Murderer’s Trail
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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.’