_Lex Talionis_
In his attempt to prove that the taking of human life for murder was
unjustifiable the waiter had taken a human life.
He marched along the street with his cap pulled down, his overcoat
collar buttoned up over his chin, his hands thrust deep into his
pockets. The bludgeon was hidden because he had thrust it up his
sleeve. There were very few people about--a stray milkman, a postman
with his parcels and letters shielded from the falling snow by his
wide waterproof cape, a solitary policeman at a corner.
The waiter marched on, head bent so that his face was invisible.
Only his eyes looked out on the white world.
From a side street came the sound of singing. A group of waits,
ushering in the day of days in all the year, were beginning a hymn:
"_Peace on earth, Good will to men!_"
The waiter hurried past the side street and pursued his way. He had
no time to lose. But he knew his objective: it was some distance
outside the city, a house near the river. There he would find what
he wanted, what he most required for the moment--safety, a place to
hide from his fellows. Good will to men!
It had not been an easy affair to make his call at the Clue Club.
Before he had taken upon himself the job of waiter for one night he
had been on the run with the law at his heels. The law had been on
his heels, it seemed to him, ever since he could remember. The law
was his greatest enemy. Between it and him there was an endless
feud, a ceaseless war, waged with varying, minor victories for both
sides. He still wore the brand of the most recent victory of the
law--his prison clothes!
But although the law had won several rounds, he believed himself
superior to it, and his boldness had given him victory as often as
defeat. He had learned the law by opposing it. His life had been
one long conflict with it. A man discovers a great deal about an
antagonist if he fights long enough.
This man had been on the run for more than a week. He had broken
prison after careful and deliberate consideration, for he had had
plenty of time to work out his plan. He had served a term in a
convict jail long enough to know every routine, every minute detail,
and one day he had escaped.
As he ploughed his way through the snow he remembered every item of
that escape, he went over every point. The first twenty-four hours
had been the worst, the most exacting, in many ways. They had been
the hours during which he had separated himself from the prison with
all the speed and all the cunning of his very alert brain.
Everywhere warders were searching for him. The local police were on
the watch. The civil population were looking out. He had been a
hunted thing that traveled over the landscape as a fox travels,
furtively.
Everything was against him from the moment he took the chance of
freedom into his hands. The very weather was an enemy. His only
food for forty-eight hours had been what he stole from the kitchen of
a cottage on the moors. He had stolen that food with a wild,
terrible joy--the joy of finding something to stay the hunger that
made him savage. He had slept one night under the seat of a railway
coach in a siding where there was a line of disused coaches. He came
out before dawn to stagger on his way toward the city.
If only he had been able to get rid of his prison clothes he would
have faced the daylight, but it was not until he reached the suburbs,
the outer suburbs, that he was able to get a coat and a pair of
trousers from a shabby clothing store, and these garments he pulled
over his prison clothes for warmth. The nights were bitter and the
frost chilled him through and through.
He had two agonies grinding him. The more pressing for the time
being was the deadening sensation caused in his limbs by the absence
of heat. This made him feel as if his body was brittle. Only a man
of very strong frame could have stood the cold and hunger of the next
few days; and this man's suffering went deeper than his bone. It
went to his soul. During that week, while he was making his way
across country, and while he was hiding about the outer suburbs, he
was as a beast of the field. He ate anything on which he could lay
his hands. He gnawed at refuse which he took from dustbins at night.
He prowled like a vulture among the byways of the city's fringe,
burrowing anywhere, in tool-sheds, in garden shelters, in any place
he could find.
And it was here that the second agony joined forces with the first.
Had he not been a man of iron will he would have succumbed or
surrendered. But his pain had the opposite effect. It made him all
the more determined to gain his objective. It acted as a spur,
driving him ahead to the crisis he had pictured and fixed in his
mind. He suffered that he might triumph.
Prison had failed in his case. It had punished him, perhaps, but it
had never deterred him, and it had never educated him out of crime.
This was because he had already been a victim of injustice before he
was born and had come into the world with a grievance that was a
weight to be borne only with difficulty. He was a living problem and
a terrible answer to the clergy who prate of children being "lent by
God" to parents. God had not lent him to anybody. God had thrust
him into a world where he did not fit. He had begun, as soon as he
realized his position, to revenge himself on society.
