police. Very likely Faggis had plenty of tools on him, and the spanner was one of them.

Down goes the man for the count. Death does the counting. He cries out as he goes down. Ben hears the cry, and thinks at first it is an echo of his own. The echo was this poor fellow’s death cry …

‘Now you’re for it,’ said the third officer. ‘We’re nearly there.’

What happens then? Faggis gets the wind up. He starts lugging the man he has killed towards the water, hears Ben approaching, drops the body, darts away, and leaves it for Ben to topple over.

Was Faggis watching Ben as he croquet-hooped over the dead body? Whew!

Next? That’s easy. Ben rushes off on his circular tour. Faggis returns to the body, continues with his journey, and drops the man into the water. Splash!

‘Stoker?’ thought Ben suddenly at this point. ‘The deader was a stoker!’

The thought was illuminating. Dead man, stoker. Faggis, who had killed the dead man, referred to by the third officer as ‘Mr Hammersmith Stoker.’ Taken on in his place, eh? By the third officer, who somehow got to know all about it! Now, why would the third officer take a murderer on to his ship, allowing him to fill the vacancy caused by the murder?

Ben turned suddenly, and stared at the third officer. The third officer stared back.

‘What the hell are you stopping for?’ demanded the third officer.

‘I was jest thinkin’,’ answered Ben, ‘’ow much I loves yer.’

The third officer swung him round and kicked him in the back.

‘Tha’s orl right,’ thought Ben, struggling not to cry. ‘You wait!’

8
In the Captain’s Cabin

The stomach of a ship, as has been indicated, is not the pleasantest place to reside in. The brain is more appealing. There are instruments in it which may fill a novice with a certain awe. There are wheels and levers, intricate barometers, compasses with bulbs and lights, and other electrical devices, all bearing the mute message, ‘Do not touch!’ But sunlight plays about them, and clear air bathes them, driving away one’s nightmare thoughts; and in the adjacent sanctuary where the brain rests, luxury mixes very pleasantly with necessity.

While Ben was ascending from the stomach, two men sat in the brain’s sanctuary. One was dressed in immaculate dark blue. His sleeve bore four imposing gold lines, the middle two interwoven to form a diamond. (The third officer’s sleeve had only one line, and his diamond was just tacked on.) His face was as immaculate as his cloth, but the immaculateness of both the face and the cloth spoke of efficiency, not of dandyism. The chief engineer can give orders with grease on his clothes and smuts on his face, but the captain’s appearance, saving in emergency, must be irreproachable.

The other man possessed quite another kind of distinctiveness. His clothes too, were of the best, if money stands for quality. Brown tweed, of expensive roughness. A coloured shirt that glowed in daring contrast to the suit. ‘I am right!’ it shouted to the doubter. ‘Notice my silk. Men who can afford me can make fashion!’ Brown boots, solid and highly polished. A tie that cost even more than it could show—it is a tragedy that mere appearance is so limited—and a pin to bring tears to covetous eyes. The pin was secretly secured against the covetous eyes, however, by an eighteen-carat gold clip.

And presiding above all this was a large monarch of a head, full of ancient business furrows that were now comfortable creases. A grey moustache, also large and comfortable, concealed the upper lip. But today something disturbed the usual ostentatious comfort of this man, and his eyes as they gazed at the captain sitting opposite were bright with restlessness.

‘Say, I’ve heard of your silent navy,’ said the large man, breaking a pause that was getting on his nerves; ‘but I didn’t know it spread to the Mercantile Marine!’

The captain, quite unperturbed by the little sarcasm, allowed a few more seconds to pass. Then he replied, unnecessarily informative:

‘I’m thinking, Mr Holbrooke.’

‘Well,’ growled Mr Holbrooke, ‘I should say even thought’s got a time limit.’

‘In your country, perhaps,’ said the captain. ‘Not in ours. I’m thinking of what you’ve told me just now—and wondering—’

‘Yep?’

‘If you’ve told me everything?’

Mr Holbrooke frowned, looked away for a moment, and then hastily looked back.

‘I don’t get you!’ he exclaimed.

‘It ought to be easy,’ observed the captain. ‘What’s really making you so scared?’

Mr Holbrooke did not like that, and his large eyebrows went up in protest.

