The House Opposite. J. Farjeon Jefferson

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СКАЧАТЬ wish I could peel it orf!’ muttered Ben …

      Hallo, though! Was it all imagination? Ben suddenly ducked up a side street. Two large arms caught him.

      ‘Now, then, my lad! What’s up?’

      It was a policeman’s voice. You can always tell a policeman’s voice. Solid and slow, and all right if you’re all right.

      ‘Beg yer pardon,’ apologised Ben. ‘Didn’t see yer.’

      ‘Of course, you didn’t,’ replied the policeman. ‘You had your eyes shut.’

      ‘Go on!’ retorted Ben.

      ‘Anybody after you?’

      ‘’Oo?’

      ‘That’s what I’m asking.’

      ‘Yus. No. ’Ere, let go me arm. It’s mine, ain’t it?’

      ‘Yes, your arm’s yours,’ admitted the policeman, though he still retained it; ‘but can you say the same about that parcel you’re carrying?’

      ‘Eh?’

      ‘That parcel?’

      ‘Wot abart it?’

      ‘Is it yours?’

      ‘Corse it’s mine!’

      ‘You didn’t take it from anybody?’

      ‘Yus.’

      ‘Who?’

      ‘Cheesemonger.’

      The policeman frowned.

      ‘That’s a pretty smart parcel, isn’t it,’ he remarked, suspiciously, ‘for a bit of cheese?’

      ‘Corse it is,’ answered Ben. ‘’E knoo ’oo ’e was servin’. Smell it!’

      He thrust the parcel abruptly under the policeman’s nose. The policeman, unprepared for this sudden onslaught of cheddar, dropped Ben’s arm. Escape was now easy, and effected.

      Ben did not know, as he darted away, whether the policeman made any attempt to follow him. He hoped the test had proved his innocence, and would willingly have waited until the cheese had done its work; but the policeman was merely his second consideration, at the moment, for out of the corner of his eye he had spied somebody far more significant—somebody from whom it was infinitely more important to escape. There was no mistake about it this time. Ben had seen the Indian. Whether the Indian had also seen him he was less able to say.

      Well, if the Indian had seen him, he mustn’t see him any more! That was the one obvious thought in Ben’s mind as he now began a definite policy of evasion. He turned away from Jowle Street. Then he angled towards it, then turned away again. Following a zigzag course, a course of which no crow could have conception, he utilised every corner and every alley and every by-street. Once he even ducked down a subway, coming up at the other end like a diver. He got hopelessly lost, but that didn’t matter so long as he also lost his pursuer. And at length he decided that he had lost him, and he paused under a lamp-post to breathe.

      ‘Gotter git back now,’ he communed with himself. ‘Wunner where I am?’

      The lamp went up as he wondered. The sudden light illuminated some letters on the wall opposite the lamp-post. The letters spelt:

      ‘JOWLE STREET.’

      Only the letters weren’t quite as distinct as you read them here. Years of dirt and depression had tried to wipe them out.

      ‘Wot—can’t I never get away from it?’ blinked Ben.

      It did seem, this time, as though Fate had taken a hand!

      He peered cautiously along the road. He was at the ‘No. 1’ end of it. He’d only used the other end up till now, the end where there wasn’t a lamp-post. That was why he hadn’t recognised it. From the spot where he stood, No. 29 was on the left, and No. 26 was on the right. There was nobody about. He could nip along to No. 29, slip round to the back, and be in at the window in a couple of shakes. But, on the point of putting this simple plan into execution, he paused. No. 26 beckoned to him with almost equal insistence.

      He stared at it. Like the Indian, it bore all the uncanniness of the unknown and its very mystery was hypnotic. He knew about No. 29. Well, about bits of it. But he didn’t know anything about No. 26—he didn’t know what it was like inside, or who lived there, or what happened when you got in. Would the person who opened the door ask you your name or seize you by the throat? Of course, it didn’t matter. Ben had nothing to do with No. 26, really … But it was funny how that house seemed to face him everywhere. His thoughts as well as his eyes.

      He decided to have one close view of it, just to make sure there were no bloodstains or anything, and then to ‘go home’. Crossing the road to the even number side, he slithered along till the numbers climbed to 26. Then, at a blackened railing, he stopped. One—two—three—four—five stone steps. Same as his side. Mounting to a flat space before the front door. Same as his side. And then the front door itself. Again, same as his … Not, not quite the same as his side, this time. This door was a bit more solid like. And then the slit for the letters was higher up. A good deal higher up. Funny place for the slit, that. Shouldn’t think the postman’d much care for it. He’d have to lift his arm more than shoulder high. Almost on a level with his eyes … his eyes … eyes …

      ‘Criky!’ muttered Ben, and backed suddenly.

      He backed into something. Something that had come along quietly behind him. The collision was violent, and his parcel fell to the ground. Only by grabbing at the railing was Ben able to prevent himself from following the parcel. Then he swerved round, to see what the new trouble was.

      He found it was the nasty old man.

      The old man looked at him angrily. He, also, had dropped a parcel. He seemed very annoyed about it.

      ‘Hey! What are you up to?’ he cried.

      Ben lurched down and regained his parcel, and the old man lurched down at the same time and regained his.

      ‘Well, why don’t you answer, my man?’ rasped the indignant one. ‘What were you doing on that doorstep?’

      ‘Lookin’ at the number,’ replied Ben. It seemed a good idea. But the old man did not think it was such a good idea.

      ‘What for?’ he demanded.

      ‘Ter see wot it was,’ explained Ben.

      ‘Yes, but what did you want to see what it was for?’

      ‘So’s I’d know it.’

      The old man glared. Ben glared back. After all, there was no law against looking at house numbers, was there?

      ‘Well, now you know it,’ said the old man, ‘what are you going to do about it?’

      ‘Go away from it,’ СКАЧАТЬ