Moriarty, when he left his master, betook him to the stables and his
duties. Mr. Piper had vacated the stableyard, and was making a tour of
the premises, admiring the view from all points, and quite on the alert
for strategical moves.
He was by no manner of means a fool in his profession; watchful as a
stoat, unobtrusive, when his mouth was closed, fitting into corners, and
unremarkable, he made an excellent bailiff.
He had always been a careful and saving man, and his character had never
been developed by vice. What lay in the subliminal depths of Mr. Piper,
Mr. Piper himself could not say. That unrest lay there was evidenced by
his Socialistic tendencies.
He inhabited rooms at Balham or Brixton, I forget which. He never swore,
he never drank, he never smoked, or looked at the female population of
the British Islands with a view to matrimony or the reverse. The man was
without a visible vice, and he had several visible virtues. It was this
fact that made the problem of him so interesting and made the attentive
student of him pause to ask, "What makes him so beastly?"
You know the man.
Moriarty, having watered the horses and seen to them with the
scrupulous attention of a nurse, called Andy to him.
"Andy," said Moriarty, "did you see the chap that's come to collar the
horses?"
"Seen him?" said Andy, for once loquacious. "Faith, I was near
pitchforkin' him as he was standin' there, afther you'd left him. Sure,
wasn't I listenin' to him----"
"Shut your head," said Moriarty, "and listen to your betthers. Go fetch
me a big truss of straw."
Andy, obedient as a dog, went off for the straw, and returned with it on
his back.
Moriarty opened the door of the loose-box next to The Cat's.
"Stick it here in the corner," said Moriarty, indicating the corner in
question.
Andy flung the truss of straw in the corner.
"That's right," said Moriarty.
He took a five-shilling-piece from his pocket, and, leading Andy to the
side of the bungalow, gave him the coin, gave him some instructions, and
pointed in the direction of the village.
Andy, with a grin on his face, started.
At half-past eight that evening Mr. Piper, seated in the kitchen
finishing his supper, heard Andy's voice. He was colloguing in the
scullery with Mrs. Driscoll, and what he said was distinctly audible in
the kitchen.
Said Andy, "Is the bailiff chap still at his supper?"
"Faith, and he is," replied Mrs. Driscoll.
"Then kape him there for another half-hour, for Moriarty's goin' to
play him a trick and get the horses away unbeknownst to him."
Mr. Piper fell into the trap.
He rose from the table, used the back of his hand as a serviette,
strolled to the kitchen door, and contemplated the evening. The sky was
cloudless, and a full moon was rising over the hills. From the stables
came occasionally the stamping of horse-hoofs. He strolled around to the
yard, where he met Moriarty, who was lighting a stable lantern.
"Fine evening," said Mr. Piper.
"Fine which?"
"Evening."
"Oh, faith, it's fine enough. Andy, where were your blitherin' skylights
when you stuck this wick in the stable lanthern?"
He got it alight and closed it. Then he swung off with it, followed by
Andy, and the pair disappeared.
"Done 'em that time," said the bailiff to himself. "I doubt but it will
be a question of me setting up all night and sleeping in the day."
He made a tour of the premises. He left them, and took a walk on the
road down below, enjoying the beauty of the evening. An hour and a half
later found him again in the stableyard.
It had just gone ten, and Mr. Piper had scarcely entered the yard than
Moriarty, with the lantern in his hand, appeared.
"Why, I thought you were abed," said Moriarty. "Are you frightened the
horses will fly away wid themselves, or what is it that ails you?"
"My duty is my duty, and yours is yours," replied the bailiff. "We'll
keep 'em apart, if you please, and so be better friends."
"Friends," said Moriarty with a horrible leer on his face. "Sure, that's
what I'm wishin' to be, only you're so cowld. Come here wid me now,"
said Moriarty, taking the other's arm and leading him towards the
loose-box next The Cat's, "and I'll show you me intintions. Maybe it's
the likin' I've taken for you, or maybe it's just the stringth of your
arguments, but you've convarted me to the sociality bizness, and I'm
goin' to share and share alike wid you."
He opened the loose-box door, and there in the darkness stood Andy, like
a horrible gnome.