‘Say, who’s scared?’ he demanded.

‘Well, suspicious, then,’ the captain corrected himself dryly. ‘Choose your own term, Mr Holbrooke.’

Mr Holbrooke regarded the cigar he was smoking thoughtfully. It was one of the captain’s cigars, and, to his surprise, it was quite as good as his own.

‘Ah—I see what you mean,’ he murmured. ‘Yes, I’m suspicious, don’t worry. Suppose I say it’s just a hunch?’

‘A hunch,’ repeated the captain, nodding slightly. ‘And do you seriously expect me to search the whole of this ship for you on account of a hunch?’

‘Eh?’

‘And to watch every passenger? And to ring a Curfew at eight? And to send a wireless to Scotland Yard? Because that’s really about what it comes to, Mr Holbrooke, isn’t it?’

Mr Holbrooke’s frown grew.

‘Maybe that’s putting it rather strongly, sir,’ he protested. ‘I’m not aware that I’ve said anything about any Curfew!’

The captain shrugged his shoulders.

‘Then what do you want me to do?’ he inquired.

Mr Holbrooke stared at the ground, and then suddenly banged his fist down on the arm of his chair.

‘No, by Gosh, you’re right!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s what I do want you to do! Within reasonable limits, of course—and I dare say we can spare the Curfew! The point is, as I’ve mentioned, that you’re not dealing with—well, sir, just an ordinary person. You understand me? What I’m telling you is that I’m able and willing to pay for what I’m asking—’

He paused, as the captain raised his hand. The captain spoke a little stiffly.

‘The normal protection of passengers on board the Atalanta is included in the price of their passage,’ he said. ‘And, even if it were not, the expense of the extra service you suggest would be rather high for—well, just a hunch.’

‘Wouldn’t that be my affair?’ suggested Mr Holbrooke, unhappily.

‘In the strictest sense,’ responded the captain, ‘everything on board the Atalanta is my affair.’

‘Then, by golly, make it your affair!’ cried Mr Holbrooke, exasperated. ‘You call it a hunch! It’s a darn sight more than that—’

‘Ah!’

‘Yes, sir! It’s—’ He broke off, and stared at the captain speculatively. ‘Say, do you never have enemies in your country?’

‘What sort of enemies?’

‘Well—I don’t mean wives.’ He smiled rather foolishly at the cumbrous jest. ‘No, you can deal with wives. Flowers—a theatre—that’s easy! I’m talking of—’ The smile faded. ‘This kind—people who are jealous of you—jealous of your success and your position—jealous of the money you’ve made and the brains and industry you’ve made it by—people who hate you like poison, and will do any sort of God-darn trick to bring you down a bit to their level!’

His eyes narrowed. For a moment, he almost seemed to forget that he was in the captain’s cabin, and the captain regarded him with increased interest. He had been on the point of ending the interview. It was not to his taste. But now he decided to continue it.

‘I see,’ he commented quietly. ‘So you’ve got enemies of that kind?’

‘There’s not a successful man in the United States who hasn’t!’

The statement was delivered in the form of a retort. The captain interpreted it as an attempt to modify the significance which, a moment earlier, had been insisted on, and he was unable to suppress an ironical smile at the awkward manœuvring of his wealthiest passenger. It was child-like in its inconsistency. When a clever millionaire became child-like, there must be some solid reason behind it. Was the reason, in this case, stark terror?

‘I’m quite ready to help you if it’s necessary, Mr Holbrooke,’ said the captain; ‘but you haven’t made out your case yet. If your enemies are the sort that every successful American possesses, then every successful American would require the captain of every ship he travelled on to give him special protection. Captains would have a busy time. It seems to me that these enemies of yours must be more malicious than the average. Otherwise, you’d hardly waste my time over them.’

‘Well—we’ll say they are?’

‘Then may we also say, perhaps, that they have more reason to be?’

‘Eh?’

‘I merely put the question.’

‘Well, suppose you explain the question?’ grunted Mr Holbrooke, with an exclamation of annoyance.

He did not relish the question. His face grew rather red. The captain’s own face became a trifle sterner.

