Читать книгу The Red Paste Murders (Musaicum Vintage Mysteries) - Arthur Gask - Страница 4

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I was always such a coward.

I had no parents that I could remember and it was an old maiden aunt who brought me up.

She was poor and kept a little greengrocer's shop in Hindmarsh, a suburb of Adelaide, just off the great Port road.

My childhood days are chiefly memories of the smell of stale vegetables and the worries of very unhappy days at school.

I was a thin, white-faced little fellow and it seemed the mission in life of all other boys to tease me and make me cry. It was good sport to them to bully me, for I was always so afraid of everyone, with timid, nervous ways that made me an endless source of amusement to the school.

There was something about me that aways prevented my making friends and no one ever gave me any pity in my troubles. The other boys never seemed to leave me in peace. They took away my marbles and broke up my few occasional toys. They stole my sweets from me, and if ever I brought my dinner with me to school I had to eat it stealthily away from everyone, or it would have been seized at once by my tormentors and passed round. Looking back, it seems strange that I never retaliated, and, I think, never even complained. I seemed to have no spirit at all, and accepting all my persecutions as quite in the natural order of things, I slunk through my lonely boyhood, a little, shrinking, joyless coward.

Yes, childhood and boyhood brought me sadly unhappy schooldays, and when at fifteen years of age I was taken on, as office boy, by Messrs. Winter and Winter, the big wholesale chemists of Pirie street, my life story was much the same.

I had the heart of a coward.

Everybody found me out at once and the timidness of my disposition served only to provoke the cruellest instincts of those about me. The elder boys kicked and cuffed me as a matter of daily routine. They played practical jokes upon me. They hid my caps and inked my collars and generally in all their dealings with me were as brutal and callous as only boys can be.

As we grew up together and the years went by, they never seemed to get accustomed to me or to accord me the forbearance most generally given to old fellow workers. I was always a new-comer and always outside the pale of their confidences.

It was not that I purposely made myself unpopular; I did nothing of the kind.

Quick and sharp at figures as I always am, I had soon mastered the work we had to do, and was often able to give a lift to others in their tasks. Also, I was always ready to do little outdoor services for anyone, to fetch and carry for the office, to put the desks straight when they had been skylarking, to get the water boiling for the tea, and generally to make myself useful in countless little ways. But it was no good. It never made any difference, and everyone held me at best in more or less good-natured contempt.

When I had been eleven years at Winter and Winter's, I became, by seniority, head clerk in the invoice office, and the firm expressed their appreciation of my work by an increase in salary. It was really no more than I deserved, for I was a good servant to them, and always punctual, painstaking, and thoroughly to be trusted in my work.

I was never late in the mornings—never exceeded the hour allowed for dinner, and never grumbled when, in busy times, we had to return to the office after tea.

I don't think, indeed, that I could ever have had any vices at all. I didn't smoke, I was a strict teetotaler, and every Sunday was a zealous frequenter of our little chapel on the Port road. Also I had never had the courage for any of the love adventures the other fellows had.

In spite, however, of what the heads thought of me, I had no happiness at the office, because of the way the other clerks treated me. There were ten of us in my room, and even when I was formally placed in charge of them all they never showed me the slightest atom of respect, or ceased for an hour to regard me as in any other light than the butt for their cheap wit and the natural object for their silly jokes.

I rather believe now they thought I didn't really mind it and was quite content to provide amusement for the office. But I did mind it, and it was torture to my little cowardly soul. I was sensitive, very sensitive, behind all my timidity, and it galled me to the quick to be cheeked and insulted by quite young boys.

Sometimes I would get quite livid with anger at some scornful impertinence of one of the juniors.

I would spring up from my desk and turn in a blast of fury upon the offender, but no sooner was I on my feet than my cowardice would take possession of me like a seizure, and I would subside ingloriously to half-muttered threats that would only redouble the laughter of my tormentors. They would slap me on the back and tell me mockingly to go back to my hutch or the bow-wows would bite me and I should lose my tail. 'Rabbits' was what they used to call me, and the contempt they put in that one word would sometimes make me wince to the very marrow.