Like many others, he was thus a living proof that, though the law
could punish him, it could not deter. Force could be, and was, met
by cunning. The fierce methods of early punitive systems never cured
the equally fierce methods of criminals, for the obvious reason that
to "make the punishment fit the crime" results, as a rule, in the
criminal being lost sight of. The law, perhaps because of its own
nature, standardizes wrong-doers as it standardizes wrongs, and the
result is that every kind of lawbreaker meets every other kind in
prison to undergo the same treatment for all sorts of varieties of
crime.
Prison, however, had kept on this man, as it so often keeps on
others, the thin veneer by which it sought to preserve social habits
as opposed to anti-social habits--an endeavor to maintain the skin of
civilized man on a rebel. But during his days of anxiety when he was
seeking a refuge from his pursuers he became, owing to the necessity
of living, a kinsman of savages. One states this without blaming or
excusing. It was merely a fact. He had entered prison a polished
thief, a glib malefactor. He became, in that week of torment,
something quite different. But the idea of revenge, which had
floated at the back of his mind for some time, crystallized. His
fine brain, part of his heredity, devised a more exquisite method of
vengeance than swift accusation and angry blows. His mother had
failed to obtain justice because she had adopted a line that the law
did not recognize. His plan was to avoid failure, yet to strike
fear. But the mouse had been killed before fear of the cat paralyzed
its resistance.
Did he regret the climax that now caused him to speed through the
snow-covered streets? It is impossible to say. He had sought for
triumph of a delicate and particular kind, and he had obtained a
finality. All this had a remarkable effect on him. His brain was as
keen as ever, as logical as ever, as fine in its conception as ever;
but something primitive in him had developed suddenly. It may have
been the grip of the ancient barbarous cudgel that communicated a
stark something to him. No man had ever gripped that bludgeon so
naturally, so instinctively, since it had been dug from the ooze of
the Thames. His fingers clung to the burnt grooves with an inborn
intimacy. It was his constitutional weapon. And this new
primitiveness made him cautious yet aggressive, furtive yet bold,
suspicious yet defiant.
He strode on, his hand on the handle of the bludgeon which was in his
pocket, his arm cuddling the knobbed head which was far up his
sleeve. In the still, quiet, white morning the houses seemed to him
to be tall, gaunt prisons, the few pedestrians were his enemies. But
he pushed on until he reached a locality that spoke of middle-class
residents, rows and rows of detached houses. He strode to the door
of one and rang the bell forcefully.
It was still somewhat early. A window above the doorway opened and a
man's head was thrust out.
"Who's there?"
"Come down and let me in," called the visitor. "I have come to wish
you a happy Christmas, Bern, you old sinner!"
The window slammed and in a few minutes the front door was opened
slightly. The visitor burst his way into the hall and shook the snow
from his shoulders and cap. Facing him was a small man clad in a
dressing-gown.
"You!" he gasped, shivering as the snow flew about the hall. "You,
Lorry Black! You, Adam Jelks!"
"Didn't expect to see me, Bern!"
"No."
They regarded each other for a moment. The man in the gown shivered
and his hand shook visibly as he saw his visitor was expecting him to
shake. Bern's hand was the colder of the two when they clasped.
"You've got to help me, Bern. Lead the way. Have you a fire? I've
come to talk business."
Bern shuffled toward a back parlor and ushered his visitor in. A
fire was laid. Bern put a light to it and turned to gaze at the
other.
"I saw by the newspapers you had escaped, Lorry--or is it Adam?"
"It doesn't matter much, Bern."
"You've been out for some days. I didn't want you to come here. I
didn't expect you."
"But I've come, Bern. I'll tell you why I came. You remember the
insurance money that came to me when I was supposed to be drowned in
the name of Lorry Black? You got it to hold for me. I need it now."
"But, Lorry----"
"I need it. But first I want another suit of clothes. Fetch a
complete outfit. I'm cold."
He opened his overcoat and threw it off, revealing his waiter's garb,
and the open shirt front showed his prison jacket. Bern gave a cry
and held up his hands in alarm.
