Collected works of j s f.., p.628
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 628
“Ain’t things good at that show of yours?” asked Simmons. “Thought you were turning money away every night.”
“Frequently happens that we do,” assented Ebbitt, with an air of indifference. “But that doesn’t affect me, laddie. I’m a salaried man. So much a week — full or empty.”
“Well, it’s a certainty, anyway!” said Simmons. “Better than being — well, a strolling player, eh?”
“Yes, I was that once,” replied Ebbitt, musingly. “Strolling? God; I should think so! — often with a half-clothed back and an empty belly! But I’d more fun out of those times, laddie, than I get out o’ these!”
“Doubtful!” said Simmons. “Not me, anyhow! Give me a fixed position and money at the back of it; none of your haphazard business for me! Where did you do most of your strolling, then?”
Ebbitt’s eyes grew dreamy. He took a pull at his tumbler, balanced it in his hand, and stared thoughtfully at the fire.
“All over the place!” he answered. “Through the mill from the beginning. I’ve seen it all. I’ve played in a fit — up, and I’ve played at the T.R., Drury Lane. I’ve played Hamlet in a booth, and done a no-line, walk-on show to Henry Irving in the same part. I once had a benefit that fetched in three hundred pound, and I’ve recited in a wayside inn and been glad of the hat-full of coppers I got for doing it. Experience, laddie! — and there was adventure in it. And — now I wear a dress suit and an opera hat o’ nights and superintend — pictures! Pictures! — thrown on a screen out of a blinking magic — lantern! Bah! Give me living men and women and the human voice! If you’d only known the men and women I’ve known — ah, we could act in my day!”
“Must have known a lot of actors in your time,” suggested Simmons.
“Crowds! — multitudes!” assented Ebbitt. “Yes. Good fellows! — dear boys! — gone, now, most of ’em. No such nowadays — poor lot on the boards is there.”
Simmons pushed the whisky nearer to his guest. And as Ebbitt replenished his glass, his host glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece, which he had set by the City Hall time when lie came in.
“Actresses, too?” he said, as Ebbitt once more pledged him. “You’d know plenty of actresses?”
“Aye, laddie, no end of ’em!” answered Ebbitt. “From way back in the ‘sixties, when I started. Bless you! — I’ve played with Madame Celeste — knew her well enough at the old Lyceum. Actresses — hundreds of ’em — good, bad indifferent.”
Simmons remained silent for a moment or two. He was keeping an eye on the clock and an ear on the stair outside. And as the minute hand of the clock pressed slowly forward he spoke again.
“Ever know an actress called Nora Le Geyt?” he asked quietly.
Ebbitt lifted his face sharply from the glow of the hearth. A frown shot across its upper half and his lips parted in something like a snarl.
“Nora Le Geyt!” he repeated. “What the devil do you know about Nora Le Geyt?”
“Heard of her,” retorted Simmons, steadily. “Why not? Lots of actresses’ names are remembered — long afterwards.”
Ebbitt continued to stare at him. His lips were still open, showing his teeth, and his eyes were suspicious.
“Not likely that you’d ever hear of her!” he growled. “Where did you — a mere lad! — ever hear?”
Simmons glanced again at the clock; listened again for a sound on the stair. He turned to his guest with a half — cynical, half — impudent laugh.
“Lawyers — like me — get to know a lot, Ebbitt,” he retorted. “We’re never surprised at anything. I know a good deal about Nora Le Geyt. She married a man named Arradeane, James Arradeane, who subsequently called himself James Deane — the James Deane who was murdered in the sand pit behind Ashenhurst House. There,” he continued, pulling out and opening at its title-page the book which he had picked up from Miss Pretty’s table, “there’s a book of Nora Le Geyt’s, with her autograph — recognise it? But of course you do! — I think you were an old flame of Nora’s, and that she jilted you for the other man, and that—” he gave a swift glance at the clock and strained his ear towards the door— “and that — that,” he went on, bending forward with a steady stare at Ebbitt’s startled eyes, “was — why you shot him!”
A dead silence fell on the room — save for the slow ticking of the clock. It was broken by Ebbitt’s movements. He set down his glass and rose, staring at Simmons, and as he stared he backed towards the door. But he got out a word — one.