"Mr. Rabbits," would sneer Waller, my junior by five years, when introducing me to a newcomer. "Mr. Rabbits, our head invoice clerk, and the composer of chess problems," and then would follow a high-colored and spicy account of the latest jokes that had been played upon me, and the helpless way in which I had received them.

How I hated Waller! He was an idle, well-dressed fellow who always came late to the office, and smoked a lot of cigarettes, and was always in debt to some one or other. He had big fat legs and went in for athletics; also he was great on football, and went to horse-races, and all that sort of thing. He was the very type of man I loathed, chiefly, I think, because he was careless and reckless and never seemed to be afraid of anyone.

Of course, he was supposed to be under me in the office, but I should sooner have expected the roof to fall upon me than for him to have taken notice of anything I told him.

And as I have said, it was the same with them all. They just ignored me, and the youngest junior, when he had been three weeks in the office, would have looked upon it as a huge joke if I had tried to insist upon his doing anything he didn't feel inclined to do.

I began to perceive gradually that the firm was not satisfied with the way I kept order in the office, and our Mr. William began constantly to refer to it.

"Wacks," he said to me irritably one day, when he had unexpectedly interrupted an exciting game of shove-penny in our room, "why don't you keep order over them all? It's quite a disgrace for a man of your age to let young boys waste their time as they were doing today. You must stop it—do you hear?"

Mr. William had always been kindness itself to me, and his reproof made me want to burst into tears. But what could I do? I knew that no one would ever obey me, and I hated myself for being what I was.

I went home very dismally to my lodgings that evening, with no appetite at all for the tasty tea my landlady had, as usual, provided for me.

I lived in White Street, Bowden, about two miles from the city, and had two comfortable little rooms that I could call my own. My landlady was a hardworking widow, and I shared the house with an old retired sea-captain, who had the two front rooms, and a plain-clothes detective, who lived mysteriously in a back room, off the garden.

Of the latter, whose name was Meadows, I knew very little, and except for an occasional meeting in the street or a rare 'Good morning' in the hall should hardly, sometimes for weeks and weeks on end, have been aware of his existence. He was a quiet secretive-looking man, about thirty, and always went about with a thick stick and with his coat buttoned high up to his chin. He must have lodged with us quite six months before I even got to know his name, but I gathered accidentally from Mrs. Bratt that he had asked all about me soon after he came, and had appeared quite interested, so she said, in all the details she had been able to supply them.

Contrary to his appearance, however, he was not an uncommunicative man in his spare time, and I had some very interesting talks with him about his profession. He was very enthusiastic about crime, and held strong views that everyone was bursting with criminal propensities that only required encouragement and opportunity to come out.

"None of us can ever tell," he would say mysteriously, "the undiscovered criminals that we rub shoulders with every day. The innocent looking man that we sit down next to in the train, for aught we know, may have just come fresh from some ferocious murder. Perhaps he has just hidden a body to rot in some forgotten cellar, or in the thickets of some dark wood. Perhaps, for all we can tell, he may now be living on the proceeds of robbery and violence, and, even as we sit beside him, may be planning the details of some further crime. The young woman who brings us our meal at the restaurant where we go to dinner may have been at home a secret poisoner, and somewhere may have a six-foot grave to her credit in some quiet suburban cemetery. The man who collects our tickets at the station barrier may have broken into some mansion in his spare time, in years gone by, and perhaps have married and set up house upon the proceeds of his robbery. The assistant who serves us with groceries at the store may be a secret and persistent embezzler of his master's goods; the postman who brings us our letters may sneak postal orders from time to time, and the very deacon who collects the offertory from us at the church or chapel may pilfer undiscovered, when chance comes his way. Crime is everywhere," he would wind up emphatically, "and not one-thousandth part of it falls within the meshes of the Law."

Sometimes he stared so hard at me, and was so pointed and sweeping in his accusations, that I got quite uncomfortable and took to wondering exactly what particular crime he was suspecting me of.

He would never tell me of the cases he was engaged upon, but he nearly always seemed to have something to do, and at times was away for weeks and weeks together. Mrs. Bratt told me he was very highly thought of at headquarters.