"Lorry, where have you been in that dress? Evening dress over _them
things_!"
"Get me a suit and I'll tell you. And get me a breakfast too. Go
on, you Yid. Do as I say."
He held up the bludgeon, and Bern saw a red smear on the knobbed head.
"Lorry!" he cried.
"Listen, Bern. I came here so that I might get away. You'll do as I
tell you. See? If not..."
He hefted the bludgeon meaningly. Bern shuddered.
"Now, Bern, get busy. Breakfast. A suit of clothes. When I'm
eating I'll talk."
Bern shuffled off to obey the order. He came back with clothes and
in a short time a breakfast was placed on the parlor table. He
watched his visitor change his clothes and roll the prison garments
into a bundle.
"You'll burn them, Bern. You have a furnace in the basement. Wait,
I'll do it myself."
He knew the house, apparently, for he went out and Bern heard him
clumping downstairs. When he returned he was smiling grimly.
"That's done, Bern. Now, let's eat. I'm staying here today--until
night. I'm spending Christmas with you. No other friends coming, I
suppose?"
"No, no other friends, Jelks."
"And don't let any servant see me, Bern."
"No."
"Have a cup of tea. We're going to talk."
Bern had brought two cups. He poured out some tea, but his hand was
still shaking badly.
"Where have you been since you broke out, Jelks?"
"In hell, most of the time."
He ate rapidly, hungrily, and at length sat back in his chair with an
exclamation of satisfaction.
"You must have expected me, Bern. You gave evidence against me last
time----"
"I couldn't help it. They dragged me to the police----"
"I can guess. They made you talk, eh? They suspected you received
stolen goods; but they did not know I placed all my stuff with you.
Well, well! I've had some trouble keeping my names apart on the
jobs, Bern. But you seem to remember me as Lorry Black, eh?"
"Of course I do, Lorry."
"Now, what about the insurance money on Lorry Black's life? It was
lifted and handed to you to keep. A friend of mine gave it to you."
The Jew hesitated.
"That's right," he said at last, "but I didn't get it all."
"I know what you got. Four hundred pounds. I was insured for five.
I want that four hundred."
"Aw, Lorry, I don't keep that much in the house. I put it all in my
bank. I thought that if they found out later that Lorry Black wasn't
dead----"
"But they never found out, Bern. I want that four hundred. By God!
Bern, don't try to double-cross me! You see this bludgeon?"
Bern's eyes grew big with terror.
"I can't give you all that today, Lorry. But I'll send the rest on
to you. I'll give you all I have, Lorry."
"How much have you?"
"About a hundred pounds, roughly."
"Notes?"
"Mostly."
"Not marked ones?"
"No, no. They are all right----"
"They've got to be all right. I'm leaving this country. I've got
to."
He glanced at the bludgeon that lay beside him on the table. Bern
followed his glance.
"You haven't been doing things with that, have you, Lorry? There's
blood on it!"
Bern's voice ended in a note of alarm.
"Shut up, Bern!"
"But, Lorry--you ain't been--you ain't been murdering?" The gleam
that leaped into the other's eyes was the answer, and Bern gave a
cry. "Good God! Lorry Black!"
"You shut up! Don't yell. It isn't your blood. You'll do as I tell
you, Bern. See?"
Bern nodded dumbly.
They stared at each other in silence.
"Where have you been since you broke prison, Lorry?"
"Huh! I had a pal who used to be in quod with me. He was a waiter
by trade. Or is it a profession?" A sour smile creased his
features. "Well, he got a job as night waiter at a club. I put him
up to getting it. I wanted to use him. So I made straight for his
place when I escaped. He lives in rooms. I have lived with him for
the last two days."
Bern was rubbing his chin and gazing at the speaker, trying with
difficulty to get the hang of the story.
"I wanted to take his job for one night," went on the other, "so I
got him to buy some knockout drops. He didn't know what I wanted
them for. What was the use telling him? I used one on him. I hired
a second-hand dress suit and went up to take his place with a letter
I had written saying he wasn't well. I was his substitute. I made a
damned good waiter, I'll say that. And I got into an argument with
the president of the club and--there you are!"
