Читать книгу Ben Sees It Through - J. Farjeon Jefferson - Страница 10

This time Ben did not run in a circle. He found himself piloted by someone who preferred zizags. In Ben’s best moments he also preferred zigzags, but he had not had many best moments since he had left the ship, and he found it exceedingly restful, even while he panted, to act under orders again.

He realised, of course, the motive of this hastily resumed flight. The red-faced man was the motive. Those unpleasant pale blue eyes had never lost their suspicion, and it had been quite obvious that the fellow had not left the bar to go home. He had left the bar to return to it with company, and neither Ben nor Molly was in a mood for any company saving their own.

So they zigzagged ingeniously through dark and windy lanes. The darkness hid their forms and the wind drowned their gasps. But Molly, the pilot, was taking no chances. Elements might assist, but it was wit that won in the end, and when they came to forked roads she suddenly whispered, ‘Wait!’ and darted up one of them.

Ben waited. He endured with wavering fortitude a score of lonely seconds. The wind blew his cap off, and he only just saved it from sailing over a hedge. If he had not saved it, the whole course of his immediate future would have been changed.

‘I ’ope she ain’t goin’ ter be long!’ he thought, fixing the rescued cap more tightly on his anxious head.

She reappeared an instant later, materialising out of the blackness like a happy ghost. But it was a ghost with only one shoe.

‘Where’s it gorn?’ asked Ben.

Perhaps he would not have noticed the absence so soon if the unshod foot had not been so pretty. Neat, it was! But then she was neat all over. Lummy, she could tell some o’ them toffs off when it came to looks! Neat as a pin—and as sharp, too, when she liked, as she now proved.

‘I’ve lost it,’ she smiled.

‘Yus, and I nearly lorst me cap,’ said Ben. ‘We’ll go and find it.’

‘No fear!’ she answered. ‘We’ll let a bobby find it. Ever heard of a false trail? Come on!’

And, seizing his arm, she started him off again up the other fork of the road.

They ran for another ten minutes. Then,

‘How’s your breath?’ she whispered.

Hers seemed unimpaired.

‘Gorn,’ he gasped.

‘Stick it for just a minute more,’ she urged.

She took his arm and guided his tottering feet round a corner into a narrow, rutted lane. Fifty yards up the lane she suddenly stopped and pulled him towards a clump of trees. Under the trees was a big black shadow. It was a barn.

A few seconds later they were in the barn, and Ben lay panting on a little mound of hay.

Molly sat beside him. When he tried to speak, she put her fingers on his mouth. Ben yielded gratefully to the silent injunction, and slowly gasped back to life.

‘Now, then,’ said Molly at last, ‘let’s try and straighten things out a bit. Only we must speak low, or we may be heard from the road. You didn’t really have anything to do with that murder, did you?’

‘Don’t be silly,’ answered Ben.

‘Of course you couldn’t have,’ she nodded. ‘You’ve been white ever since I’ve known you. Which is more than I can say for myself!’

‘Now, don’t start that, miss,’ replied Ben. ‘There ain’t nothink wrong with you!’

‘Oh, no! I only pick pockets.’

‘Go on! You’ve give that up, ain’tcher?’

‘Ses you! Well, p’r’aps. But we won’t worry about that just yet. I want to hear things.’

‘Sime ’ere! ’Ow did yer git ter England?’

‘Like you.’

‘Eh?’

‘On a boat.’

‘Yus, but—’

‘Your boat started first, I know. But mine was a bigger boat, and we raced you.’

‘Go on!’

‘It’s true. I’ve been in Southampton two days.’

‘I’m blowed!’

‘Well, try and blow a little less loudly!’ she warned him. ‘We’re not out of the wood yet!’

She crept away from him as she spoke and groped her way to the barn door. Then she came back again, and reported all clear.

‘If you was ’ere afore me,’ said Ben, who had been thinking, ‘why wasn’t yer on the dock ter meet me?’