“What-”
“What nothing!” exclaimed Simmons, disdainfully. He knew that the door was open, though but a mere crack, purposely so by himself when he asked his visitor in, and he raised his voice. “What indeed? Shall I tell you what I know, Ebbitt? You recognised Deane as the man who’d supplanted you that night he went to your show; you resolved to have your revenge, and you came home and stole John’s revolver out of an open drawer in the next room and went out with it; you had an idea that Deane would go to Ashenhurst House that night to see his relatives there — you knew all about it! — and you hung about for him. You did see him; you got him, somehow, into that sand pit and shot him, and flung the revolver into Mrs. Champernowne’s orchard — where it’s been found — I found it. And something else has been found — you dropped the enamel facing of a cuff-link in that sand pit, Ebbitt, and that’s been picked up. Why, man, you’re wearing the rest of that cuff-link just now — look at it! And it’s all up, Ebbitt — the police know everything — and what do you say to that, what do you—”
Ebbitt’s eyes dropped sharply from his accuser’s face to the right — hand wrist of his finely-laundered shirt. He looked for a second at the damaged cufflink, and he muttered something under his breath. Simmons laughed — and Ebbitt’s hand stole suddenly and quickly round to his hip. Within the second and before Simmons’ laughter had died, the accuser found himself staring into a levelled revolver.
“No need to steal or borrow a revolver, now!” said Ebbitt. “This is mine, and this time — you!”
It was a big cry, rising to a shriek of agonised fear that Simmons let out as he leaped back behind the table, thrusting out his hands.
“No!” he shouted. “Ebbitt! — put it away — away! — Oh, my God! — Mellapont! — Nicholson!”
The revolver spoke sharply, and Simmons withe a groan, toppled back, clutching at anything and nothing. And then, as the police, with Mellapont at their head, came tumbling up the last few stairs and into the smoke-obscured room, Ebbitt turned his weapon upon himself, and without a sigh or a cry went out of the world.
According to all the moral principles and precedents as laid down in melodrama, Simmons ought to have been picked up dead, shot through the heart. Maybe his heart was so tough that the bullet glanced off it; maybe it was so small that it didn’t extend over the area at which Ebbitt aimed. Anyway, instead of being mortally wounded, Simmons was found to be shot through the shoulder — a nasty and unpleasant injury, but not one that was likely to deprive the community of his services. He was unconscious when Mellapont and his men laid hands on him; when lie regained consciousness he found himself in a private ward in the Southernstowe Infirmary, with doctors and nurses in attendance. And within forty-eight hours Miss Pretty was admitted to his bedside, and she hung over him and wept tears on his red poll, and told him, in whispers, that he was a hero — her hero.
There are queer people everywhere in this world, and Southernstowe was not without its percentage of them. The Simmons Hackdale cult, engendered by Miss Pretty, spread and flourished. Truth and fable were mingled in it, as in all cults. While Simmons lay in his white bed, men in bar-parlours magnified him. All alone, unaided, young Hackdale had quietly, slowly, persistently, ferreted out the truth about the sand pit murder, and, bold and unafraid, had tackled the murderer single handed, and nearly lost his life in ministering to justice. A fine, sharp, resourceful young fellow! said the wiseacres of pot and pipe, and certain sure to go far — yes, even to being Lord Chancellor. Brains! — yes, almost more brains in his little finger than all the slow — witted solicitors and pesky policemen in the city or the county — didn’t he do quiet and unostentatious, what they couldn’t do with all the machinery of the Law? True it was! — and well deserving was that there smart young fellow of the rewards and what not. In Simmons’ case, skill undoubtedly won favour.