‘Please try and be calm, Mr Holbrooke,’ he said. ‘I really can’t assist you otherwise. What I’ve got to find out is how real this danger you talk of is—’

‘It’s real enough!’ interrupted Mr Holbrooke excitedly. ‘Say, do you suppose I’d be here if it weren’t? You English—if you’ll forgive me saying it—want shaking up. You’re so darned slow! You can’t see things that are right before your nose. Now, listen here! Something’s wrong on this ship! Why, there’s even a rumour that a stoker fell in the water before we moved out of dock. Suppose he didn’t fall in the water. Say he was pushed in?’

Someone knocked on the cabin door. ‘Come in,’ said the captain. A small man entered, in spotless whites. It was Jenks, the captain’s steward. He had light hair, and watery blue eyes, and he looked like Jenks.

‘From the third officer, sir,’ he said, saluting.

He advanced with a note. The captain took it, and read it. He considered for a moment.

‘Ask Mr Greene to stand by, Jenks,’ said the captain. ‘I’d like to see him in a few minutes.’

‘Very good, sir,’ answered the steward.

When they were alone again, the captain turned to his visitor.

‘Rumours are dangerous things, Mr Holbrooke,’ he remarked. ‘You may remember that, during the early part of the war, there was a rumour of Russians passing through London. Take my advice, and pay no attention to this one. Or, if you must, don’t pass it on with additions from your own imagination. I think, if you don’t mind, we will confine ourselves to facts rather than fancies, and get back to the facts of your own case. You suspect some particular enemy?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘Then I’ll put it another way. Has your successful business been of a kind to produce a special type of enemy?’

‘I’m not sure that I rightly understand you.’

‘I’m sorry. Perhaps it is time you did. You’ve asked me for special protection, Mr Holbrooke. You have been, if I may say so, unusually—persistent. You’ve asked me to make inquiries and to take precautions that could only be justified in a case of the most extreme urgency. When I ask for reasons, you give me general ones, and you call me slow and short-sighted when I do not organise an elaborate plan for circumventing a shadow. Materialise the shadow for me, and perhaps there will be something I can arrange to hit. But if you don’t materialise the shadow, I can only conclude—’ He paused, and his eyes fell vaguely on the note still in his hand. ‘I can only conclude that you have some special reason for withholding the necessary information.’

‘Such as?’ demanded Mr Holbrooke.

‘Well—I take it your success has depended on the failures of others?’

‘All success does that.’

‘Oh, no. Not necessarily.’

‘Yes, sir. Necessarily. The pound I make, you lose.’

The captain bent forward.

‘Not, Mr Holbrooke,’ he suggested, ‘if you give me full value for the pound.’

Mr Holbrooke took it well.

‘I see,’ he said. ‘That’s not too bad, captain. You’re not as slow as I took you for. I get you.’ He looked at his well-manicured finger-nails. ‘Well, sir, I expect I’ve made a few people sore.’

‘Quite a number, perhaps?’

‘Sure thing.’ All at once, as though humanised by the admission, Mr Holbrooke smiled. ‘Business men aren’t saints, and I make no claim to wings. I got some good knocks when I started out. Well, I’ve knocked back. Way of the world, isn’t it? But I’ve never run foul of legislation. Barring Prohibition, of course, and that don’t count.’

‘I don’t disbelieve you, Mr Holbrooke,’ answered the captain, and now his tone lost a degree of its coldness. ‘As you say, business is business. But, played in that spirit, it undoubtedly creates enemies—and I expect some of yours have sworn to get even with you?’

‘Sworn black and blue,’ nodded Mr Holbrooke. ‘They’ve none of ’em done it yet, but the swearing just goes steadily on! Now, sit right down on your next question, because I guess I know it. Which particular enemies are on this ship? There I’m beaten. I don’t know. There’s too many! But I’ve had more threats lately than I’ve ever had before, and—darn it, sir—I’ve got my daughter on board with me, and I don’t like it!’ He didn’t like admitting it, either. It wounded his pride. ‘Darn it, this is supposed to be a pleasure trip for us!’

‘About these threats,’ said the captain. ‘When did the last occur?’

Mr Holbrooke hesitated, then pulled a small sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to the captain. ‘Found it slipped under my door an hour ago,’ he grunted shortly. ‘This is really what brought me here.’