‘Oh, I’ve not been in easy street,’ she answered, cryptically. ‘I would have met you if I could have. As it was, I got there just too late, and then I had to pick up the threads.’

‘Yer mean clues, like?’

‘That’s it. And they weren’t nice clues! When I heard about the murder, and that a sailor had jumped out of the taxi and disappeared—well, I guessed by the description that it was you. They’ve got you tabbed, Ben! We’ll have to do something about it.’

‘Yer mean, me descripshun’s aht?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘But I ain’t done nothink, miss!’

‘Wasn’t it Molly last time?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, there’s no need to go back on a good thing! No, Ben, you haven’t done anything, but your whole trouble, ever since I’ve known you, is that you get mixed up with other people who have. You’ve got mixed up with this Spaniard—’

‘Yer mean, Don Diablo?’

‘That’s a good name for him! Yes, Don Diablo! And you’re mixed up with me—’

‘Now, look ’ere, miss—Molly,’ interposed Ben, seriously, ‘we ain’t goin’ ter ’ave none o’ that. You ain’t doin’ no more pickpocketin’, see, and wot you done afore weren’t your fault.’

‘Oh? Then whose fault was it?’

‘The fault o’ the street yer was born in.’

‘It’s a nice idea! But—were you born in Park Lane?’

‘’Oo?’

‘Your street didn’t turn you into a thief!’

‘Well, yer see—I comes from Nelson,’ mumbled Ben. He hated any kind of washing, even white-washing. ‘Any’ow, we ain’t thinkin’ o’ the past, we’re thinkin’ o’ the fuchure—’

‘When we ought to be thinking of the present,’ interrupted Molly. ‘How did you come to be in the taxi with—with the man who was killed?’

‘Yus, that was a funny bizziness right from the start, miss—’

‘Molly!’

‘Eh? Oh! Molly.’ He liked her little interruptions. They kept things warm, like. ‘Well, ’e ses he can find me a job, and so ’e arsks me ter come along with ’im, see, but fust ’e buys me a new cap—’

‘Why, did you lose your old one?’

‘Yus. It’s gorn ter see Father Nepchune.’

‘But why should he buy you a new one?’

‘Well, ’e was with me when the old ’un went. Barges inter me, and so ’e ses ’e must git me another. And we gits in the taxi, and ’e buys me the new cap—’

‘The one you’ve got on?’

‘That’s right. Bit of orl right, ain’t it? And then, jest as we’re goin’ ter the stashun, I suddinly thinks of you, like, and that letter I was goin’ ter ’ave waitin’ fer yer at the Post Orfice, so aht I nips ter send it orf, and I sends it orf, givin’ yer the address o’ that job I was goin’ ter, and then—blimy, I gits a shock proper.’

‘What happened?’

‘No good arskin’ me!’ muttered Ben, sepulchrally. ‘It ’appened while I was writin’ that there letter. I—I gits back inter the cab, see, and I ses “Ain’t I bin quick?” and ’e—’e jest stares back at me from the nex’ world, like. So I jest thinks, “Oi,” and ’ops it. Well, I arsk yer?’

‘I can guess what you felt like,’ she answered, with a little shiver. ‘And then?’

‘I told yer.’

‘What?’

‘I ’opped it.’

‘But the Spaniard? Don Diablo! You mentioned him.’

‘Oh! ’Im!’ Ben gulped at the memory. ‘’E’s a proper nightmare, ’e is! Fust time I bumps inter Don Diablo ’e ketches ’old of me with a blinkin’ ’and wot ’as a scar on it—funny thing, if a ’and ’as a scar on it, it jest mikes fer me!—but I gits away, on’y the nex’ time I don’t git away, see, and ’e arsks me a lot o’ questions, like wot was I doin’ with the deader, and did I know ’is nime, it was White, and did ’e give me hennythink, and wot was the address of the plice I was goin’ ter for the job. Lummy, tork abart a woman! Old Diablo’d beat a dozen. And then ’e begins to feel in me pockets, and me born ticklish, and then a bobby comes up, and ’e scoots, and I ’its the bobby, and then I scoots—’

‘Sh!’ whispered the girl, suddenly, and gripped his arm.

