The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson: The Dream Of X & Other Fantastic Visions (34 page)

I have said that the news proved gratifying to Binny. You will the better understand this when I tell you that Jem Binny refused to lie awake and cough in the night, even to have the pleasure of disturbing the rest of the landlady. He invariably slept, or just as invariably opened his bedroom window and slipped out into the darkness.

Yet, all through his absences, or his sleep, there would come at pleasingly regular intervals, the well-known “A-haa! A-haa! A-haa!” which told all the world—in the shape of his wakeful landlady—of his whereabouts.

This was, as will be now understood, a convenient kind of thing to occur in the case of a man who designed to earn for himself the reputation of extreme regularity of habit, and an “early-to-bed-fear-the-night-air-y’-know” kind of disposition. He could take his night walks and investigations in peace, assured that he had left his cough behind him to signify his innocence. For it was clear that if a man lay coughing in his bedroom he could not be confounded with some unknown law-breaker who may have had a penchant for safe-testing in other peoples’ houses.

And the way of it all was so delightfully simple, a constant mark of exclamation to the sagacity of Jem Binny’s character. All the village knew that he had a phonograph. All the village—that is, all those who came in for their malt extract—had heard many of his records, yet none of them—knowingly— had heard one in particular; for that was reserved for the nightly concert of which the landlady—and occasionally her husband— formed, in their innocence, the audience.

Neither, I may add, had anyone any knowledge of a neatly designed piece of clockwork which, when attached to the phonograph o’ nights, allowed that machine to run only in little jerks, spaced twenty minutes apart, so that a portion of the unknown record would be played thrice in the hour thus: “A-haa! A-haa! Humm!” Then the twenty minutes’ pause, and repetition. It was really most ingenious. And it was doing its work faithfully enough on this night when its owner and constructor was bent on boarding the London express at the sharp curve in the Lower Bend.

Binny reached the Bend some minutes ahead of the train, and sat down on the embankment to wait. He was feeling very fairly contented with himself, for he had that evening concluded the exhaustive survey of the fine piece of “property” which was to be the scene of his operations that night.

As I have remarked, Binny was in a contented and self-satisfied frame of mind, which was marred only by one trifle of anxiety, that he kept pushing into the background.

“Not ’im—’e never saw me!” he muttered to himself once or twice, with the intent to assure himself. “Too bloomin’ slow, these folk, to see a ’ouse! Guess it’s all right, anyway.”

Yet it was obvious, from Binny’s recurring to the subject, that he was not absolutely assured on the point.

His thoughts and comments referred to a trifling incident of the evening, just as the dusk had begun to come down on the countryside. He had been scouting through the shrubberies at the rear of the big hall that he had arranged to “investigate,” and behind him there had been an old, long-disused quarry, lying at the back of the laurels. It was fenced off artistically, so that it formed a great, rough, basin-like depression in the grounds, all boulder bestrewn and grown with rough bushes, and made an excellent foil of natural wildness to the more cultured beauty of the surrounding gardens und estate.

It was here that, suddenly, Binny had seen a man, dressed something like one of “them gamekeeper fellers,” who seemed to be striving to keep himself out of sight in a rather suspicious fashion; yet to be staring in his direction.

“Blow me, if I don’t reckon ’e ain’t trailin’ me!” Jem had muttered, after a cautious survey rearwards from the security of a thick laurel-bush. He had found cause—in the process of his varied “investigations”—to distrust and dislike all men who were dressed after the fashion of the man he was watching. “Gamekeeper fellers!” he called them, with something of a snort; for, whilst he resented and was wary of them, he had no respect for their abilities to trail him. “Nothin’ to do but loaf round in the blessed grounds!” had been his comment

This was his distinctly incorrect description of a gamekeeper’s duties; but then it must be remembered that Jem Binny had on several occasions, as I have hinted, been in danger of discovery at inopportune moments by one of the prowling men in knickers and gaiters. Yet, on each occasion, his ability as a woodsman was such that he had managed to evade an actual meeting, and had crept away, sneering contemptuously; yet gradually the warning of their constant proximity had become impressed upon him, so that he found himself always alert—though with a jeer in his heart—for the approach of these “paid loafers,” as he imagined them truly to be.