The paper bore the words, ‘You’re for it!’

‘Does your business touch Chicago?’ asked the captain, after a pause.

‘And a few other places in the globe,’ answered Mr Holbrooke.

But it was easy to see from his expression that the question stayed in his mind.

The captain waited a few seconds to see whether anything useful materialised from the expression. Nothing did. He rose, and took six slow paces to a window.

Gazing out, he caught a glimpse of a white-clad figure on the boat-deck. There were plenty of other figures about, but none more attractive. Mr Holbrooke’s millions had done all that millions could do to produce a highly polished and highly finished article in daughters.

A young man was by the white-clad figure’s side, and both were leaning over the rail, watching the waves.

Then the captain returned to his chair, and touched a button. Almost instantly, the steward Jenks appeared.

‘Now I’ll see Mr Greene,’ said the captain. And added, as Mr Holbrooke rose, ‘Don’t go. Mr Greene is my third officer, and he’s bringing some news that may be of interest to you.’

9
Cross-Examination

The third officer entered the captain’s sanctum and saluted. He was a model of nautical smartness, and exuded duty and efficiency.

‘So you’ve found a stowaway, Mr Greene,’ began the captain.

‘Yes, sir,’ replied the third officer.

‘Well, that’s not an exceptional circumstance,’ observed the captain, with a glance at Mr Holbrooke. The word ‘stowaway’ had acted on the American millionaire like an electric shock. ‘Plenty of people like to get sea-trips for nothing. But we generally disappoint them.’

‘How so, when the ship’s under way?’ inquired Mr Holbrooke.

‘Make them work for their living,’ answered the captain, and turned back to the third officer. ‘Though I understand you may recommend stronger measures in this case?’

‘The fellow’s dangerous,’ responded Greene.

‘In what way?’

‘Tell by the look of him, sir?’

‘He put up a fight, eh?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said the third officer.

‘Anything else?’

Greene hesitated. Then he answered quickly, as though to wipe out the hesitation.

‘Yes, sir. He had a bottle of chloroform on him.’

‘Hey, what’s that?’ exclaimed Mr Holbrooke, his eyes growing big.

The captain was equally interested in the information, but showed more composure.

‘Chloroform, eh? Then I think I’d better see the man. Where is he now?’

‘He’s being looked after, sir. I didn’t think it was necessary to trouble you to see him. I was going to suggest—’

‘Yes, yes, never mind what you were going to suggest, Mr Greene,’ interrupted the captain. ‘Let us attend to what I suggest. Where was he found?’

‘On one of the coal bunkers. Aft.’

‘Well, bring him in. No, wait a minute. Have you got the bottle of chloroform?’

‘Not on me, sir,’ replied the third officer. ‘I’ll bring it when I come back.’

He turned, but the captain detained him with one more question.

‘By the way, Mr Greene,’ he said, ‘I understand there’s a rumour of a stoker who is supposed to have fallen into the water. Do you know anything about it?’

‘No, sir,’ answered the third officer promptly.

When they were alone again, the captain raised his eyebrows, and Mr Holbrooke burst out.

‘Why, I got that rumour from two people,’ he exclaimed, indignantly. ‘I should have thought your officers would have known of it!’

‘I didn’t know of it,’ answered the captain; ‘and my officers have too much to do to attend to rumours. May I know who the two people were?’

Mr Holbrooke reddened slightly. He didn’t know who the two people were. As a matter of fact, now he came to think of it, he hadn’t actually got it from them at all. He had overheard them talking about it. The captain shook his head rather sadly.

‘And so wars begin, Mr Holbrooke,’ he observed. ‘However, I’ll make inquiries.’

Then he fell into a silence, while his visitor stared gloomily at his bright finger-nails. He always got a peculiar satisfaction from his finger-nails.

And into this sombre atmosphere Ben entered a minute later, to continue the strange adventure on which Fate had launched him.

He did not cut a dignified figure. You can’t, when your face has the memory of half a ton of coal upon it. His mind, too, was jerky. The transition from darkness to lightness, from the ship’s stomach to the ship’s brain had confused him, and he was also feeling the effects of many factors which worked against his efficiency. Item, lack of natural sleep. Item, superfluity of unnatural sleep. Item, a blow from a murderer. Item, a fall from a ladder. Item, having been off his nut. Item, an intense, abruptly born interest in a fellow-sufferer whose fate appeared to be in his hands. Item, a vast, empty space inside him that badly needed filling.