He recovered, slowly at first — more rapidly when, beneath his pillow, he placed the cheques which duly came in from Mrs. Champernowne and Miss Pretty. Miss Pretty gave him hers to play with, as she put it — it seemed silly, she whispered to him, during one of her twice-a-day visits, to give him this mere bit of the whole which was presently to be his — said whole consisting of herself, her hand, her heart, her fortune. But Simmons considered a cheque of any sort as a good soothing plaster, and he slept better after the receipt of this and the other. And in the end, thanks to careful doctoring, nursing and feeding, he arose and went forth. Everybody wanted to shake hands with him, and did; Alderman Bultitude, ex-mayor, thanked him publicly in High Street, for clearing the city of a stain on its fair name. On the strength of everything, and in view of his approaching union with Miss Pretty and emigration to her tin-mine, Simmons took more pretentious rooms and ordered several new suits of clothes from his tailors. In one of these, a smart frock suit, set off by a silk hat, he took Miss Pretty to the afternoon service at Southernstowe Cathedral one Sunday afternoon soon after his return to convalescence. The Canon-in-Residence selected as the text of his sermon the thirty-fifth verse of the 37th Psalm: “I have seen the wicked in great power and spreading himself like a green bay tree.” He discoursed upon this with great clarity and force and with a wealth of illustration in which reflections and animadversions upon such things as deceit, craft, subtlety, hypocrisy, lying and selfishness were plentiful and pointed. Had Simmons ever been taught to search his heart and examine his conscience he might have felt uneasy under that sermon. But he was quite comfortable and well satisfied — very largely because there were plenty of vacant chairs around him in the nave, and he was able to place his new silk hat on one of them, and thereby ensure its not being kicked by his own or anybody else’s feet — and he ceased not from spreading himself when he went forth from the venerable fabric. He considered himself a very smart and clever fellow, and Miss Pretty was of his opinion. The truth was that neither Simmons nor his Cynthia had any sense of humour. They will probably do very well.
THE END
Sea Fog (1925)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE THE MAN WHO ASKED HIS WAY
CHAPTER TWO THE SECOND MAN
CHAPTER THREE THE CAPTAIN AND THE SERGEANT
CHAPTER FOUR SUB JUDICE
CHAPTER FIVE NAME OF KEST
CHAPTER SIX UNDER EXAMINATION
CHAPTER SEVEN THE CLAMPED CHEST
CHAPTER EIGHT COMPLEX
CHAPTER NINE THE DITTY-BOX
CHAPTER TEN THE HILL-SIDE — MIDNIGHT
CHAPTER ELEVEN THE LOCK-UP SHED
CHAPTER TWELVE THE DEAD MAN’S SAFE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN SUSPECT
CHAPTER FOURTEEN THE MAN WHO BOUGHT FOOD
CHAPTER FIFTEEN BLACK MILL BOTTOM
CHAPTER SIXTEEN MACPHERSON
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN THE CHINA SEAS
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN DITTY-BOX AND ‘BACCA-BOX
CHAPTER NINETEEN DETECTIVE-SERGEANT PARKAPPLE
CHAPTER TWENTY THE THATCHED ROOF
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE RECOGNITION
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO THE LIGHT IN THE MILL
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE THE REGISTERED PACKET
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR THE UNCUT DIAMOND
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE THE PACKAGE OF COCOA
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX THE SILK NECKERCHIEF
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN THE BILLIARD-ROOM
The first edition
CHAPTER ONE THE MAN WHO ASKED HIS WAY
I’LL SAY AT once that Mr. Andrew Macpherson, the Scotch grocer of Horsham, from whose shop I walked out to a glorious and unexpected wildness of liberty and adventure the morning on which this story properly begins, was a man in a thousand, for it was he who, at his own suggestion, threw wide the door of what I had come to consider a prison-house, and cheered me on my way with a word and a smile, instead of helping me across its threshold with a hearty kick.
Most other men would have considered me deserving of that kick; five out of six might have given it. For Mr. Macpherson had been a fine friend to me; he took me to his hearth when I was left a defenceless orphan lad of ten years old; he gave me a good schooling; he tried to teach me his own business. I picked up the schooling readily enough, but not the grocery trade; the buying and selling of that stuff made no appeal to my nature. And on the particular morning I speak of, Mr. Macpherson himself reluctantly arrived at the same conclusion. I forget what I had been doing; maybe I had mixed green with black in undue proportions, or sent the parcels to the wrong places; but anyway, the good man looked at me with a sorrowful shake of his head, and let out a heavy sigh.
“Man Tom,” said he, “I’m thinking ye’ll never do any good at the grocery! It’s a peety, but ye’ve no intellectual inclination to it!”