Ben stopped abruptly, with his mouth still open. Footsteps were sounding along the road.

For a few seconds they listened in strained silence. The footsteps grew closer, and as they grew closer they also grew slower. Molly slid suddenly to the barn door and began feeling about in the dimness.

Ben knew what she was feeling for. A bolt, or a crossbar, or some contrivance that would secure them from outside.

Her search was unsuccessful.

The footsteps had now stopped. Then, all at once, the dead stillness was broken by a welcome little sound. A match was being struck. They even caught a momentary glow of the light as it flickered into brief life on the other side of a crack. A few moments later, the footsteps were resumed, grew fainter, and died away.

‘Aren’t we a couple of mugs?’ whispered Molly, returning.

‘Well, two’s better’n one,’ murmured Ben.

The words were hardly complimentary, but Molly smiled. She understood the meaning behind. Then the smile faded, and she became thoughtful.

Ben found himself staring at the vague silhouette of her figure as she stood before him. It occurred to him that another lady he’d heard of called Venus de Smilo or something wasn’t in it with Molly Smith. This superior silhouette just a few inches away from him wasn’t only pretty. It was companionable. Matey. And prettiness wasn’t really no good unless it was matey, too. When you thought of the darkness outside, and of the unfriendliness of it, and of the size of it—it stretched as far as the stars, with nothing in between—it sort of frightened you. But you only had to hold out your hand an inch or two and touch that silhouette, and—well, then everything was all right, wasn’t it?…

‘You know, Ben—we haven’t got it all straightened out even yet,’ said Venus’s superior. ‘Tell me! What did—old Diablo want? Was he trying to get that address when he started on your pockets, do you think?’

‘I dunno wot ’e was arter,’ answered Ben.

‘You believe it might have been something else?’

‘Lummy, it’s a riddle! See, e’ arst if the chap wot was dead ’ad give me somethink—’

‘And did he?’

‘Wot?’

‘The man who’s dead—you said his name was White, didn’t you?—did White give you anything?’

‘No!’

‘No! But Don Diablo thought he might have! Look here, Ben, how does this sound to you? Do you suppose Don Diablo killed White—never mind for the moment how he did it—do you suppose he killed him because he wanted something White had on him? And, as you were with White, Diablo now thinks that you’ve got it on you?’

‘Got wot?’

‘What Diablo thinks you’ve got?’

‘Wot’s that?’

‘Oh, Ben! How’ve you lived all this time?’

‘Eh?’

‘With no one to look after you?’

‘People don’t look arter me—they runs arter me!’

‘And now this beastly Spaniard’s joining in the chase!’

‘Yus. Corse, there was that pocket-book that barmy barmaid talked abart, but ’e didn’t give me no pocket-book, orl ’e give me was this cap, and if yer arsk me,’ added Ben, as his mind harped back to the inn, ‘that barmaid ’eard more’n wot ’appened, and then said more’n wot she ’eard. There’s some folks turn a pea inter a mellon afore yer can say Jim Crow!’

‘Yes, yes, but we’re not getting anywhere!’ sighed Molly. ‘You know, Ben, I think I’m right—I think Don Diablo does believe you’ve got something that he wants! P’r’aps it’s only the address White gave you—the address of the job, you know—though what he could want with that I don’t know. It may be something else. By the way, what is the address?’

‘Eh? Oh! I’ve fergot.’

‘But wasn’t it written down—’

‘Oh, yus, that’s right. In me pocket. ’Ere it is.’

He groped in his pocket, while she watched him. He groped in all his pockets.

‘Well, I’m blowed!’ he muttered. ‘Where’s it gorn?’

But now she wasn’t watching him. Footsteps again resounded in the lane outside. Tottering, staggering footsteps.

‘Funny,’ thought Ben, ‘’ow nothink can go right.’

A moment later, something fell with a thud against the door.