It was the fellow-sufferer, however, who confused him most. But for her, he could have gone straight ahead and seen what happened. But for her, he could have turned the tables on his captor, or made a definite attempt to. But what hit his captor would hit Faggis, and what hit Faggis might hit the girl, wherever she was. Yes, and where was she? And what was he to do? And why was he interesting himself in a wrong ’un, anyway, tell him that?

What he really needed, before tackling the difficult interview before him, was a week’s holiday. With a hole inside and a bump outside, and things coming so fast one on top of another, what chance had a bloke? Well, there you were!

Chap in blue would be the old man. Who was the other chap? Gawd, there’s a pair o’ socks …

‘Here he is,’ said the third officer.

‘Tha’s right!’ snorted Ben, as he was pushed forward. ‘Shove me abart as if I was a pahnd o’ cheese! We ain’t ’uman beings, we ain’t!’

‘Better be careful,’ the third officer warned him.

‘Wot for?’ he retorted. ‘When yer dahn on the ground, yer can’t fall.’

The captain interposed.

‘All right, Mr Greene,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll talk to him. Perhaps he will be a little more polite to me.’

Ben turned his eyes towards the speaker. The amount of gold braid did increase the necessity for politeness. He decided to try it.

‘I speaks proper, sir,’ he said, ‘when I’m spoke ter proper.’

‘I see,’ nodded the captain. ‘A fifty-fifty arrangement. It isn’t quite usual between a captain and a stowaway, but, as you’re particular, we’ll begin on those lines. What is your name?’

‘Ben, sir.’

‘And the rest of it?’

‘There ain’t no rest.’

‘I dare say you’ll find it, if you think.’

‘I can’t think.’

‘Why not?’

‘I got a bump.’

‘So I see. How did you get it?’

‘’Oo?’

‘How did you get your bump?’

‘It’s wot ’appens. When yer ’it.’

‘Then what hit you?’

‘’Arf a dozin’ ladders, a ton o’ coal, the grahnd, and the third hofficer. Oh, and two hother blokes wot ’e chucks me ter when we comes hup.’

The third officer explained.

‘He came quietly at first, sir,’ he said; ‘but he gave us a bit of trouble towards the end.’

‘Well, they was tryin’ ter force me ’ead between me legs or somethink,’ Ben defended himself. ‘It ain’t nacheral.’

‘I will see that you receive a proper apology from the Merchant Service,’ commented the captain dryly. ‘Meanwhile, let us return to essentials.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘You say your name’s Ben? Write it.’

A piece of paper and a pencil were handed to him. He wrote his autograph wonderingly. What did they want that for? The captain studied it, glanced at another piece of paper, looked at Mr Holbrooke and shook his head.

‘What are you doing here?’ the captain then asked.

‘Eh?’

The captain’s eyes grew a little colder. ‘Answer me, my man,’ he frowned. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Oh, I see,’ blinked Ben. ‘’E brought me ’ere.’

He jerked his thumb towards the third officer. The third officer glared angrily, but the captain remained patient.

‘How did you get on the ship before he brought you here?’ he asked.

‘I come aboard.’

‘The man’s a lunatic, sir!’ burst out the third officer.

‘I’m not so darned sure!’ added Mr Holbrooke, whose eyes were glued in a puzzled stare on Ben’s.

‘I’ll judge,’ said the captain. ‘Give him a chair.’

What? Someone being nice to him?

‘Go on!’ murmured Ben, in surprise.

The chair was provided. Ben sank down in it. If the captain had judged that Ben needed the chair, he had judged right. All sorts of funny things were happening inside Ben.

‘Now, then,’ said the captain, beginning again, ‘we’re not going to have any more nonsense. I want you to tell me, without any prevarication—you know what prevarication means—?’

‘Wobblin’, ain’t it?’ guessed Ben.

‘Well, that will do for our purpose,’ agreed the captain, with a faint smile. ‘Tell me, without any wobbling, what you are doing on board this ship, and why you came on board?’

