Scared Stiff

HE stranger looked about him with interest, and thought that never had he seen—or, indeed, supposed to exist—so dark, so squalid and so unsavory a place as this somber, sinister court. In fact, it was a spot that even the police did not care to visit unless they were in force.

On the steps before each tall, narrow house untidy women sprawled and gossiped, and in the body of the court children played at unchildish games. But gossip and play had alike ceased as the stranger entered this court where strangers so seldom came; and now a man or two appeared, blinking and sullen, and then the stranger perceived that two other men had lounged carelessly into a position between him and the entry to the court. Then one of the men coughed, and straightway women and children vanished, though the stranger had the impression that they all were still watching from the dirty windows or peeping through the cracks of the doors that all hung open with a sort of sullen and menacing hospitality.

Now he was alone in the court save for the two men behind him and the two others, one on each hand, and he smiled a little, but was wary as he said aloud,

“Perhaps one of you gentlemen could tell me if Mr. Moggs lives anywhere about here?”

The question had its effect. They started and stared, looking uneasily at each other and at him. One of them whistled sharply. A boy appeared on the instant—so quickly that it was difficult to tell which open doorway had shot him forth. The man who had whistled jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the entry. The boy seemed to understand at once and vanished down the entry into the street beyond. The two men standing one on each side of the stranger edged a little nearer.

“Friend of yours, eh, Mr. Moggs?” one of them muttered hoarsely and let a length of lead piping slip down his sleeve into his hand.

“Old pals, perhaps, are you?” the other asked in a sort of gruff whisper, and began abstractedly to pick his teeth with a long, keen-bladed, sharp-pointed knife,

“Never seen him,” answered the stranger,

“Never even heard of him before to-day. But I’ve got a message for him.”

“Oh!” one of them said doubtfully. “A message, eh? Who from?” And as he spoke the boy they had sent out came flying back into the court. “All clear, all quiet,” he reported; “not a cop in sight, and no sign of nothing doing nowhere.”

He waited a moment as if to see if further orders were going to be given and then vanished again.

The man picking his teeth with his knife ceased that pleasant occupation and, balancing the long-bladed weapon on the palm of his hand, said slowly:

“Pals is pals, and stick together as such. But spies and such like is sometimes found dead.”

“Very likely,” agreed the stranger. “And I suppose spies and such like always take care to let every one know what they are—walk about just as you please, do they? Well, I’ve a message for Mr. Moggs. Can I give it him?”

“What sort of message? What about?” growled the man with the lead piping.

“Are you Mr. Moggs?” inquired the stranger.

The man he spoke to went very pale and retreated a step or two, and his companion grinned broadly.

“He is not,” he said. “No more am I,” he added hastily, as the stranger turned to him.

“Ah!” said the stranger.

“Who is the message from?” asked the other.

“From young Willie King, the Glasgow boy,” answered the stranger, and again what he said had its effect, for they drew together and whispered.

“Well, what about him?” asked then the man with the knife. “Speak low,” he added warningly, having almost whispered himself.

“He’s took,” said the stranger. “They caught him in the Bryce Building. As he had two bombs and a gun in his pocket and had just asked if he might have five minutes conversation with Mr. Bryce on important matters, they seemed peeved, and the police took him away.”

They were all clustered round him now, and they began again to mutter to each other in broken sentences, giving him the while glances of obvious doubt and mistrust. Apparently they were a good deal upset and disturbed, and one of them said abruptly,

“Is it true?”

“Might be healthier occupations,” suggested the stranger, “than coming here to tell lies.”

“That’s so,” agreed the other, apparently convinced. “Anyway, you had better see Mr. Moggs— What’s your game?”

The stranger looked at him steadily.

“Maybe,” he said, “I don’t love Bryce, either. Maybe I’ve no reason to. Maybe men like him don’t get as rich as him without ruining other men. Maybe there’s other reasons.”

His questioners now appeared more satisfied.

“All right,” answered the one of them who held a knife and seemed their leader, and then said, with a sudden vehemence: “Did Billy King say anything? Did he split?”

“Not so far,” answered the stranger. “But of course you can’t ever tell. The police have ways”

“Well, he didn’t know much, anyway,” the other muttered.

“Had he any papers on him?” asked the stranger.

“Papers? What do you think?” the other retort. “You saw him collared, did you?”