On this particular evening he had sat and watched the man for several minutes, as he moved stealthily from bush to bush in the quarry, always seeming to be making in his—Binny’s—direction, so that at last the cracksman had considered the advisability of a retreat.

“ ’E can’t see me,” he had assured himself; “but then ’e may ’ave seen me. I’ll get a move on. Guess ’e thinks I’m after the chickens!”

This was said with the air of a dynamiter who knows he is suspected of wishing to steal a halfpenny bun. Thereafter, Jem Binny made himself scarce in a very speedy and effective manner peculiar to his character and to his woodcraft; the second of these having been obtained in the course of years upon the borderlands of the great prairies.

Jem Binny, as I hope you have now begun to understand, was really a very smart young man—almost as smart as he believed himself to be, and, indeed, this is very high praise, of a sort. By birth he was a Cockney, and by upbringing a Canadian, and that means much to those who know. And now, as he sat waiting on the embankment, he gave himself a final shake—mentally—and dismissed from his mind, for the time being, the vague wonder and uneasiness that had possessed him lest, after all, the man in the knickers and gaiters had seen him, and suspected his true intentions.

Presently, away in the night, sounded the distant thunder of the express, laughing noisily over the miles. He walked to and fro, searching for a sound place from which to take his spring, then waited, looking to his right. The train drove into view, slowing evenly for the Bend, and Binny stepped back into a bush until the engine had passed him, for he had no intention to be seen, and possibly recognised later, by the driver or his man.

The big express went by, running smooth and slow; then Binny leapt to the place that he had decided would do for his purpose, and the next instant was crouching on the footboard. Very cautiously he raised his head and peeped into the window of the carriage; but it would not suit his purpose, for there were people inside. He moved carefully along from carriage to carriage, searching for the inevitable empty, and holding on strongly, for the big engine was once more taking up its mile-devouring song. At the sixth carriage, which happened to be a first-class, he had a nasty and violent shock, of one sort, which was changed to an even more painful shock of another kind, after he had gazed into the carriage for a few moments.

The cause of the first shock was simple, and nowise complex. For there, sitting in the corner of the carriage, was the identical man who had been tracking him in the quarry earlier in the evening.

“Goin’ up ter town fer ther bloomin’ ’tecks!” was Jem’s mental lightning-like thought, as he dropped swiftly and coolly from eight. “Guess ’e saw me, after all. But I’m on the right side of the ’edge, I am, every time, you bet!”

He stole another cautious look at the man, and therewith got his second shock. By the man’s side stood a small grip-sack, stuffed to bursting, and his hand rested upon it in a way that betrayed very plainly he was conscious of the contents.

“My gord!” said Binny. “My gord!” And studied the man’s face and clothes with a keen scrutiny, his hands shaking with the excitement which had suddenly affected his hitherto cool and well-balanced nervous system.

“ ’Course ’e ain’t no bloomin’ keeper-man,” he said presently, with a temporary but bitter scorn of himself. “ ’E’s a blessed trike, same as me—same as me! And ’e’s done me one in the eye, proper! Just nipped in an’ lifted the ’ole blessed cabosh! Guess ’e saw I was onter it, an’ moved in ter night, w’ile ’e ’ad the charnce!”

He ducked again, and squatted on the footboard, thinking hard and savagely.

“I’ll do ’im! I’ll do ’im yet, you’ll see!”he assured the passing night landscape. “Let me think!”

He sustained his incredible position for a while longer, quite oblivious to the fierce, steady rush and screech of the wind as the express beat onward across the night. And suddenly he saw how he might even matters up in the neatest way possible.

“Ha!” he said, breathless with delight, and slipped his hand back to his hip-pocket.

The next instant he had entered the carriage, revolver convenient, and seated himself calmly in the opposite corner. He made no attempt to speak to the other man, but sat quietly for some minutes, without appearing even to look at him. Then, calmly and assuredly, he turned and stared at him, with all the composed sternness of the law.

The man opposite looked guilty; what is more, he sat guiltily, and his eyes were two silent witnesses of the consciousness of guilt and a temporarily paralysed nervous system.

