and you’re wanted for murder. Both unhealthy. I’m not recognising you till you’ve left the car in a ditch forty miles away. Have you got that?’
‘Do I leave myself in the ditch with the car?’
‘That’s a question of personal choice.’
‘Suppose I’m caught?’
‘Then I certainly won’t recognise you. But it’s not your habit to be caught.’
‘All right—suppose I’m not caught?’
‘You’ll change your appearance.’
‘And then?’
‘Then you can come home to mother, darling, and she’ll give you a—’
‘What?’
‘A nice new pinafore.’
She smiled, and suddenly the driver grinned. ‘She can twist ’im rahnd ’er finger!’ decided Ben. ‘On’y got to show ’er teeth!’
He wondered what would happen if he gave the sudden shout that was bursting for expression inside him. Would the woman still remain cool and collected? More important, would the chauffeur lose his head a second time and add another capital crime to his sheet?
But it was not fear of these things, though undoubtedly he feared them, that urged Ben to restrain his violent impulse. It was the memory of the detective lying on the bridge. Ben was carrying on for the detective. He was in his official shoes—a detective, now, himself! And he meant to remain one until he had done all his predecessor had set out to do—and a little bit more!
The woman raised her head sharply. A car had turned abruptly into the next street at racing speed.
‘You’ll lose your pinafore,’ said the woman.
‘Will I!’ retorted the chauffeur.
In a flash he had vanished.
‘The cleverest driver and the biggest fool in the kingdom,’ murmured the woman.
Ben felt her magnetic fingers on his sleeve. A queer collaboration, those perfect nails upon his threadbare cloth! Guided by the fingers, he moved into the darkness of a doorway. He was used to doorways. He had sheltered in them, pondered in them, shivered in them, dried in them, eaten cheese in them, slept in them, but he had never learned to love them. There was always a haunting ignorance of what lay on the other side. This doorway, for instance. From what was it separating him? People sleeping? People listening? Rats? Emptiness? Dust?…
The racing car came whizzing round the corner. Thoughts of the doorway melted into a confusing consciousness of speed and scent in conflict. The speed of the car and the scent of the woman. Movement chasing immobility. Immobility out-witting movement. The scent had never seemed more insistent that at this moment. Inside the car it had seemed natural. Out in a chilly street there was something unreal about it. Like sandwiches after the party’s over …
Swish! The police-car whizzed by. The metallic hum rose to a shriek, decreased, and faded out into a memory.
‘And that’s that,’ said the woman.
‘You fer the brines,’ muttered Ben, deeming it the time for a little flattery.
‘What about your brains?’ she asked.
Ben used them, and touched the little skull that adorned his lapel.
‘Would I be wearin’ this ’ere skelington if I ’adn’t none?’ he replied.
‘I don’t expect you would.’
‘Betcher life I wouldn’t!’
‘What have you done to earn it?’
What had he done? Lumme! What was he supposed to have done? In the absence of any knowledge regarding his back history, he decided to generalise.
‘Yer know that bloke wot you called Fred, miss?’ he said.
‘I’ve heard of him,’ agreed the woman.
‘I expeck ’e’s done a bit?’
‘You’ve had some evidence of that.’
‘Eh? Yus! Well, if yer was to tike orl ’e’s done and if yer was to put it alongside o’ wot I’ve done, yer’d lose it!’
‘Really?’ smiled the woman.
‘That’s a fack,’ answered Ben.
‘Then you don’t mind killing people?’
‘Eh?’
‘I said, you don’t mind murder?’
‘It’s me fav’rit ’obby.’
‘Then come inside, and I may show you how to indulge in your hobby,’ said the woman. And, producing a Yale key, she inserted it in the door.
As the key slipped into the lock and turned, Ben rebelled against his own heroism. What was he doing all this for? What would he gain out of it? Why did he not swing round and run, while he still had a chance? Once he was within this house—and the door was already swinging inwards, widening its mouth to receive him—there would be little chance of escape. Apparently he was going in to kill somebody; or, failing that, to be killed himself! Neither alternative brought any comfort to his soul.
Yes, that was what he would do! Turn and run for it. A couple of leaps, then a quick sprawl flat for the bullet—there was bound to be a bullet—then a pancake slide, then up and repeat, and then bing round the corner! One, two, three—go!
But he did not go. The power of a live woman or of a dead man held him there, and when the live woman touched his shoulder and the dead man watched to see how he would respond, he walked ahead of her into the yawning black gap, and heard the door close behind him with a soft click.
He had wondered what lay on the other side of the door. Well, now here he was—and no wiser! Blackness lay all around him; a blackness more terrifying, though he could not have explained why, than the blackness inside the car. The space inside the car had been confined. The space here was suffocating.
He heard the woman groping. He decided that conversation would give the best appearance of a courage that was not there.
‘Feelin’ fer the light?’ he asked.
‘We don’t need a light,’ replied the woman.
‘Oh, don’t we?’ murmured Ben. ‘Then ’ow do we see?’