"Why, what are you doin' here, Andy?" asked Moriarty, with an
undercurrent of jocularity in his tone that struck Mr. Piper as being
out of place and allied to the sinister.
"I?" said Andy. "Nothin'."
"I've brought a friend wid me," said Moriarty, speaking as though Piper
were an absolute stranger to Andy. "He's comin' into the loose-box wid
us to help me dhrink his health."
"Thank you," said Piper, "I never drink."
He took a step backwards, but Moriarty's hand fell on his arm.
"Just for wanst, now," said Moriarty, in the tone of sweet persuasion
that a boon companion uses to a boon companion. "Just for wanst."
"Thank you, I never drink," said Piper, with a rising inflexion that
did not improve his voice. "And I'd thank you to release my arm."
"Come on, Andy," said Moriarty, "and help me to persuade Misther Piper
to jine us. Now, then; come quiet. That's it. Sure, I knew you'd listen
to raison."
Miss Grimshaw, who had retired early, was just in the act of undressing
when voices from the stableyard outside her window made her raise the
slats of her blind and peep out.
By the full moonlight she saw Moriarty and Andy at the loose-box door.
Piper was between them, Moriarty was gently persuading him from behind,
applying the vis a tergo; the vis a fronte was supplied by Andy, who had
fast hold of the bailiff's left arm. She could not help remembering the
sheep which she had seen one night, not so very long ago, haled into the
same loose-box, Moriarty pushing it behind, Andy assisting its movements
from in front.
The loose-box door closed on Moriarty and his victim, just as it had
closed on the sheep. Miss Grimshaw, half horrified, half amused, filled
half with curiosity, half with alarm, waited for sounds to tell of what
was going forward; but no sound came, and nothing spoke of tragedy save
the gleam from the lantern, a topaz pencil of light that shone through
the latch hole of the door and dissolved in the moonlight of the yard.
"Put your fut agin the door, Andy," said Moriarty, when Piper, knowing
himself in a trap, and knowing the uselessness of calling out or
resisting, was safely inside the loose-box.
He hung the lantern on a hook, and then, pointing to three buckets that
stood upside down close to the heap of straw in the corner, "Take a
sate," said Moriarty.
Piper took a seat on the end bucket near the door.
"Not that wan," said Moriarty. "The middle wan. Then Andy and I'll be
able to sit on either side of you, and the bottle'll pass more
convanient."
He produced a bottle, a jug, and a glass. It was a bottle of Teach's
"Old Highland Mountain Dew." Andy had fetched it from the inn at
Crowsnest. This old Highland mountain dew was a fine, old-fashioned,
fusil-oil-tinctured fighting spirit. In any properly constituted
community the man who distilled and sold it would be executed, instead
of raised to the peerage as Teach was the other day. It is this stuff
that makes murders down at the docks, wrecks little homes in Hackney,
casts men on the streets, and ships on the rocks, and souls on
perdition.
"Look here," said Mr. Piper, when he saw these preparations for
conviviality, "I don't know what gime you're up to, but I give you
warning----"
"Sit down wid you," said Moriarty, pressing him down on the middle
bucket and taking his seat on the bucket to the right, while Andy took
his seat on the bucket to the left. "Sit down wid you, and listen to
raison. Here's a glass of good whisky and wather, and here's a toast I'm
goin' to give you, and that's 'Good luck to Garryowen!'" He swallowed
the contents of the glass, wiped his mouth, refilled the glass, and
passed it to Andy.
"Good luck to Garryowen!" said Andy, drinking it off, and handing the
empty glass back to Moriarty, who refilled it and held it towards Piper.
"No, thank you," said that gentleman.
"Dhrink it off," commanded Moriarty, "and wish good luck to Garryowen.
Sure, it's a glass of good whisky never did man or woman harm yet. Off
wid it," continued Moriarty, in the tone of a person inciting a child to
take a dose of medicine. "And it's a different man it will make of you."
"I tell you, I don't drink," replied the unconvivial one. "If you choose
to make beasts of yourselves, do so. I don't."
