Ben Sees It Through

‘Wot’s that?’ murmured Ben, mechanically.

‘Are you feelin’ queer?’ repeated the owner of the face.

Did suspicion lurk in the pale blue eyes? If so, Ben was not in a condition to combat it. He merely stared back, while the suspicion appeared to grow.

‘You’ve been runnin’!’ The statement was more like a challenge. ‘And where’s your cap, mate? Lost it?’

‘No, here it is,’ chipped in another voice.

And Molly Smith entered, cool as a cucumber, and with the cap in her hand.

‘Lying on the door-step,’ she said. ‘Did that chap they’re after barge into you, like he did into me?’

She held the cap out to Ben. Automatically, he took it, while their eyes met. They might have been strangers for all the recognition she showed. Lummy, what a kid she was, when it came to a tight corner!

‘I tell you, I was frightened proper!’ she ran on, producing a shiver. ‘And you look as if you’d had a bit of a scare up, if you don’t mind me saying it. Did you dodge in here to get out of the way, too?’

‘Tha’s right, miss,’ answered Ben, catching at the cue.

Her quick, keen mind was like a rope thrown out to him in a raging sea.

‘Well, I don’t blame you!’ she exclaimed. ‘All these Bolshies and bag-snatchers—it doesn’t seem safe to be out! But what’s this one done? Nothing to do with that murder in the town, is he?’

Another cue! She was letting him know that she knew! Yes, and how much did she know? P’r’aps more than he did!

Now another voice joined in. The voice of the barmaid this time.

‘Nothing to do with it?’ she exclaimed, polishing a glass which had lately been bathed in her fair breath. ‘I’d say he’d everything to do with it! Wouldn’t you, Joe?’

The red-faced man, addressed as Joe, nodded solemnly, and continued to stare at Ben.

‘We was just talking about it, wasn’t we, when you popped in,’ continued the barmaid, nodding towards Ben. ‘There’s two of ’em. One’s from Spain or somewhere, so they say, and the other’s a sailor what’s come off a ship.’

‘The sailor’s the one I saw!’ interposed Molly, quickly. ‘Six foot, if an inch!’

‘I heard he was little,’ said Joe.

His tone was that of a man who objects to discarding a theory. Molly, however, stuck to her point.

‘Little be boiled!’ she retorted. ‘That only shows what stories get around!’

‘She’s right there,’ agreed the barmaid. ‘What I was told was that he was little and had a yeller tooth sticking out like a tusk! But, there you are! What are you to believe? Is it true,’ she added, turning to Molly, ‘that he was in the taxi when they heard the scream, and that this sailor fellow popped out of one door while the policeman popped in at the other?’

Just in time, Ben prevented himself from denying that there had been any scream,

‘Out he jumps,’ the barmaid ran on, ‘with his knife still in his hand and the blood dripping on the pavement, there’s no sleep for me tonight, and into a house, and then escapes off the roof! And then, just when they think they’ve got him, along comes this foreigner—’

‘Spaniard, Spaniard,’ interposed Joe, irritably.

‘Spaniard, was it? They’re all the same. And he knocks a policeman out, and off they bolt together.’

‘Wot, tergether?’ blinked Ben.

‘That’s right. They was both in it. It’s my belief the sailor done it, and then passes the pocket-book on to this Spaniard. Well, anyhow, let’s hope they’re both caught. Ain’t anyone going to drink to it?’

‘Pocket-book, eh?’ murmured Ben. ‘Was there a pocket-book?’

‘Well, I didn’t say a coal-scuttle, did I?’ retorted the barmaid. ‘Easy to see you don’t know nothing about it!’

‘Ay, and mebbe you don’t know quite as much about it as you think,’ observed the red-faced Joe, tartly. Six feet!’

‘I never said nothing about six feet!’ returned the barmaid, with equal spirit. ‘P’r’aps it’s getting time you used your two!’

Joe looked at her with a scowl, then looked at Ben again.

‘Mebbe it is,’ he said. ‘Mebbe it is!’

And, abruptly draining his glass, he placed it on the stained counter, planked down the payment, and strode out of the inn.

Ben and Molly exchanged glances. The barmaid laughed.

‘Don’t you worry about him!’ she exclaimed. ‘Loony, that’s what he is! Well, what’ll you have?’

‘Three penn’orth o’ champagne,’ replied Ben, making an effort to hide his intense uneasiness at the red-faced man’s abrupt departure.

‘My! Aren’t you a wag!’ smiled the barmaid. ‘And the lady? Ain’t you going to treat her for picking up your cap? And a new one, too, ain’t it?’

Sometimes, for no apparent reason, one’s mind will be diverted from a main issue to a trivial one. Ben’s mind, now, was diverted to his cap. Queer how often his cap cropped up in the conversation! Of course, it was all quite natural, really, but …

Mechanically, he adjusted and completed his drink order, but his mind still flitted vaguely around his cap, or his cap flitted vaguely around his mind. Meanwhile, Molly was drawing casually closer, till her lips were within a few inches of his ear.

‘Drink it quickly,’ whispered the lips, ‘and go!’

Ben donned an expression intended to convey the response, ‘I get yer.’ To anyone else it would merely have conveyed that he had suddenly got a fly in his eye.

‘Go to the right,’ whispered the lips again. ‘I’ll follow.’

Ben repeated his expression. He now looked as if he had got two flies in his eye.

‘And leave your cap behind you,’ came the final whispered injunction.

‘There yer are,’ thought Ben. ‘Cap agine. Funny!’

He approached the counter, took his glass of three-penny champagne, and held it aloft.

‘’Ere’s wot,’ he said.

‘Buenos dias,’ answered Molly.