"My God! Lorry--or is it Adam?"
"Well?"
"You have so many names----"
"I had no name, only a number, in prison, Bern. I'll never have a
name I might have had. Here, none of that. I've done it. You've
got to be bold these days if you want to carry off a plan."
"It isn't like you," cried Bern. "To use a cudgel. It isn't like
you. You were always bold, but this--this is different. Where did
you get that cudgel?"
"Mind your own business!"
Bern closed his mouth suddenly, but he spoke a moment later, his
voice charged with anxiety.
"They'll be on your trail, won't they? Did anybody follow you here?"
The other shook his head, smiling grimly.
"You're scared, aren't you, Bern? You think that you may be let in
badly, don't you? But you needn't worry. Nobody saw me coming
here--nobody that matters. The argument I had with the president
ended where it began."
"But the other folks in the place? Didn't they see you?"
"They were fast asleep. Didn't I tell you I had some knockout drops?
I used the drops before the argument began. So after it was finished
I came along to you. I need you, Bern."
Bern groaned.
"I can't help you much, Lorry----"
"Now then!"
The voice was sharp and cutting; warning too. The waiter's hand went
to the bludgeon and his fingers closed over the handle.
"This is the best killing instrument I ever handled, Bern. It fits
my grip like a glove."
"You wouldn't use it on me, Lorry?"
"Don't tempt me, Bern!"
There was a silence; tense and thrilling.
"I have a bargain to make with you, Bern. Are you ready to hear it?"
"A bargain?"
"Yes, you old Yid, a bargain. Listen. If you get me away safely and
promise to send me the remainder of the money quickly--say within two
days--I'll see that the police don't get to know all I might tell
them about you."
Bern shrugged his shoulders.
"I gave up being a receiver after the last deal, Lorry. It was too
risky. I gave it up."
"That doesn't matter much. There is a lot the cops would like to
know--a lot that happened before the last deal. You are thinking
that you can drive a better bargain because you have given up being a
receiver?"
"No, no. I'm just telling you."
"It doesn't matter, Bern. Listen here. You are a tailor, or
something like one. These clothes you have given me are not a good
fit. They'd give me away anywhere. Maybe you know that. You'll do
the necessary alterations, Bern. That's how you'll spend your
Christmas. How many people are in this house?"
"My wife. Just my wife and a maid."
"Send the maid away for the day."
"But, Lorry, she wasn't to get this holiday. She doesn't keep
Christmas----"
"Send her away. She can keep this Christmas for once even if she
isn't a Christian."
And, seeing the look of resentment on Bern's face, he jumped to his
feet and lifted the bludgeon, his face convulsed with passion.
"You'll do as I say, Bern, or I'll kill you too!"
Bern shrank from him.
"I'll do anything, Lorry Black! I'll do anything you like! Anything
at all!"
It was done. Bern left the room and came back in a short time with
the information that the maid was being sent off and that his wife
would be down soon. Then the two sat gazing at the fire, each
thinking his own thoughts.
The maid had gone when the man who had thus forced himself on the
household spoke finally.
"I want a sleep while you do the alterations to this suit, Bern.
Better take my measure right away. You can give me a spare bedroom,
can't you? I'm tired."
He was taken upstairs and shown into a bedroom, and when he was half
undressed he turned to Bern.
"You'll do the alterations in this room, Bern. I sleep lightly and
I'll have my cudgel under my pillow."
He turned into bed and lay stretching himself with an expression of
satisfaction.
Bern did as he was bid. He lit the gas fire and brought his
materials into the room, and while the other looked on he started to
the work of altering the suit. The morning was well spent when he
had it finished.
"What more do you want, Lorry?" he asked, grudgingly.
"Nothing just now. You can go and let me sleep. Wake me at supper.
I'll want a good meal before I go."
Bern went out of the room and the caller locked the door after him.
Five minutes later he was sleeping peacefully.
But he did not wait for Bern to awake him. The dullness of night was
descending when he arose and dressed. The suit now fitted him well
enough to appear his own clothing. He had a bath and dressed
carefully; then he went downstairs and walked into the parlor.