"Listen to him, Andy," cried Moriarty, digging Piper in the ribs till he
knocked against the jockey.
"Who're you jogglin' aginst?" cried Andy, returning the dig till Piper
was nearly in the arms of Moriarty.
Mr. Piper tried to rise, but his legs were twitched from under him by
Moriarty, and down he sat on the bucket again with a bang.
"You'll be breakin' the buckets next," said Moriarty. "Why can't you sit
aisy?"
"I see your gime," cried the bailiff.
"Faith, then, you can feel it, too," cried Moriarty, and next moment Mr.
Piper was on his back on the truss of already prepared straw and
Moriarty kneeling on his arms.
"Now thin, Andy," said the master of the ceremonies, "fetch me the
funnel and the bottle and the glass, and I'll drinch him."
Andy fetched a small funnel which he had procured from Mrs. Driscoll,
and Piper, who had tried to shout, kept silent by reason of fear of
Moriarty's thumb, which was applied to his thyroid cartilage.
"Mix a glass of grog, and not too strong," commanded Moriarty. "That's
right. Now, thin, open your teeth, you omadhaun, and if you let a sound
out of you I'll scrag you. It's not for me own pleasure I'm wastin' good
dhrink on you, but to save the masther. Stand between him and his
fortune, would you? You owl of the divil, wid your sociality and your
jaw about aiquil rights! It's aiquil rights I'm givin' you in me bottle
of whisky. Down wid it, and if you let a sound out of you, I'll throttle
you."
While Moriarty held the funnel between the patient's teeth and induced
him to swallow, Andy gently poured.
With the skill of an expert chloroformist, Moriarty held his head. He
knew his patient's constitution, and he knew the strength of the
medicine. Helpless intoxication was not his object; his game was deeper
than that.
In the middle of the third glass the victim began to show signs of
merriment--real merriment. All his anger had vanished. Strange to say,
he still resisted, tossing his head from side to side, as much as he was
able, but all the time he was laughing as though he were being tickled.
"He's comin' up to the scratch," said Moriarty. "Aisy does it. Let him
be for a minit, for we have to reckon on the cowld night air, and I
want him to keep his pins. Well, Mr. Piper, and how are you feelin'
now?"
"Whatsh your name?" cried Piper, sudden anger seizing him. "I'll give
you shomething. Come on!"
He struck out with his foot, and sent Andy flying, bottle, glass, and
all. Next second, his legs now released, he landed Moriarty a kick in
the face that would have stunned an ordinary man.
"Come on!" cried Piper wildly laughing, still on his back and striking
out with his feet. "Come on! One down, t'other on!"
"He's proper and fit now," said Moriarty, his face streaming with gore,
but seemingly utterly oblivious of the fact. "Come on, and we'll run him
down to the p'leece office before the fight's out of him."
He rushed in on the resisting one, got another kick--this time in the
stomach--and, seizing the maniac by the collar of his coat, got him on
his legs, using him as gently as though he were dealing with a
refractory child. Another man, had he received the kicks that Moriarty
had received, would have paid them back in ill-treatment, but Moriarty
never lost his temper, and it was a rule of honour with him that a
drunken man should be treated with all possible tenderness and
consideration. He would just as soon have struck a priest, a woman, or a
child as a man in liquor.
Once on his legs, all fight seemed to die out of Mr. Piper. Wild
hilarity and attempts at song took the place of bellicosity. Bad
language also came to the surface, and found expression.
"He'll do," said Moriarty. "He'll do. Andy, clip howld of his other
arm. Now, then, open the door, and down to the village with him. The
thing that's thrubblin' me is he's gone undher so quick that maybe he's
only shamming."
"Faith," said Andy, "I know why he's gone undher so quick. It's be
raison of me givin' him the second glass nate. I forgot to put the
wather in it."
Miss Grimshaw, who had been unable to tear herself away from the window,
had increased her powers of observation by opening the sash. She heard
Moriarty's voice, and the voices of the others. What they could be doing
to the bailiff was quite beyond her power of imagination to discover.
