‘And the next time,’ said the old man with the pistol, ‘I will hit you!’
Ben ran. There are moments when there is nothing else to do—when violent movement becomes the sole object of existence, as also the sole guarantee of its continuance. He had died once. He didn’t want a second death so soon after the first. The memory was too horrible.
The old man was standing between Ben and the doorway. A mad position if the old man wanted Ben to get out through the doorway; and not even the revolver was going to make Ben choose the only other egress, the window! That would merely provide an alternative route to the winged Noah. But then the old man was mad, Ben was now convinced of it. So he closed his eyes and dashed past the madman with a roar and shot beyond him into the passage. By the time the old man turned, Ben was half-way down the flight.
The stairs assisted him down the second half. No escalator could have assisted him better. They seemed to join in the race and run with him. They rolled him across the few feet of passage at the bottom and deposited him on the next flight, and the next flight caught him and carried him on as though it were a relay race. Having won it, the stairs threw him away unceremoniously at the bottom. Then he paused, and startling, violent reaction set in.
His terror did not disappear. That had come to stay, and it may be stated here that, throughout all its risings and fallings during the succeeding hours, it never wholly went. It formed a solid, cold background to all he endured, advancing, receding, advancing. But into the terror other emotions entered, forming queer mixtures that produced astonishing actions, and one of these other emotions entered now. It was red anger. Anger, against the old man, anger against the world, anger against the Universe! Why had he, Ben, been marked for this sort of thing? What had he done? He hadn’t asked to be born! As a matter of fact, if anybody had consulted him he would have answered very definitely, ‘I don’t think!’ And he had been good to his old mother. For five years he had sent her three shillings a week, and once he’d sent her ten shillings when someone had told him he’d won a competition. If it had been true he’d have sent her another ten shillings and some cough mixture. And that little kid of his had seemed to like him a bit that night before she died … Wasn’t he no good at all but to be frightened and chased, and shouted at?
‘I’ll beat ’im—I’ll show ’im!’ muttered Ben. ‘I’ll ’oodwink ’im!’
And, opening the front door swiftly, he closed it with a loud bang. But when it banged, Ben was still on the inside.
There! That’d do it! The old man would be down in a few seconds—Ben could hear him now—and when he got to the hall he would conclude that Ben had gone. But Ben wouldn’t be gone. No, he would be waiting in a cupboard at the back of the hall. A nice, roomy cupboard, which Ben had marked for an emergency. You could lie in it or stand up in it. The first thing you did in a house, if you had Ben’s experience, was cupboards.
Here came the old man. Ben didn’t wait. He dived for the cupboard, doubling back past the foot of the staircase and along the narrowing passage that ran alongside to the back quarters. He seized the knob of the cupboard just as the old man’s footsteps sounded immediately above him. The cupboard was under the stairs. Chuckling, the old man, was he? Well, two could play at that game! In a moment Ben would be chuckling … What was the matter with the knob?… Yes, Ben would have, the laugh … Got stuck or something. Come on! Turn, won’t you …
The cupboard was locked.
‘Crumbs!’ gasped Ben.
He plunged into the kitchen. He had not time to close the door behind him because, when he swung round to do so, having failed to perform the operation with his leg, the old man was already in the passage and might be looking his way. If he saw the door move, of course he’d smell a rat. So all Ben could do was to duck aside, ensuring that he at least was not within the old man’s possible vision, and to wait between an open door and an open window for what might happen.
The old man was beyond the open door. Was anything beyond the open window? The thought induced complete rigidity.
Well, if you couldn’t move, you couldn’t. You just stood like a statcher. And, while you stood, and the moments went by, other thoughts came to you, to assist in the general merry-making. How had that cupboard come to be locked? It hadn’t been locked when Ben had first entered the house. Who had locked it? What was inside? And had what was inside locked it?
‘Yer know,’ thought Ben, ‘this is gettin’ ’orrible.’ A moment later, he heard the front door slam.
‘Thank Gawd!’ he murmured.
But he wasn’t going to take any undue risks, even yet. Two might play at that door-slamming game!
He was out of the way, anyhow! Quickly Ben slithered towards the passage, but in a flash he was back in the kitchen again. The old man was still standing in the hall, his silver-locked head slightly on one side, listening. Great minds sometimes think alike.
Another two minutes of agony went by. Apparently, the old man did not move from the door. He just stood and waited, listening, with his revolver ready in his hand. Then the door banged a second time …
You can’t stand in a kitchen for ever. Presently Ben tiptoed to the doorway again. This time, the hall was empty. And—the cupboard?
BACK in his sanctuary on the second floor, Ben reviewed the situation. He did not review it as a detective would have reviewed it, building point upon point and forming question upon question; he reviewed it unscientifically and emotionally, the various problems revolving in the ample space of his mind like planets in a deranged solar system. But out of the chaos we, better fed and better equipped, may select material for constructive conjecture by seizing on the more important of the questions in transit, and letting the others go. As, for example:
‘’Oo locked that cupboard unner the stairs? Yus, and when did ’e do it’? Yus, and wot’s in it? Or ’oo? Lummy!…
‘That old feller! Is ’e mad? Lummy!…
‘If the ’ouse is ’is—if mindjer—orl right! But it ain’t the Injun’s, too, can it? ’E tole me ter go, too! Sime as the old ’un did. Are they workin’ tergether? Lummy!…
‘If ’e thinks I’ve gorn—well, corse ’e must, wouldn’t ’e, will ’e come back presen’ly and do wot ’e thinks I gorn for? Lummy!…
‘Now this ’ere ’ouse can’t be the gal’s if it’s ’is—if, mindjer. Orl right. If it isn’t the gal’s, wot she pay me ter stay ’ere for? Was it so’s I’d be ’ere when ’e comes back ter do wot ’e’s goin’ ter do? Gawd!…
‘And ’ere’s a funny thing. ’E fires at me bang in the fice and misses me. Bang in the fice. And misses me!…
‘Yes, and wot abart my cheese?’
To Ben’s credit, he did not harp on the cheese. That thought merely came to him now and again in momentary pangs. He harped most on the bullet. He couldn’t make that out at all. Think he didn’t know when a revolver was pointing bang in his face?
‘Well, if ’e didn’t ’it me,’ muttered Ben suddenly, still requiring documentary