“It’s all up, my lad,” remarked Binny, after a duly impressive pause, during which, however, he had held his pistol handy in his side coat pocket, to which he had conveniently transferred it. “We’ve been watchin’ you all ther evenin’. You’ll ’ave ter come along of me.”

“I—I—my—” said the man, with a grotesque, nervous puckering of his features.

“Ain’t got much bloomin’ nerve!” was Binny’s caustic mental comment. Aloud, he continued:

“We meant ter ’ave you. We was all round you in that there quarry, if you’d only ’ad eyes!”

“I—saw you!” the man got out with a jerk. “I knew it was you when you came in here. I had hoped you hadn’t seen me. I—I—”

“That’ll do, my lad,” said Binny, who wanted to think. “What you says now ’ll be used against yon; so shut up!”

“It’s the first time I’ve ever done such a thing!” said the man entreatingly.

“An’ a bloomin’ mess I ’spect you’ve made of it!” replied Binny, with professional scorn, as he realised that, after all, the man was only an amateur who had been blessed by incredible luck. “It’s people like you as spoils the perfession! I’ve a good mind—”

He paused abruptly, realising that this was hardly the point of view of the Law. Then, still looking across at the other, he clinked a couple of drills in his pocket in a suggestive fashion, and stood up.

“D-don’t handcuff me!” said the other man, his face grown suddenly whiter, as he realised in very truth that the “clutch of the law” was a phrase of which he was at last to know the true inward meaning. “D-don’t handcuff me!” he begged, with a frantic note coming into his voice. “I’ll be quiet. I’ll do anything—anything, only don’t handcuff me.”

Jem remained upon his feet, appearing to consider and reconsider the point.

“I’ll give you my word, I’ll not even attempt to escape, if you’ll spare me that,” interpolated the man, very earnestly. “You know I couldn’t escape, anyway,” he continued. “You’ve got those other men of yours. What could I do?”

It seemed to Binny that there was a faint note of hope in the man’s tones, and in the uncontrolled eyes, as he suggested that the other officers—to whom Jem had vaguely referred—were with him. Binny smelt something of a question in the remark, and settled the answer with characteristic promptitude and calmness.

“Very good, my lad,” he said, nodding. “As you say, there ain’t no chance for you, seein’ as there’s three of us on this train.” He saw the vague hope go out of the man’s eyes as he said that, and realised that he had read his intention aright. “But I’ll just take charge of that there grip, seein’
 
it’s important evidence. An’ if you forgets what you’ve promised, you’ll ’ave the handcuffs on you in two jiffies, an’ a broke ’ead to keep ’em company.”

As he made known this more humane side of the law, he took hold of the grip-sack, to move it across to his own side of the carriage.

“This ’ere’s wot I call bein’ caught red-’anded, my lad,” he remarked. “I guess—”

But what it was he guessed he never made known, for he broke off short in his speech, nearly gasping with delight as he felt the weight of the gold and silver in the sack. It was so much in excess of what he had ever dared to hope. He experienced the dim beginnings of a belated respect for this amateur who had forestalled him.

“Guess you must have cleaned the place out,” he remarked, weighing the tightly crammed bag in his hand.

“No, indeed!” exclaimed the other, eager to prove at least this much in his favour. “Indeed, I left far more than I—I—er— brought away. I left some of the best—I hadn’t the heart to take them. I—I regretted it even then. I assure—”

“Wot!” shouted Binny, his half-respect for the amateur lost utterly in a fierce disgust. “Wot! You left more ’n ’arf? You left more ’n ’arf? You left mor ’n ’arf? Wot!” His anger choked him temporarily. “You’ve bloomin’ well ruined the cop. You’ve—”

He realised suddenly what he was saying, and forced himself into silence; but his thoughts grew even more bitter because of the dumbness that he laid upon them.

The man attempted further to assure the law that he had truly taken but a portion of what there had been to take; but the Law quietened him effectually with the stem order to “Shut his face up tight and padlock it.” Mean while, the Law mourned in silence awhile; but gradually adjusted itself to the inevitable, and became virulently official.