Bern was sitting near the fire, alone. He had a pair of earphones on
and was listening to the broadcast program of the day; but he laid
down the earphones as soon as he saw his unwelcome visitor.
"The wife is making a meal for you, Lorry. We heard you in the
bathroom. Will you be going as soon as it is dark?"
"Just as soon as it is dark, Bern, and as soon as you hand over that
money."
"Here it is--all I have in the house."
He handed over a package which the other examined, counting the notes
leisurely and with keen interest. He put the package into his
pocket. Bern watched him and gave a nod as the other smiled.
"Fetch the grub, Bern."
The Jew brought a loaded tray from the kitchen; he was afraid of this
man and he was trembling as he placed the tray on the table.
"The wife made a good meal for you, Lorry. There's a bit of turkey,
and sauce, and roast potatoes, and sausages, and plenty of stuffing,
and Christmas pudding. All the best, Lorry. It will be a while
before you get your next meal, eh?"
"That depends on you, Bern."
"On me?"
"Yes, I've been thinking. You've got to help. You have friends all
over the country, I know. I want to go somewhere I might get a ship.
Come on, think quickly. You've got to provide the address where
you'll send the rest of the money to me. See? I'm on the run. One
of your friends must give me shelter."
"One of my friends?"
"You bet! A receiver of stolen goods like you has friends
everywhere, especially at shipping ports."
Bern remained silent, finger on chin.
"What about Plymouth?" he asked at last. "I have a friend there.
Maybe he'd help. Think you can get there?"
"I'll get anywhere. A safe address is what I need, Bern."
Bern handed over a sheet of paper and a pencil and dictated an
address in Plymouth. The other wrote it down, put the paper into his
pocket, grinned knowingly, and then sat down to the food. He looked
now and then at Bern, who was huddled over the fire, his palms
together, his hooked nose and clipped beard sharply defined against
the red glow.
"What are you thinking, Bern?"
The Jew sat up, straightening his shoulders.
"It'll be a hard job for you, Lorry, to get away. They've discovered
the judge."
"What's that?"
"They've discovered the judge lying dead on the floor of the Clue
Club. The members discovered him when they recovered from their
doped drink."
"Who told you all this?" demanded the other, putting down his knife
and fork quickly.
"I heard it over the wireless. Not half an hour ago."
"Well?"
"There isn't any clue--so far. They have interviewed the real
waiter."
"And what does he say?"
"He says that he, too, was drugged. He says that somebody sent him a
bottle of beer and he drank it, and that's all he knows."
"Does he say who sent him this bottle of beer?"
"No. He says it came to his room with a note from a friend. But he
can't remember what he did with the note. He won't give you away,
Lorry."
There was a short, quick laugh.
"No, he won't give me away, Bern. They won't find a clue. I'm all
right."
"You must have covered your prints well, Lorry. You always were good
at covering a trail."
"Not so bad, Bern."
"All the same, Lorry, you'll have to be careful. You can't go out
and walk along the street openly. The cops will be on the lookout.
If you were seen under a lamp, say, it would be all up, wouldn't it?"
"It might--but on the other hand, it might not."
"It is too big a risk, Lorry."
"Can you suggest a way to lessen the risk?"
"I've been thinking. Yes, I've been thinking. Maybe I can. You'll
need another overcoat. Supposing the cops have an idea it was
you--they'll be watching for every chance to get you. You've got a
new suit. You'll need a new overcoat. I have an old one that might
fit you."
"Yes?"
"And I was thinking that there is a train passes the suburban station
in about an hour or so. It is the first newspaper train bound for
Devon way. First editions, I think. They take on some return milk
churns at the station. It's a slow train, but it gets to Devon early
in the morning. Now if you could get aboard it?"
"I'll get aboard it. Will the ticket office be open? Are passengers
taken by that train?"
"Oh yes. There will be passengers. It calls at a lot of small
stations. A slow train. There are always passengers with it. If
you cared you could take that train a bit down the line and then
change and catch the later night express----"
"I think not. I'll take the slow train. That's a good idea, Bern.
But how can I get to the station from here? The river runs beyond
your garden----"
"The river is frozen over, Lorry. You can make a short cut that way.
