The man in corduroys tried to soothe him. “We ain’t to blame, Sir,
don’t you think it!” he repeated. “As you said before to the lady, we
aren’t really here!”
“That is little consolation to a man of honour,” the old man said
sadly. “Still, as you say, we are but tools----”
He devoted himself to the smart woman, who revived a little under his
civil ministrations.
“After all,” she said, “aren’t we somehow or other all in the same
boat? I shouldn’t be surprised if those two nice girls didn’t join us
at the next stage. If they do, we’ll make them tell us how they felt,
when they first saw the coachful of ghosts coming down on them.
They’re certainly dead, for they were both pitched into the ditch with
the cart and horse on top of them. Did anybody see what became of the
horse? No.… Well, we must settle down to dulness again, I am afraid,
or, suppose, to while away the time we all started to tell each other
the story of how we came to be here? A lively tale might cheer us all
up, after the accident.”
“Agreed, Madam, heartily for my part,” said the man in grey, “though
my own story is very humdrum, and not in the least amusing. You want,
of course, an account of the particular accident that sent me here.
Very well! But, ladies first! Will not you begin, Madam?”
She tossed her head, with an affected air.
“My story, perhaps,” she insinuated with modesty, “might not be very
new to you. It was in all the papers so recently.”
“That will not affect me,” he answered, “for if, as I presume, it was
a murder case, I never read them.”
“I read yours then, Missus, I expect,” said the man in corduroys. “I
generally get the wife to read them out to me--anything spicy.”
“And yet the people that did it are not hanged yet, if, indeed, they
ever are, poor souls! I am quite anxious,” said the smart woman, “to
see how it goes. If the pair are really sent here, I suppose I shall
be running up against them some night or other, on one of these
transference parties. It will be very interesting. But”--she leaned
across to the baby farmer--“could we not persuade you to give us some
of your--nursery experiences, Madam?”
“There’s not much story about the drowning of a litter of squalling
puppies or whining kittens,” said that lady shortly, “we want
something livelier--more personal, if I may say so. From a remark that
gentleman in the corner let drop a while ago, I fancy his
reminiscences would be quite worth hearing, as good as a shilling
shocker.”
“My story,” replied the individual thus pointedly addressed, “is
impossible, frankly impossible.”
“Indecent, do you mean?” The smart woman’s eyes shone. “Oh, let us
have it. You can veil it, can’t you?”
“Have you ever heard of mental degenerates?” he asked her
compassionately. “I was one. I was called mad--a simple way of
expressing it. I was a chemist. I dissected neatly enough, too, like a
regular butcher. They did quite right to exterminate me.”
His head dropped. He seemed disinclined to say more. Still the smart
woman persisted.
“But the details----?”
“Are purely medical, Ma’am. Not without a physiological interest, I
may say. Interesting to men of science, pathologically. The”--he named
a daily paper much in vogue at that time, “made a good deal of the
strong sense of artistry--of contrast--the morbid warp inherent in the
executant----”
His head sank again on his chest.
“I do believe,” said the baby farmer, nudging the smart woman, “that
we shall find he’s the man who killed his sweetheart and then
carefully tied her poor inside all into true lover’s knots with
sky-blue ribbon. Artist, indeed! They’re quite common colours--blue
and red----”
“Disgusting!” The delicate lady from Monte Carlo shuddered, and
turning coldly away, joined in the petition proffered by the other
ghosts to the breezy man in corduroys, to relate his experiences.
“Oh, I’ll tell you how I came to join you and welcome!” he said,
rolling his huge neck about in its setting of red cotton. “Well, to
begin with, I was drunk. Equally, of course, I was hard up. My
missus--she’s married again, by the way, blast her!--was always
nagging me to do something for her and the kids. I did. Nation’s
taking care of them now, along of what I did. Work, she meant, but
that was only by the way. I did choose to take on a job, though, on a
rich man’s estate, building some kind of Folly, lots of glass and
that, working away day and night by naphtha flares, you know. He was
one of those men, you know the sort, that has more money than a man
can properly spend, and feels quite sick about it, and says so, in
interviews and so on, in the papers a working man reads. That’s the
mischief. He was always giving away chunks of money to charities and
libraries and that sort of useless lumber, but none of it ever seemed
to come the way of those that were in real need of it. They said the
money had got on his nerves, and would not let him sleep o’ nights,
and that he was afraid by day and went about with a loaded stick and I
don’t know what all. And he was looked after by detectives, at one
time, so the papers said--again the papers, putting things in people’s
heads, as it’s their way. So one blessed evening I was very low--funds
and all, and my missus and the kids hollering and complaining as they
always do when luck’s bad. Lord bless them, they never thought as they
were ’citing their man to murder. Women never do think. And going out
with their snivelling in my ears, I passed the station where he landed
every evening after his day in town, and I happened to see him come
out of the train and send away his motor that was a-waiting for him
all regular, and start out to walk ’ome alone by a short cut across a
little plantation there was, very thick and dark, just the place for a
murder. Well--I told you I was half drunk--I raced home and got
something to do it with--a meat chopper--to be particular----”
The old man opposite put his hand nervously to the back of his neck.
“Ay, Mister, it takes you just there, does it? You look a regular
bundle of nerves, you do. Well, as I was saying, I went round by a
short cut that I happened to know of, and got in front of him and hid
in the hedge. Ten mortal minutes I waited for my man to come by. Lord,
how my hand did tremble! I’d have knocked off for two pence. I was as
nervous as a cat, but all the same, it didn’t prevent me from striking
out for wife and children with a will when my chance came. I caught
him behind with my chopper, and he fell like a log. Never lifted a
hand to defend himself--hadn’t got any grit. Ladies, I don’t suppose I
hurt him much, for he never even cried out when I struck or groaned
when it was done. Then I looked him over, turned out his pockets and
collared his watch and season ticket and seals and money.
Money--hah!--I had been fairly done over that. Would you believe it of
a rich fellow like him, he hadn’t got more than the change of a
sovereign on him.”
“Shame!” ejaculated the taciturn man in the corner.
“I admit it was hard on you,” the man in grey observed kindly. “Very
hard, for I believe the retribution came all too quickly. You
foolishly left your chopper about to identify you, and were
apprehended at once by our excellent rural police. Yet the law is so
dilatory that you lay in gaol a whole year before you were free to
join your victim here?”
“Right you are, mate. Yes, I swung for it, sure enough. Short and
sweet it was once I stood on the drop, but it still makes my poor old
throat ache to think of it.”