Читать книгу Twelve Tales - Allen Grant - Страница 4
ОглавлениеA CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATION
Ah, he was a mean-spirited beggar, that fellow Sibthorpe! As mean-spirited a beggar as ever I come across. Yes, that's who I mean; that's him; the fellow as was murdered. I s'pose you'd call it murdered, now I come to think of it. But, Lord, he was such a mean-spirited chap, he wouldn't be enough to 'ang a dog for!
'Charitable,' eh? 'A distinguished philanthropist!' Well, I can't say as I ever thought much of his philanthropy. He was always down on them as tries to earn a honest livin' tramping about the country. Know how he was murdered? Well, yes, I should think I did! I'm just about the fust livin' authority in England on that there subjeck.
Well, come to that, I don't mind if I do tell you. You're a straight sort of chap, you are. You're one of these 'ere politicals. I ain't afraid o' trustin' you. You're not one of them as 'ud peach on a pal to 'andle a reward o' fifty guineas. And it's a rum story too. But mind, I tell you what I tell you in confidence. There's not another chap in all this prison I'd tell as much to.
I'd always knowed 'im, since I was no bigger nor that. Old fool he was too; down on public-'ouses an' races an' such, an' always ready to subscribe to anything for the elevation of the people. People don't want to be elevated, says I; silly pack o' modern new-fangled rubbish. I sticks to the public-'ouses.
Well, we was dead-beat that day. Liz an' me had tramped along all the way from Aldershot. Last we come to the black lane by the pine-trees after you've crossed the heath. Loneliest spot just there that I know in England. The Gibbet 'Ill's to the right, where the men was hung in chains; and the copse is to the left, where we 'ad that little brush one time with the keepers. Liz sat down on the heather—she was dead-beat, she was—behind a clump o' fuzz. An' I lay down beside 'er.
She was a good 'un, Liz. She followed me down through thick and thin like a good 'un. No bloomin' nonsense about Liz, I can tell you. I always liked 'er. And though I did get into a row with her that mornin' afore she died, and kick 'er about the ribs a bit—but, there, I'm a-digressin', as the parson put it; and the jury brought it in 'Death by misadventure.' That was a narrow squeak that time. I didn't think I'd swing for 'er, 'cause she 'it me fust; but I did think they'd 'a' brought it in somethin' like manslaughter.
However, as I say, I'm a-digressin' from the story. It was like this with old Sibthorpe. We was a-lyin' under the gorse bushes, wonderin' to ourselves 'ow we'd raise the wind for a drink—for we was both of us just about as dry as they make 'em—when suddenly round the corner, with his 'at in his 'and, and his white 'air a-blowin' round his 'ead, like an old fool as he was, who should come but the doctor. Liz looks at me, and I looks at Liz.
'It's that bloomin' old idjit, Dr. Sibthorpe,' says she. 'He give me a week once.'
I 'ad my knife in my 'and. I looks at it, like this: then I looks up at Liz. She laughs and nods at me. 'E couldn't see neither of us behind the bush of fuzz. 'Arst 'im fust,' says Liz, low; 'an' then, if he don't fork out——' She drawed her finger so, right across her throat, an' smiles. Oh, the was a good 'un!
Well, up I goes an' begins, reglar asker's style. 'You ain't got a copper about you, sir,' says I, whinin' like, 'as you could give a pore man as has tramped, without a bit or a sup, all the way from Aldershot?'
'E looks at me an' smiles—the mean old hypocrite! 'I never give to tramps,' says 'e. Then 'e looks at me agin. 'I know you,' says 'e. 'You've been up afore me often.'
'An' I knows you,' says I, drawin' the knife; 'an' I knows where you keeps your money. An' I ain't a-goin' to be up afore you agin, not if I knows it.' An', with that, I rushes up, an' just goes at him blind with it.
Well, he fought like a good 'un for his life, that he did. You wouldn't 'a' thought the old fool had so much fight left in him. But Liz stuck to me like a brick, an' we got him down at last, an' I gave him one or two about the 'ead as quieted him. It was mostly kickin'—no blood to speak of. Then we dragged him aside among the heather, and covered him up a little bit, an' made all tidy on the road where we'd stuck him.
'Take his watch, Liz,' says I.
Well, would you believe it? He was a magistrate for the county, and lived in the 'All, an' was 'eld the richest gentleman for ten mile about; but when Liz fished out his watch, what sort do you think it was? I give you my word for it, a common Waterbury!
'You put that back, Liz,' says I. 'Put that back in the old fool's pocket. Don't go carryin' it about to incriminate yourself, free, gratis, for nothin',' says I; 'it ain't worth sixpence.'
''Ave you his purse?' says she.
'Yes, I 'ave,' says I. 'An' when we gets round the corner, we'll see what's in it.'
Well, so we did; an', would you believe it, agin, when we come to look, there was two ha'penny stamps and a lock of a child's 'air; and, s'elp me taters, that's all that was in it!
'It ain't right,' says I, 'for people to go about takin' in other people with regard to their wealth,' says I. ''Ere's this bloomin' old fool 'as misled us into s'posing he was the richest man in all the county, and not a penny in his purse! It's downright dishonest.'
Liz snatches it from me, an' turns it inside out. But it worn't no good. Not another thing in it!
Well, she looks at me, an' I looks at her. 'You fool,' says she, 'to get us both into a blindfold scrape like this, without knowin' whether or not he'd got the money about him! I guess we'll both swing for it.'
'You told me to,' says I.
'That's a lie,' says she. Liz was always free-spoken.
I took her by the throat. 'Young woman,' says I, 'you keep a civil tongue in your 'ead,' says I, 'or, by George, you'll follow him!'
Then we looks at one another agin; and the humour of it comes over us—I was always one as 'ad a sense of humour—an' we busts out laughin'.
'Sold!' says I.
'Sold!' says Liz, half cryin'.
An' we both sat down, an' looked agin at one another like a pair of born idjits.
Then it come over us gradjally what a pack o' fools that there man had made of us. The longer I thought of it, the angrier it made me. The mean-spirited old blackguard! To be walking around the roads without a penny upon him!
'You go back, Liz,' says I, 'an' put that purse where we found it, in his weskit pocket.'
Liz looked at me an' crouched. 'I daren't,' says she, cowerin'. She was beginning to get frightened.
I took her by the 'air. 'By George!' says I, 'if you don't——' An' she saw I meant it.
Well, back she crawled, rather than walked, all shiverin'; an', as for me, I set there on the heather an' watched her. By an' by, she crawled round again. 'Done it?' says I. An' Liz, lookin' white as a sheet, says, 'Yes, I done it.'
'I wasn't goin' to carry that about with me,' says I, 'for the coppers to cop me. Now they'll put it in the papers: "Deceased's watch and purse were found on him untouched, so that robbery was clearly not the motive of the crime." Git up, Liz, you fool, an' come along on with me.'
Up she got, an' come along. We crept down the valley, all tired as we was, without a sup to drink; an' we reached the high-road, all in among the bracken, an' we walked together as far as Godalming. That was all. The p'lice set it down to revenge, an' suspected the farmers. But, ever since then, every time I remember it, it makes me 'ot with rage to think a man o' property like him should go walking the roads, takin' other people in, without a farden in his pocket. It was the biggest disappointment ever I had in my life. To think I might 'a' swung for an old fool like that! A great philanthropist, indeed! Why, he'd ought to 'a' been ashamed o' himself. Not one blessed farden! I tell you, it always makes me 'ot to think o' it.