It's hard frost outside. Been freezing all day. You can't go along
the main road, anyway."
"Why?"
For answer Bern motioned his visitor to the window and drew aside the
blind.
"Look!"
An occasional pedestrian was to be seen walking swiftly along the
white street. But the main object was a figure who stood under a
street lamp a little way down on the opposite side. The figure was
that of a policeman wrapped in his greatcoat.
"He may be watching this house, Lorry. I don't know. But you can't
risk it. Think of me, Lorry. You can't go that way."
"Thinking of yourself, Bern, eh? All right. What about it?"
"I'll take you down the garden, Lorry, and let you out by the gate at
the bottom. It's a straight walk across the spare bit of land to the
river bank. Cross the river and you're safe. The railway is less
than half a mile from the other side. There's a path up to the
platform. What do you say?"
"Sounds all right. Get me your overcoat."
He put it on when Bern brought it and pulled his cap over his eyes.
"It's a good thing for you the river is frozen, Lorry," said Bern,
slily. "It's a short cut, isn't it? And they said over the
broadcast that the killing of the judge must have been the work of a
desperate criminal."
"Never mind what they said, Bern. You and I sink or swim together,
old Yid."
"But, Lorry, I'm out of the receiving business now. I told you----"
"Aw, that doesn't cut any ice with me, Bern. There's your past. I'm
going to live on your past, Bern. I need your past, believe me. If
I'm caught so are you."
He twirled the cudgel in his hand.
"Come on, Bern. Show me the way."
They went out by the back door and down the long garden. A gate led
on to a narrow piece of spare land. Beyond this strip was the frozen
river. Bern pointed to the railway on the other side.
"That's your way, Lorry. So long. Safe journey, Lorry."
"Just before I go, Bern, let me say this. I killed that judge
unknowingly. I was arguing with him about that old Jewish law that
says a killer should be killed. I said it wasn't correct, or just.
And he tried to kill me. So I happened to hit him and he died.
Maybe you know the bit of the old Mosaic law. Anyway, it was only
retaliation--his death."
"I know the law, Lorry. I know what you mean. _He that smiteth a
man so that he die shall surely be put to death_. And the next verse
says--what is it that it says? I remember something about it----"
"So long, Bern!"
Bern was fingering his chin in an effort to remember the text of the
old law.
The man who had killed the judge was on the river bank when Bern
recollected the words he sought. He began to repeat them half aloud.
"_And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand;
then I will appoint thee a place whither he shall flee----_"
"That's me, Bern," came the voice from the bank. "I'm fleeing, and
you appointed me a place!"
The Jew continued to quote from his memory. But he saw the fugitive
put his foot on the ice of the frozen river to test it. The surface
creaked, but held. The fugitive stepped forward and strode boldly
toward the opposite bank. He was out of earshot now, but Bern was
still muttering.
"I used to know all that chapter, Lorry. Ach, yes. _And he that
smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death. And
he that stealeth a man, and selleth him----_"
He raised his eyes and looked at the figure that was moving dimly
across the ice.
"You tried to sell _me_, Lorry Black! You tried to sell _me_!"
And Bern watched intently through lowered eyelids.
The fugitive had reached the center of the river when he gave a
shout. The ice cracked under him. His feet went through. He tried
to recover, his arms above his head, the bludgeon waving in the air.
Crack! Crack! Splinter!
The ice broke beneath his weight. He fell. It smashed all around
him.
Bern watched and listened.
He heard the smothered cry and saw the ice heave as it broke into
fragments. The figure of the fugitive disappeared with a splash.
Bern stood still, looking; not moving a muscle.
A large black patch of water lay like a blot on the white river.
Bern shrugged his shoulders.
"The fool didn't know that the river runs too swiftly in the middle
to freeze hard," he muttered. "That was the part of the bargain he
overlooked. It was him or me. Maybe I'll never get my bank notes
back, but I'll make a complaint of burglary."
He walked back to his house, and as he laid his hand on the door to
enter he cast a glance at the river.
"And he wanted to dictate terms to me--to us that have lived by
bargaining for thousands of years!"
The bludgeon of Kartarus, the barbarian, was lying once more in the
black sludge of the river bed.
THE END