The other lodger, Captain Barker, was a friend of mine, and I may add, the only friend I had. I had got to know him first in quite a casual sort of way. He was an old chap, well over sixty, and he had been with Mrs. Bratt some years before I came to lodge with her. He lived a lonely life, all by himself, and never had any friends or callers, so Mrs. Bratt said, at any time. At first, he never took the slightest notice of me when I met him in the hall, and for a long time never condescended even to say 'Good evening' or 'Good morning.' But one night he was suddenly taken ill with some kind of fit and I helped Mrs. Bratt to lift him into bed before the doctor came. He was so bad at the time that I didn't think he knew I was helping, but when he got better, as he did in about three weeks, he asked me to come into his room, and from that evening dated a friendship that lasted until he died.

He was a queer old chap, and so crippled after his seizure as to be almost unable to move about. As far as I remember he never left his rooms, and his only recreations were a daily consumption of a surprising amount of cheap brandy, and his games of chess with me.

I had rather fancied myself as a chess player until I met him. For some years I had been always top-dog at the little institute of our chapel, and had also studied the game for countless hours from various chess handbooks at the library. Consequently, I was decidedly a hard nut to crack, and our minister, who was a Melbourne University man, and had played in club tournaments and no end of matches, used often to say that I was one of the best players he had ever met.

I remember so well my first game with Captain Barker. His sitting-room was full of curiosities and odd things that he had collected from all parts of the world on his voyages, and he had been limping awkwardly round to explain them to me. I noticed a set of queer-colored chess-men in a cabinet, and asked him casually if he ever played. He stopped abruptly and snorted in a way that quite scared me for a moment. Then he asked me roughly if I would like to take him on.

I complied at once, as a matter of courtesy, and sat down to the board with the intention of giving the old chap an easy time and beating him just as gently as I could.

I thought I would just make a few simple moves and let the game take care of itself until the time justified me in giving him 'check,' and going off to bed. But I need not have worried myself over my politeness. He could beat me hollow. He was a consummate master of the game. He had me in difficulties in the first dozen moves, and play as I would, I found myself tight in the grip of an iron hand. He won easily, and we started a second game.

This time I determined to give him no chance and, spurred by the humiliation of my first defeat, embarked on a sound, steady defence. But it was no good. He beat me just the same. He was all round a much better player than I, and the subtle sense of impending disaster that all chess players feel when the game begins to lean even a hair's breadth against them again came to me in the first dozen moves.

I was greatly astonished at his play, because any one could plainly see he was not an educated man, and chess was certainly one of the last games I should have expected him to be fond of.

We played often after that first evening, so often, indeed, that sometimes it became a real nuisance to me, and I wished we had never become friends. He would play on for hours and hours at night, and never seemed to want to leave off, keeping me out of bed until two and three in the morning. Now and then, on one plea or another, I wouldn't go near him for several days together, but he was always so very glad to see me when I did return that I used to reproach myself for my neglect and feel I had done him an injury.

"Mr. Wacks," he would say—he was always scrupulously polite to me, except when the brandy had got hold of him, and then he commenced everything with a damn—"Mr. Wacks, you're a gentleman to keep company with an old sailor man, but I'll make you the finest chess player in Australia if you'll only learn."

He certainly did, as after years have proved, make me an unusually resourceful player, and he was always urging me, when he got to know me well, to join the big Adelaide Chess Club, and take part in matches.

I used always, however, to refuse, and excuse myself by saying I was too nervous to play with strangers, and when he was not feeling well or had been drinking heavily during the day my excuses would rouse him to an awful fit of temper.

"You dirty little coward," he shouted to me once when we had been discussing the moves of some game that had been published in the local papers, and I had refused, as usual, to send a challenge to the captain of the local club, "you could beat them all if you dared, and had a spot of pluck in your lean, mingy body. I know how strong I am and I know your play, and you're not half a pawn behind me now. Good judges have told me—good judges, mind—that I am almost a genius at the game. Twenty years ago and there were few players that did not meet their match in me, and me—only a rough sailor man. Afraid of playing with strangers, eh? Why, many a time in strange ports round the Mediterranean have I sat down in little cafes to play with damned foreigners, who didn't know a word of any language but their own, and who could only roll their eyes and jabber 'We—we,' when I gave them mate on the move. But you—you've not a grain of pluck in you—you're a worm, sir, a worm," and he thumped and banged on the table so heavily that I thought every moment Mrs. Bratt would rush in to know what was happening, and what was the matter.

