The Monkey's Paw and Other Tales Of Mystery and the Macabre Read online

  17

  Twin Spirits

  The “Terrace,” consisting of eight gaunt houses, faced the sea, while the back rooms commanded a view of the ancient little town some half-mile distant. The beach, a waste of shingle, was desolate and bare except for a ruined bathing-machine and a few pieces of linen drying in the winter sunshine. In the offing tiny steamers left a trail of smoke, while sailing-craft, their canvas glistening in the sun, slowly melted from the sight. On all these things the “Terrace” turned a stolid eye, and, counting up its gains of the previous season, wondered whether it could hold on to the next. It was a discontented “Terrace,” and had become prematurely soured by a Board which refused them a pier, a bandstand, and illuminated gardens.

  From the front windows of the third storey of No. 1, Mrs Cox, gazing out to sea, sighed softly. The season had been a bad one, and Mr Cox had been even more troublesome than usual owing to tightness in the money market and the avowed preference of local publicans for cash transactions, to assets in chalk and slate. In Mr Cox’s memory there never had been such a drought, and his crop of patience was nearly exhausted.

  He had in his earlier days attempted to do a little work, but his health had suffered so much that his wife had become alarmed for his safety. Work invariably brought on a cough, and as he came from a family whose lungs had formed the staple conversation of their lives, he had been compelled to abandon it, and at last it came to be understood that if he would only consent to amuse himself, and not get into trouble, nothing more would be expected of him. It was not much of a life for a man of spirit, and at times it became so unbearable that Mr Cox would disappear for days together in search of work, returning unsuccessful after many days with nerves shattered in the pursuit.

  Mrs Cox’s meditations were disturbed by a knock at the front door, and, the servants having been discharged for the season, she hurried downstairs to open it, not without a hope of belated lodgers—invalids in search of an east wind. A stout, middle-aged woman in widow’s weeds stood on the door-step.

  “Glad to see you, my dear,” said the visitor, kissing her loudly.

  Mrs Cox gave her a subdued caress in return, not from any lack of feeling, but because she did everything in a quiet and spiritless fashion.

  “I’ve got my Uncle Joseph from London staying with us,” continued the visitor, following her into the hall, “so I just got into the train and brought him down for a blow at the sea.”

  A question on Mrs Cox’s lips died away as a very small man who had been hidden by his niece came into sight.

  “My Uncle Joseph,” said Mrs Berry; “Mr Joseph Piper,” she added.

  Mr Piper shook hands, and after a performance on the door-mat, protracted by reason of a festoon of hemp, followed his hostess into the faded drawing-room.

  “And Mr Cox?” inquired Mrs Berry, in a cold voice.

  Mrs Cox shook her head. “He’s been away this last three days,” she said, flushing slightly.

  “Looking for work?” suggested the visitor.

  Mrs Cox nodded, and, placing the tips of her fingers together, fidgeted gently.

  “Well, I hope he finds it,” said Mrs Berry, with more venom than the remark seemed to require. “Why, where’s your marble clock?”

  Mrs Cox coughed. “It’s being mended,” she said, confusedly.

  Mrs Berry eyed her anxiously. “Don’t mind him, my dear,” she said, with a jerk of her head in the direction of Mr Piper, “he’s nobody. Wouldn’t you like to go out on the beach a little while, uncle?”

  “No,” said Mr Piper.

  “I suppose Mr Cox took the clock for company,” remarked Mrs Berry, after a hostile stare at her relative.

  Mrs Cox sighed and shook her head. It was no use pretending with Mrs Berry.

  “He’ll pawn the clock and anything else he can lay his hands on, and when he’s drunk it up come home to be made a fuss of,” continued Mrs Berry, heatedly; “that’s you men.”

  Her glance was so fiery that Mr Joseph Piper was unable to allow the remark to pass unchallenged.

  “I never pawned a clock,” he said, stroking his little grey head.

  “That’s a lot to boast of, isn’t it?” demanded his niece; “if I hadn’t got anything better than that to boast of I wouldn’t boast at all.”

  Mr Piper said that he was not boasting.

  “It’ll go on like this, my dear, till you’re ruined,” said the sympathetic Mrs Berry, turning to her friend again; “what’ll you do then?”

  “Yes, I know,” said Mrs Cox. “I’ve had a bad season, too, and I’m so anxious about him in spite of it all. I can’t sleep at nights for fearing that he’s in some trouble. I’m sure I laid awake half last night crying.”

  Mrs Berry sniffed loudly, and Mr Piper making a remark in a low voice, turned on him with ferocity.

