‘If yer like.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I tole yer.’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Caretaker.’
‘Oh, yes! So you did! But what’s your name?’
‘Wotcher wanter know for?’
‘Trot it out!’
‘Ben—if that ’elps.’
‘It helps immensely. Well, Ben—’
‘’Ere, gettin’ fermilyer, ain’t yer?’ demanded the cockney. ‘’Oo’s give you permishun ter call me by me fust name?’
‘You haven’t told me your last,’ the visitor reminded him. ‘What is it?’
‘Moosolini.’
‘Thank you. But I think I prefer Ben, if you don’t mind. How long have you been the caretaker here?’
‘Eh?’
‘Who engaged you—?’
‘’Ow long ’ave I gotter stand ’ere answerin’ questions?’ retorted Ben. ‘I’m goin’ ter ask you one, fer a change. ’Oo are you? That’s fair, ain’t it?’
‘Who am I?’ murmured the visitor, and suddenly paused.
‘’E don’t want me ter know,’ reflected Ben. ‘Fishy, the pair of us!’
The next moment he realised that there was another reason for the pause. A door had slammed across the street. The visitor had turned.
The door that had slammed was the front door of the house opposite. The number on it was ‘26’. For an instant Ben stared vaguely at the number, as the movement of a figure in front of it rendered it visible after a second of obscurity. A girl’s figure; she appeared to be leaving hurriedly. But Ben found himself less interested in the girl on the doorstep of No. 26 than in the man on the doorstep of No. 29, for the man suddenly left the doorstep and made for the pavement.
‘Wot’s that for?’ wondered Ben. ‘Wot’s ’e arter?’
He appeared to be after the girl. The girl was hastening towards a corner, and the young man looked as though he were going to hasten after her.
‘Lummy, ’e don’t waste no time!’ thought Ben.
But if the young man’s intention had been to follow the girl he abruptly changed it when she had turned the corner and disappeared. Instead of following her, he veered round towards the house she had just left. No. 26 Jowle Street. Ben watched him from No. 29.
‘Well, ’e’s fergot me, any’ow,’ reflected Ben. ‘If ’e wants me ’e’ll ’ave ter ring agin!’
He closed the door quickly and quietly. A bang might have brought the young man back. He waited a few seconds, just to make sure that the young man wasn’t coming back again, and then began to ascend the stairs to resume his interrupted meal.
It has been said that Ben had lived in many empty houses. He had. But he had lived in them for reasons of economy rather than of affection, and it depressed him that he had not really and truly grown to love them. Perhaps this was because he had had a bad start. His first empty house, ‘No. 17’, had given him enough nightmares for life. But it must be admitted, and you had better know it at once, that Ben was not one of the world’s heroes, and if there was one thing he couldn’t stand it was creaks. ‘Give me the fair shivers, so they does,’ he confessed to his soul. (Ben had a soul—you had better know that, too, lest in what follows you may be tempted to be hard on him.) Yes, even in his able-bodied days he had hated the creaking of ships. Even when he had been surrounded by fellow-seamen. But all alone, in empty houses …
‘In the langwidge o’ them psicho-wotchercallems,’ decided Ben, ‘I got a creak compress.’
The creaks seemed rather worse going up the stairs than they had seemed coming down them. Somehow or other, the visit of that young man, his rather odd behaviour, and the sudden termination of the interview, had worried Ben more than he cared to admit. The shadows seemed deeper. The creaks louder. The subsequent silences uncannier.
But he reached the second floor without accident, and he found his room just as he had left it. There were no corpses about, and no one had been at his cheese. If he’d had a cup of tea, he could have soon got back to his condition of lethargic, vegetable comfort. Well, he’d have to get back just on cheese.
‘P’r’aps I better ’ave a squint outer the winder fust,’ he thought. ‘’E may be comin’ back again.’
He crossed to the window. There, immediately opposite, was No. 26, growing moist in the drizzle. Looking down, he saw his late visitor on the doorstep. This rather surprised him. He’d been on the doorstep some while. By now, surely, he ought to be either in or out?
Ben stared. The front door was open—no, half-open—well, same thing—and a bit of an argument seemed to be going on. Couldn’t see the fellow inside the house, but the fellow outside appeared to be very determined. He was taking something from his pocket. He was handing it to the fellow inside. A bit of a pause now. Who was going to win?
Then, all at once, Ben’s eyes were attracted by a movement closer to him. Not in his own room—thank Gawd fer that!—but it, gave him a start, like. In the room immediately opposite. The second-floor front of No. 26. An old man had backed to the window, as though to get a better perspective of something he was gazing at. And what he was gazing at was a figure on the floor!
‘That ain’t nice,’ thought Ben.
An instant later, however, the figure got up. The old man shook his head, and pointed to another part of the floor. The figure lay down again. The old man nodded, and the figure got up again.
‘Well, I’m blowed!’ muttered the watcher.
He stared down at the front door. It was now closed. The young man had got in. At least—had he? Ben hadn’t seen him go in. He might have left, of course, and be walking now towards the corner.
Ben twisted his head and stared towards the corner. If the young man had gone to the corner he had now vanished, as the girl had vanished; and in their place, regarding No. 26 with contemplative eyes, his dark skin rising incongruously above his European collar, was an Indian.
BEN returned to his cheese. He possessed, in addition, a piece of string, a box of matches, a cigarette, three candle ends, a pencil stump, and sevenpence. These alone stood between him and the drizzling evening and eternity.
He sat with his back to the window. He had seen all he wanted until he had got a bit more cheese inside him. But though he could shut sights out from his eyes, he could not shut them out from his mind. Into the pattern of the peeling wallpaper were woven a young man, an old man, a figure leaping up and down on a floor, and an Indian.
‘Well—wot abart them?’ he demanded suddenly.
Why, nothing about them! If you got guessing about all the people you saw, you’d never stop! The young man had called to look over the house, the old man and the figure on the floor had been doing a charade, and the Indian was just one of them students or cricketers. Nothing to it but that!
‘It’s not gettin’ yer meals reg’lar wot does it,’ decided Ben. ‘And this ’ere corf.’
By the time he had finished his cheese he was in a better frame