Yes, the old man's friendship was a bit of a trial sometimes, and I often came to wish he had never spoken to me.

I have said he was my only friend, but there was Lucy—Lucy Brickett. She was not exactly a friend, however, for I was her devoted lover. I had got to know her at our little chapel, where every Sunday she played the harmonium and led the singing of the hymns. She didn't know I loved her, or, perhaps, even admired her, for here again my cowardice damned me and I hardly dared to say a word when she was present.

She was the younger of two sisters, and about twenty-two years of age. Of medium height, and with a plump and well-formed figure, she was undeniably pretty, with a soft and gentle face and dove-grey eyes.

The harmonium at the chapel sounded old and wheezy when the others touched it, but when she was playing there was no sweeter music in all the world to me. It reminded me of the kingdom of Heaven. Her face, too, I thought, was like one of the angels, and the memory of her eyes was always with me when I said my prayers. I never missed a service at the chapel, and, always sitting where I could easily see her, regarded all Sundays as the red letter days of my poor and lonely life.

Her uncle—oh, her uncle—was a very different type of being. He was a fat, gross man, with big, heavy features and a large, coarse face. He breathed very heavily and ate too much. A confirmed drunkard in his younger days, a file-tongued doctor had one day put the fear of hell into him, and he had never touched a drop of liquor since. Of late years, he had become a shining light of the prohibitionists, and he argued for them, just as he argued for all his other beliefs, in a coarse, pig-headed, and persistently narrow way. He never forgot his own profit in anything, and things were good or bad, and right or wrong, just as he was the gainer or loser in the transaction.

He was a widower and kept a little general and cool-drink shop on the Port Road, or rather, his two nieces kept it, and he gathered in the proceeds. He never seemed to do any work, but sat most of the day in a big well-cushioned chair behind the counter, laying down the law and making himself generally objectionable to his family.

Save that his two nieces were pretty and obliging, but little custom would have come to the shop; as it was, however, they did a fairly good trade, and of an evening especially plenty of young fellows lounged and dawdled over sweet fizzy drinks to get an opportunity of speaking to Lucy or her sister Maud.

I myself was often there, and sat either dumbly listening to the laughs and chatter around or very occasionally joining in and acquiescing with the bigoted assertions of the old man.

"Just so—just so, Mr. Brickett," I would assent hypocritically, "you're quite right; there's no getting away from it there," and I would order another drink from Lucy, as an excuse for lingering.

I think the two girls rather liked me, or at any rate were pleased for their uncle to have someone to agree so whole-heartedly with everything he said. Lucy always gave me a sweet smile when I came in, and on hot nights always saw that I had a big lump of ice in my tumbler. She sometimes, too, asked me about the work in the office, and seemed then inclined to sympathise with me and mother me in her soft, gentle way.

But her uncle always annoyed me, and I many a time longed to tell him what an ass he was, when Lucy wasn't there. He had absolutely no sense of humor, and was an awful bore.

One evening, coming home, I overtook him in the Port Road, just opposite the Admiral Nelson, the chief hotel of the neighborhood.

"Look at them beasts there," he growled, pointing with a fat and dirty finger to the saloon entrance, "look at them there hogs a-going in and out of that booze door. Think of the money they's a-spending—think of the money that might go on good cool drinks. I've a line of squash as would keep 'em busy all the evening—specially," and he winked knowingly at me, "if a pinch or two of good salt was put in with it to bring out the flavor."

I agreed with him, of course, and for my hypocrisy was a full twenty minutes late for my tea.

He was quite a big man at the chapel, however, and clothed in his black Sunday suit was not without a sort of ponderous dignity. He was one of the deacons, and bawled and bellowed like a bull when any of his favorite hymns were sung. He was a fair contributor to the chapel funds, but serving most of the congregation with groceries, as he did, the account in the end was probably, I expect, not on the losing side.

He was a dreadful bully his nieces and tyrannised over them in a way that sometimes made my blood boil. Often Lucy looked as if she had been crying, and when I saw the load of trouble in her gentle eyes I could have killed the old man for his beastliness, though he never knew it.