“Yes—and tried to warn him,” answered the stranger. “I heard something said, and I whispered to him to get out quick. It was too late. He had only time to tell me to get here and tell Mr. Moggs—seems I’m telling every one else instead— If I had been able to get hold of his bomb I would have planted it myself. I would give a good deal to see Bryce go up in fire before his time.”

The man with the knife smiled approval.

“That’s the stuff!” he said. “A pity about Billy King, though— Well, come with me.”

E led the way into one of the neighboring houses and up to the top floor, where a door that faced them seemed to be in better repair than most in this ruinous place. On this door the guide knocked. A voice answered, and the, man entered. In a few minutes he came out again.

“You’re to go in,” he said. “Don’t tell no lies,” he added. “It ain’t safe—not with him—not with Mr. Moggs.”

Without replying, the stranger entered the room. He found it a filthy, squalid apartment, with an unwashed floor, ruinous furniture. At a rickety table in the center of this apartment sat a little old man in a dirty dressing-gown. He was nearly bald; his face was clean-shaven and lined with an extraordinary complexity of wrinkles, and his eyes were exceedingly bright and clear, giving to his whole appearance a remarkable air of vigor and determination. When the stranger entered, he stared at him for a long time in silence, and then he said in a high, wheezy voice:

“There’s a chair over there—one leg’s loose; so be careful. Well, what do you want?”

The other did not answer at first. His intent and burning gaze met full that of the old man, and for two or three minutes they remained thus, staring full at each other. It was the old man who spoke first.

“So Billy King has failed, eh?” he said. “Well, I never trusted that young man too much— But you took a risk, you know, in coming here to tell us that.”

The stranger laughed harshly.

“A man who has nothing to lose risks little,” he said.

“A man has always his life.”

“Oh—if he calls his life anything,” agreed the stranger.

GAIN they were silent, and again they watched each other intently, the eyes of the one no less fierce and burning than those of the other. The old man said slowly:

“You look more like the stuff we want. Well, what made you think of coming here?”

“Why, I thought I might succeed where your Billy King failed,” the stranger answered. “That is, if you mean business. What have you got against Mr. Bryce?”

“He is the representative of a system we are out to destroy,” the other answered. “Why should he live in a palace on the Surrey hills and I here.” For the first time he removed his gaze from the stranger to let it wander round the squalid room. “Why should one man have everything and another nothing—one man be able to stuff himself with cake and another have not a crust of bread to gnaw? There is war between his sort and our sort—that is all.”

“You have nothing against him personally, then?” the stranger asked.

The old man shrugged his shoulders. “This is not a personal matter at all,” he said. “I have never even seen the man. War is never personal. So far as we know, Bryce is no worse than the rest—a little bolder, perhaps, a little more daring—a strong man, one who knows what he wants and gets it—and so much the worse for those in his way. That is why I chose him, because he is worth removing. This is a struggle between two systems, two philosophies.” He paused and once more fixed his strange and burning gaze upon his visitor. “It’s bottom dog against top dog.”

“Dog eat dog, eh?” the stranger said reflectively.

“Yes,” answered the old man, and his eyes blazed more fiercely, even, than before; “they have eaten us long enough. Now it is time for us to eat them.”

“Yet,” objected the stranger, “if we dispose of Bryce, it will only mean that another will take his place.”

“Bombs are cheap and easy made,” the old man answered. “For every Bryce a bomb. Besides, you are wrong. Bryces are rare; men like him are always rare. Who among us would take my place? Not one of them could begin to. If I went, the whole thing would fall to pieces. And it’s much the same with them. They have more than us, but not so many more. Remove this Bryce and the next one and the next one, and the whole thing will go.”

“Just as you think it would on your side if you went,” observed the stranger thoughtfully. “Perhaps you are right. I noticed those men outside, when they spoke of you, seemed a little—respectful.”

“Oh, they know,” the other answered, with a certain swagger that sat most oddly on his old and emaciated figure. “They know there’s no one to take my place.”

“Well, that means,” the stranger said slowly, “that if the police were to”

“Arrest me?” the old man said, and laughed. “They can’t,” he said. “They know something about me, but not much, and they can’t do anything because they have no evidence. I take care of that. I put nothing on paper. Everything, every thing—all our organization is here, here.” He tapped his forehead. “They can do nothing without proof, and I see that they have none,” he said again. “They found nothing on Willie King, did they?”