Now for it! Ben hesitated. If he told the truth, he would entangle the girl. That was what she’d said, wasn’t it? Well, he wasn’t going to tell the truth. Not yet, anyway …

‘’Cos of me mother,’ said Ben, as three pairs of eyes bored into him.

‘Oh! And what about your mother?’ asked the captain.

‘Yus,’ said Ben.

‘Is she on board too?’

‘Yus. No.’

‘Which do you want?’

‘No.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Where I wanter git ter. She sent me a letter, see? “Come an’ see me,” she ses, “’cos p’r’aps I won’t be ’ere much longer.” That’s wot she ses.’ Ben looked out of the corner of his eye to see how the story was going. What he saw wasn’t very satisfactory. ‘So ’ere I am,’ he ended lamely.

‘Have you got the letter on you?’ inquired the captain.

‘I never keeps letters,’ he answered. ‘I bin blackmailed afore.’

‘Where was the letter sent?’

‘Eh?’

‘Didn’t you hear?’

‘Yus, sir.’

‘Then answer me!’

‘Well, I am hanswering yer, but yer goes so quick. I ain’t feelin’ well. The letter was sent ter—well, ter where I lives.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘My ’ome.’

‘Give me the address of your home?’

That was a nasty one. Ben hadn’t had a home for years. He began to wish he’d made up another story.

‘Popler Street,’ he said.

‘Popler Street where?’

‘Popler.’

‘Any particular number—or is the street all yours?’

‘Eh? Number 22. Tha’s it. Nummer 22 Popler Street, Popler, Lunnon.’

There was a pause. The three men looked at each other. Two were impatient, but the third, the captain, remained unperturbed. He knew what the other two men did not know—that anger would develop hysteria or its antithesis, numbness. He had read Ben’s condition when he had offered him a chair.

‘Twenty-two, Poplar Street, Poplar,’ he repeated slowly. ‘Well—admitting that for the moment—was there anything else on the envelope?’

‘I tole yer,’ replied Ben. ‘Lunnon.’

‘No name?’

‘’Corse there was a nime.’

‘What name?’

Ben looked at the captain suspiciously.

‘What name was on the envelope?’ the captain pressed. ‘Just “Ben, 22 Poplar Street, Poplar?”’

This was getting too complicated. Ben gave it up, and waited for the next. The next was even more complicated.

‘Where did your mother write from?’ inquired the captain.

‘From where she is,’ countered Ben.

‘And where is she?’

‘Well, where this boat’s goin’.’

This was too much for the third officer.

‘Yes, but where’s the boat going?’ he interposed angrily.

‘If you don’t know, you better sweep a crossin’,’ replied Ben.

The captain turned to the third officer.

‘Mr Greene,’ he said, ‘we had better not have any interruptions.’

For a brief moment, the world became sweet again. Ben grinned.

‘Tha’s right, sir!’ he chuckled. ‘Tick ’im orf!’

The sweetness vanished. The captain was now frowning heavily at Ben.

‘You’ll be ticked off yourself, if you don’t watch that tongue of yours!’ he exclaimed.

Now it was the third officer who grinned. The reaction and the grin sent Ben suddenly off his balance. He heard himself shouting. Perhaps the bump also had something to do with it. It was a painful bump.

‘I was born ticked orf!’ came his hoarse complaint. ‘Wot I was thinkin’ of, comin’ inter this world without fust askin’ everybody’s permishun, I’m sure I dunno! I’m a bit o’ mud not fit ter wipe yer boots hon—’

‘Say, do you allow this kind of language?’ interposed Mr Holbrooke.

‘Langwidge is like ’ens’ heggs,’ almost wept Ben. The room was growing misty. ‘If it’s comin, it’ll come.’

Another silence followed this philosophy. When the heat had died down a little, the captain delivered his ultimatum.

‘I think I have been patient,’ he observed, ‘and I am willing to remain patient for a minute or two longer, but I warn you, my man, that if there are any more outbursts this interview will come to an end, and you will not receive the benefit of very considerable doubts. Please remember that I am making every excuse for you, in view of your condition. Now, answer the rest of my questions quickly and plainly, and do not let us have any more foolery. Do you know where this ship is going?’

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.