Ben Sees It Through. J. Farjeon Jefferson

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СКАЧАТЬ seizing his arm, she started him off again up the other fork of the road.

      They ran for another ten minutes. Then,

      ‘How’s your breath?’ she whispered.

      Hers seemed unimpaired.

      ‘Gorn,’ he gasped.

      ‘Stick it for just a minute more,’ she urged.

      She took his arm and guided his tottering feet round a corner into a narrow, rutted lane. Fifty yards up the lane she suddenly stopped and pulled him towards a clump of trees. Under the trees was a big black shadow. It was a barn.

      A few seconds later they were in the barn, and Ben lay panting on a little mound of hay.

      Molly sat beside him. When he tried to speak, she put her fingers on his mouth. Ben yielded gratefully to the silent injunction, and slowly gasped back to life.

      ‘Now, then,’ said Molly at last, ‘let’s try and straighten things out a bit. Only we must speak low, or we may be heard from the road. You didn’t really have anything to do with that murder, did you?’

      ‘Don’t be silly,’ answered Ben.

      ‘Of course you couldn’t have,’ she nodded. ‘You’ve been white ever since I’ve known you. Which is more than I can say for myself!’

      ‘Now, don’t start that, miss,’ replied Ben. ‘There ain’t nothink wrong with you!’

      ‘Oh, no! I only pick pockets.’

      ‘Go on! You’ve give that up, ain’tcher?’

      ‘Ses you! Well, p’r’aps. But we won’t worry about that just yet. I want to hear things.’

      ‘Sime ’ere! ’Ow did yer git ter England?’

      ‘Like you.’

      ‘Eh?’

      ‘On a boat.’

      ‘Yus, but—’

      ‘Your boat started first, I know. But mine was a bigger boat, and we raced you.’

      ‘Go on!’

      ‘It’s true. I’ve been in Southampton two days.’

      ‘I’m blowed!’

      ‘Well, try and blow a little less loudly!’ she warned him. ‘We’re not out of the wood yet!’

      She crept away from him as she spoke and groped her way to the barn door. Then she came back again, and reported all clear.

      ‘If you was ’ere afore me,’ said Ben, who had been thinking, ‘why wasn’t yer on the dock ter meet me?’

      ‘Oh, I’ve not been in easy street,’ she answered, cryptically. ‘I would have met you if I could have. As it was, I got there just too late, and then I had to pick up the threads.’

      ‘Yer mean clues, like?’

      ‘That’s it. And they weren’t nice clues! When I heard about the murder, and that a sailor had jumped out of the taxi and disappeared—well, I guessed by the description that it was you. They’ve got you tabbed, Ben! We’ll have to do something about it.’

      ‘Yer mean, me descripshun’s aht?’

      ‘I’m afraid so.’

      ‘But I ain’t done nothink, miss!’

      ‘Wasn’t it Molly last time?’

      ‘That’s right.’

      ‘Well, there’s no need to go back on a good thing! No, Ben, you haven’t done anything, but your whole trouble, ever since I’ve known you, is that you get mixed up with other people who have. You’ve got mixed up with this Spaniard—’

      ‘Yer mean, Don Diablo?’

      ‘That’s a good name for him! Yes, Don Diablo! And you’re mixed up with me—’

      ‘Now, look ’ere, miss—Molly,’ interposed Ben, seriously, ‘we ain’t goin’ ter ’ave none o’ that. You ain’t doin’ no more pickpocketin’, see, and wot you done afore weren’t your fault.’

      ‘Oh? Then whose fault was it?’

      ‘The fault o’ the street yer was born in.’

      ‘It’s a nice idea! But—were you born in Park Lane?’

      ‘’Oo?’

      ‘Your street didn’t turn you into a thief!’

      ‘Well, yer see—I comes from Nelson,’ mumbled Ben. He hated any kind of washing, even white-washing. ‘Any’ow, we ain’t thinkin’ o’ the past, we’re thinkin’ o’ the fuchure—’

      ‘When we ought to be thinking of the present,’ interrupted Molly. ‘How did you come to be in the taxi with—with the man who was killed?’

      ‘Yus, that was a funny bizziness right from the start, miss—’

      ‘Molly!’

      ‘Eh? Oh! Molly.’ He liked her little interruptions. They kept things warm, like. ‘Well, ’e ses he can find me a job, and so ’e arsks me ter come along with ’im, see, but fust ’e buys me a new cap—’

      ‘Why, did you lose your old one?’

      ‘Yus. It’s gorn ter see Father Nepchune.’

      ‘But why should he buy you a new one?’

      ‘Well, ’e was with me when the old ’un went. Barges inter me, and so ’e ses ’e must git me another. And we gits in the taxi, and ’e buys me the new cap—’

      ‘The one you’ve got on?’

      ‘That’s right. Bit of orl right, ain’t it? And then, jest as we’re goin’ ter the stashun, I suddinly thinks of you, like, and that letter I was goin’ ter ’ave waitin’ fer yer at the Post Orfice, so aht I nips ter send it orf, and I sends it orf, givin’ yer the address o’ that job I was goin’ ter, and then—blimy, I gits a shock proper.’

      ‘What happened?’

      ‘No good arskin’ me!’ muttered Ben, sepulchrally. ‘It ’appened while I was writin’ that there letter. I—I gits back inter the cab, see, and I ses “Ain’t I bin quick?” and ’e—’e jest stares back at me from the nex’ world, like. So I jest thinks, “Oi,” and ’ops it. Well, I arsk yer?’

      ‘I can guess what you felt like,’ she answered, with a little shiver. ‘And then?’

      ‘I СКАЧАТЬ