Then, as time passed on, she heard laughter. Piper was laughing. She
knew the voices of the two others too well to make a mistake. Such
long-continued laughter she had never heard before. Then the laughter
ceased, and she heard the bailiff's voice crying to the others to come
on. After this came more laughter and snatches of song.
Greatly wondering, she waited and watched till, the door of the
loose-box bursting open, Andy and Moriarty emerged, supporting a drunken
man between them.
Then she understood in part.
Fortunately for her curiosity, she had not undressed, and, catching up a
shawl, she wrapped her head in it, left her room, and crossed the hall
to the sitting-room, where Mr. French and Mr. Dashwood, who had not yet
gone to bed, were sitting smoking.
"I've found out Moriarty's plan," said Miss Grimshaw. "Come out on the
verandah and I'll show you something. But don't make a noise."
She opened the window on to the verandah, and the others followed her.
The bailiff and his supporters were now on the downhill path to the
road, they and their shadows very visible in the moonlight.
"Look!" said the girl. "He's the middle one."
"Why, he's drunk!" said Mr. Dashwood.
"Mad drunk," said French. "This is Moriarty's work. And he a teetotaler!
How on earth did Moriarty do it?"
"I heard them in the yard," said the girl. "They dragged him into the
loose-box next to the one The Cat's in, and shut the door. After a
while, I heard him laughing and singing--and now, look at him!"
"After them," said Mr. Dashwood, "and let's see what they'll do with
him."
He led the way down the hill. When they reached the road, the others
were a couple of hundred yards ahead. The wind blowing from them brought
the songs and shouting of the convivial one, on whom, now, the extra
stimulus of the cold night air was acting.
"I've seen a good many drunken men," said French, "but, begad! this
fellow takes the cake. Look, he's trying to fight now! Now they've got
him between them again. Come on and let's see what Moriarty is going to
do with him."
They followed up hill to the village street. Here in the moonlight,
before the highly respectable cottage bearing the tin sign inscribed
"County Police," the trio stopped, Moriarty clinging to his charge while
Andy rang the bell.
Mr. Boiler, the Crowsnest constable, had not yet started on his night
rounds. He was drinking a cup of coffee in the bedroom upstairs when the
summons came. Opening the window, he put his head out.
"Who's there?" asked the constable.
"Dhrunken man," said Moriarty from the road. "I've got him here. He
called at The Martens, dead dhrunk, and 'saulted me. Look at me face.
Come down wid you and gaol him, or he'll tear the village to pieces, bad
luck to him!"
"One minute," said Mr. Boiler, "and I'll attend to his business for
him."
Next moment he was in the street, where Moriarty, with a deft touch on
the adductor tendons, had deposited Mr. Piper on his back.
"Now then, now then! What's all this?" asked the constable, approaching
the disciple of La Savate.
The kick on the knee-cap which the constable received made him assume
the attitude of a meditative stork for some seconds. Then he closed with
his prey.
* * * * * * *
"If you ax me what's best to be done, sorr," said Moriarty later in the
night, as he stood in the sitting-room after being complimented on his
work, "I'd have Mr. Dashwood go over to Hollborough in the morning,
where this chap will be had before the magistrates, and pay the fine.
It'll be a matther of two pounds, sure, Boiler tould me, and fetch Piper
back here, and tell him to sit aisy, and the horse will be back afther
the race. You see, sorr, we've got the weather gauge on the chap now. If
the men that employed him knew he'd been dhrunk and gaoled, he'd lose
his job. We'll keep it dark for him if he'll keep it dark about the
horse.
"It's not a plisint job for Mr. Dashwood to go payin' the fines for
dhrunken men, but, sure, it's all in the game. And if you plaze, sorr,
I'm thinkin' it wouldn't be a bad thing if you was to sit down now and
write a letther to Mr. Lewis, tellin' him the bailiff was here in
possession, and that the money would be paid in a day or two. That would
keep him aisy, and it would make it more natural like if you was to let
a little abuse into it and say you'd been very hardly thrated.
"No, sorr, I won't go to bed to-night. I'll just sit up wid the horse.
Everything's ready now for getting him in the thrain to-morrow mornin'.
Thank you, sorr, just half a glass. And here's good luck to Garryowen!"