“Two bombs and a pistol. They seemed to think that something.”

“Proof against him, not against any one else,” retorted the old man. “Why, he doesn’t even know himself where the bombs came from. He found them one day on a seat in the park. There’s nothing of any interest he can tell—no more than you could if you went straight back from here to the nearest police station. Of course, Willie King may tell the police about this place, but they know of it already, and if they come they’ll find nothing, because there’s nothing to find except what’s here.” He tapped his forehead again. “We write nothing down. For example, when you leave me, I shall give you a bit of paper. But it will be blank. Only, it will be cut in a certain shape. That will mean you are to be accepted as a comrade and helped. Or if it is cut in another shape, that will mean you are a spy and are to be knocked on the head and then dropped in the river. But even if your body were found, no one would notice a bit of blank paper cut in a certain shape they might find in your pocket.”

“Ingenious,” commented the stranger.

“We are more than ingenious,” the old man boasted. “When it’s dog eat dog, we have to be. Well, you say you think you might succeed where Billy King failed. What makes you think that?”

“For one thing, because I have means of getting inside Mr. Bryce’s Surrey home whenever I wish to.”

“That might be useful,” the old man agreed, “if you’re sure”

“Oh, quite.”

“Why are you willing to make the attempt? What’s your reason?”

“Bryce is my worst enemy,” the stranger said slowly. After a pause he added: “He married the woman I loved. But for him, I might be—well, not what I am now. But all that’s my business. It doesn’t matter to you why I’m willing. I’m not asking you to trust me. All I want is that you should let me—find two bombs on a seat in the park. And afterward give me help to lie quiet for a week or two.”

“Seems all right—if you mean it,” the old man said slowly. “But I don’t know that I quite trust you—somehow. Still, it will be easy to provide you with a bomb, and if you make good use of it— Suppose you come back here this time to-morrow. I shall have had time to make arrangements then—some inquiries, too.”

“That’s all right,” the other answered, rising. “You can make as many inquiries as you like. All I want I’ve told you. I’ll go now.”

“Better take this with you,” the old man said, and picking up a pair of rusty scissors, he cut a scrap of paper into a square. “Show that in the palm of your hand to the men you’ll find on the stairs,” he said.

“You think of everything,” remarked the stranger admiringly, “or nearly everything. Excuse me,” he said, and, bending forward, he took the lean and withered throat of that old man in a grip that was as fierce as it was strong and fatal.

There was not so much as a cry; there was hardly a movement. Indeed, the old man’s life fled from him beneath that deadly pressure as the flame of a candle goes out at the careless puff of a child.

HEN he was sure that all was over, the stranger let the old man’s body fall back softly into his chair.

“Foolish to mess about with bombs,” he muttered, “when it’s so easy to kill a man—if you know how.”

He looked thoughtfully round the room and then let himself out. On the stairs two or three men were lounging. He opened his hand and showed them the small square of paper it contained. They nodded with a friendly air and let him pass. As he turned out of the court into the street he thought, but was not sure, that he heard a certain commotion behind. He had not even need to quicken his pace in order to become lost in the busy traffic of the street.

An hour or two later he was ascending the steps of a great house upon the Surrey hills, and the butler who opened the door looked very relieved on seeing who it was.

“Mrs. Bryce’s been very anxious, sir,” he said, “very anxious indeed.”

“Is that Mr. Bryce—is that you, John?” a voice cried, and a young and pretty woman came running toward him. “John!” she cried. “What has happened? Is it true? Why didn’t you come straight home?”

“There’s nothing to worry about.” He smiled. “A young fool with a bomb in his pocket called at the office, but he was in such a state of excitement it was easy to see something was wrong. He broke down as soon as we questioned him and told me all about it. I’m paying his passage abroad and giving him something to make a fresh start on. Quite possibly he will turn out all right. We didn’t even bother to report it to the police. The police are best kept out of these little affairs when possible—they make such a helpless fuss.”

“I don’t know how you can treat it so lightly.” Mrs. Bryce sighed. “And I don’t know how you can have any enemies.”

“My dear,” he said, “a man’s worst enemy is always himself.”

“You must take precautions,” she urged.

“Oh, I have,” he answered; “effective precautions. There will be no danger in the future. And now I must go and wash my hands. I’ve had some dirty work to do, and they need cleaning.”