  “What did you say?” she demanded.

  “I said it does her credit,” said Mr Piper, firmly.

  “I might have known it was nonsense,” retorted his niece, hotly. “Can’t you get him to take the pledge, Mary?”

  “I couldn’t insult him like that,” said Mrs Cox, with a shiver; “you don’t know his pride. He never admits that he drinks; he says that he only takes a little for his indigestion. He’d never forgive me. When he pawns the things he pretends that somebody has stolen them, and the way he goes on at me for my carelessness is alarming. He gets worked up to such a pitch that sometimes I almost think he believes it himself.”

  “Rubbish,” said Mrs Berry, tartly, “you’re too easy with him.”

  Mrs Cox sighed, and, leaving the room, returned with a bottle of wine which was port to the look and red-currant to the taste, and a seed-cake of formidable appearance. The visitors attacked these refreshments mildly, Mr Piper sipping his wine with an obtrusive carefulness which his niece rightly regarded as a reflection upon her friend’s hospitality.

  “What Cox wants is a shock,” she said; “you’ve dropped some crumbs on the carpet, uncle.”

  Mr Piper apologised and said he had got his eye on them, and would pick them up when he had finished and pick up his niece’s at the same time to prevent her stooping. Mrs Berry, in an aside to Mrs Cox, said that her Uncle Joseph’s tongue had got itself disliked on both sides of the family.

  “And I’d give him one,” said Mrs Berry, returning again to the subject of Mr Cox and shocks. “He has a gentleman’s life of it here, and he would look rather silly if you were sold up and he had to do something for his living.”

  “It’s putting away the things that is so bad,” said Mrs Cox, shaking her head; “that clock won’t last him out, I know; he’ll come back and take some of the other things. Every spring I have to go through his pockets for the tickets and get the things out again, and I mustn’t say a word for fear of hurting his feelings. If I do he goes off again.”

  “If I were you,” said Mrs Berry, emphatically, “I’d get behind with the rent or something and have the brokers in. He’d look rather astonished if he came home and saw a broker’s man sitting in a chair—”

  “He’d look more astonished if he saw him sitting in a flower-pot,” suggested the caustic Mr Piper.

  “I couldn’t do that,” said Mrs Cox. “I couldn’t stand the disgrace, even though I knew I could pay him out. As it is, Cox is always setting his family above mine.”

  Mrs Berry, without ceasing to stare Mr Piper out of countenance, shook her head, and, folding her arms, again stated her opinion that Mr Cox wanted a shock, and expressed a great yearning to be the humble means of giving him one.

  “If you can’t have the brokers in, get somebody to pretend to be one,” she said, sharply; “that would prevent him pawning any more things at any rate. Why wouldn’t he do?” she added, nodding at her uncle.

  Anxiety on Mrs Cox’s face was exaggerated on that of Mr Piper.

  “Let uncle pretend to be a broker’s man in for the rent,” continued the excitable lady, rapidly. “When Mr Cox turns up after his spree, tell h
im what his doings have brought you to, and say you’ll have to go to the workhouse.”

  “I look like a broker’s man, don’t I?” said Mr Piper, in a voice more than tinged with sarcasm.

  “Yes,” said his niece, “that’s what put it into my head.”

  “It’s very kind of you, dear, and very kind of Mr Piper,” said Mrs Cox, “but I couldn’t think of it, I really couldn’t.”

  “Uncle would be delighted,” said Mrs Berry, with a wilful blinking of plain facts. “He’s got nothing better to do; it’s a nice house and good food, and he could sit at the open window and sniff at the sea all day long.”

  Mr Piper sniffed even as she spoke, but not at the sea.

  “And I’ll come for him the day after tomorrow,” said Mrs Berry.

  It was the old story of the stronger will: Mrs Cox after a feeble stand gave way altogether, and Mr Piper’s objections were demolished before he had given them full utterance. Mrs Berry went off alone after dinner, secretly glad to have got rid of Mr Piper, who was making a self-invited stay at her house of indefinite duration; and Mr Piper, in his new role of broker’s man, essayed the part with as much help as a clay pipe and a pint of beer could afford him.

  That day and the following he spent amid the faded grandeurs of the drawing-room, gazing longingly at the wide expanse of beach and the tumbling sea beyond. The house was almost uncannily quiet, an occasional tinkle of metal or crash of china from the basement giving the only indication of the industrious Mrs Cox; but on the day after the quiet of the house was broken by the return of its master, whose annoyance, when he found the drawing-room clock stolen and a man in possession, was alarming in its vehemence. He lectured his wife severely on her mismanagement, and after some hesitation announced his intention of going through her books. Mrs Cox gave them to him, and, armed with pen and ink and four square inches of pink blotting-paper, he performed feats of balancing which made him a very Blondin of finance.