“I’ve been thinking that a long time myself, Mr. Macpherson,” I answered him. “It’s not my line; I don’t like it. And I’d have said so before, but for the fear of hurting your feelings.”
“Aweel!” he said, with another sigh. “Ye’re eighteen years of age, my lad, and I’m not the sort to stand in any young fellow’s way. What is it ye want to do, Tom?”
“Mr. Macpherson,” said I boldly, “I don’t want to be fastened up in a shop! There’s times when I can’t breathe! I want space!”
“Ye’ll be for going out and seeing the world?” he suggested. “Aye! — it’s in yer blood, my man! And where would you be for setting your face, now?”
“Anywhere there’s ships and sailors, and the sight and smell of the sea, Mr. Macpherson,” I told him. “Portsmouth — Southampton — Plymouth — any place the like of them! I want adventure!”
There was more said between us, much more; all kindly and sympathetic on his part. And the end of it was that within an hour I was in my best clothes, a bag in my hand, and ten pounds in my pockets, standing in the street — free! There was Macpherson’s blessing in my ear, and the grip of his big hand was warm on mine, but I never as much as looked back at the shop. That life was over.
It was a beautiful May morning. There was the sharp zest of the new springtide in the air and the smell of flowers in the streets; above the old roofs and chimneys there was a wondrous blue sky, and for one who had just emerged from the gloom of an ill-lighted shop the blaze of the sun was like an illumination from heaven. It was the sunlight more than anything that made me suddenly change my direction. I had taken my first steps of liberty towards the railway, intending to travel in that fashion to Portsmouth. But the sun, and the spring air, and the smell of growing things, reminded me that I owned an unusually strong pair of legs — why ride in a stinking railway carriage when I could foot it, at my own pace, across the hills and downs of Sussex?
I turned sharp in Carfax, and instead of going north, went away across the stream by the old church, and, choosing footpaths rather than highways, made boldly for the open country to the south.
Already I had a very definite notion of what I was going to do. I would strike for Portsmouth, by way of the South Downs, taking my time and looking about me. If I found nothing that appealed to me at Portsmouth, I would go on to Southampton by way of the coast. I was well prepared for a journey of that sort. Eight of the sovereigns with which Mr. Macpherson had presented me (for this was in the days when we were as familiar with gold as we now are with paper) were safely stowed away in a leather belt worn under my shirt; another was hidden in a waistcoat pocket; the tenth, changed into silver in the shop as I left it, lay in my trousers. And I had not lived with and been brought up by Mr. Andrew Macpherson all these years for nothing! — it was my intention to look well at and think long over every sixpence of my silver before parting with it. I had no fear of travelling expenses; Macpherson himself had shoved into my bag enough eatables to last me all that day and most of the next, and I was one of those lads who have no taste for cheap cigarettes or for drink. I reckoned as I walked along that I should have made small inroad on my silver by the time I reached Portsmouth; as for breaking into the gold in my belt, I took that to be a necessity which I meant never to acknowledge. It was my ambition, or, rather, my firm resolve, to present myself in a year or two to Mr. Macpherson once more, in the proud position of being able to show him that his one-time mouse had been metamorphosed into a man.
I went along all that day, my bag slung over my shoulders, through the Sussex villages, taking my time, rejoicing in my liberty, breathing the good air that increased in savour and quality the nearer I drew to the downs and to what I knew lay beyond their swelling outlines — the bright waters of the English Channel. But I was not to see those waters that day. By the end of the afternoon I had come to Petworth, at a distance of fifteen miles from Horsham, and, stout as my legs were, I was beginning, as they say, to know that I had feet at the end of them. That place, Petworth, had its charm, and, chancing on a little shop kept by a widow-woman whereat you could get a cup of tea, I turned in, and, finding the owner a motherly and come-at-able person, bargained with her for my supper and my bed and my breakfast next morning, all for two shillings.
It was still but the middle of the evening when I had eaten my supper, and the light being good, I went out to see the place, and it was while I hung around the old church, wondering at its queerness, and, as I thought, its ugliness, all the stranger because of the picturesqueness and charm of its surroundings, that a man came up and asked me, without preface, if I was well acquainted with that quarter of the country.