  “I shall have to get something to do,” he said, gloomily, laying down his pen.

  “Yes, dear,” said his wife.

  Mr Cox leaned back in his chair and, wiping his pen on the blotting-paper, gazed in a speculative fashion round the room. “Have you any money?” he inquired.

  For reply his wife rummaged in her pocket and after a lengthy search produced a bunch of keys, a thimble, a needle-case, two pocket-handkerchiefs, and a halfpenny. She put this last on the table, and Mr Cox, whose temper had been mounting steadily, threw it to the other end of the room.

  “I can’t help it,” said Mrs Cox, wiping her eyes. “I’m sure I’ve done all I could to keep a home together. I can’t even raise money on anything.”

  Mr Cox, who had been glancing round the room again, looked up sharply.

  “Why not?” he inquired.

  “The broker’s man,” said Mrs Cox, nervously; “he’s made an inventory of everything, and he holds us responsible.”

  Mr Cox leaned back in his chair. “This is a pretty state of things,” he blurted, wildly. “Here have I been walking my legs off looking for work, any work so long as it’s honest labour, and I come back to find a broker’s man sitting in my own house and drinking up my beer.”

  He rose and walked up and down the room, and Mrs Cox, whose nerves were hardly equal to the occasion, slipped on her bonnet and announced her intention of trying to obtain a few necessaries on credit. Her husband waited in indignant silence until he heard the front door close behind her, and then stole softly upstairs to have a look at the fell destroyer of his domestic happiness.

  Mr Piper, who was already very tired of his imprisonment, looked up curiously as he heard the door pushed open, and discovered an elderly gentleman with an appearance of great stateliness staring at him. In the ordinary way he was one of the meekest of men, but the insolence of this stare was outrageous. Mr Piper, opening his mild blue eyes wide, stared back. Whereupon Mr Cox, fumbling in his vest-pocket, found a pair of folders, and putting them astride his nose, gazed at the pseudo-broker’s man with crushing effect.

  “What do you want here?” he asked, at length. “Are you the father of one of the servants?”

  “I’m the father of all the servants in the house,” said Mr Piper, sweetly.

  “Don’t answer me, sir,” said Mr Cox, with much pomposity; “you’re an eyesore to an honest man, a vulture, a harpy.”

  Mr Piper pondered.

  “How do you know what’s an eyesore to an honest man?” he asked, at length.

  Mr Cox smiled scornfully.

  “Where is your warrant or order, or whatever you call it?” he demanded.

  “I’ve shown it to Mrs Cox,” said Mr Piper.

  “Show it to me,” said the other.

  “I’ve complied with the law by showing it once,” said Mr Piper, bluffing, “and I’m not going to show it again.”

  Mr Cox stared at him disdainfully, beginning at his little sleek grey head and travelling slowly downwards to his untidy boots and then back again. He repeated this several times, until Mr Piper, unable to bear it patiently, began to eye him in the same fashion.

  “What are you looking at, vulture?” demanded the incensed Mr Cox.

  “Three spots o’ grease on a dirty weskit,” replied Mr Piper, readily, “a pair o’ bow legs in a pair o’ somebody else’s trousers, and a shabby coat wore under the right arm, with carrying off”—he paused a moment as though to make sure—“with carrying off of a drawing room clock.”

  He regretted this retort almost before he had finished it, and rose to his feet with a faint cry of alarm as the heated Mr Cox first locked the door and put the key in his pocket and then threw up the window.

  “Vulture!” he cried, in a terrible voice.

  “Yes, sir,” said the trembling Mr Piper.

  Mr Cox waved his hand towards the window.

  “Fly,” he said, briefly.

  Mr Piper tried to form his white lips into a smile, and his knees trembled beneath him.

  “Did you hear what I said?” demanded Mr Cox. “What are you waiting for? If you don’t fly out of the window I’ll throw you out.”

  “Don’t touch me,” screamed Mr Piper, retreating behind a table, “it’s all a mistake. All a joke. I’m not a broker’s man. Ha! ha!”

  “Eh?” said the other; “not a broker’s man? What are you, then?”

  In eager, trembling tones Mr Piper told him, and, gathering confidence as he proceeded, related the conversation which had led up to his imposture. Mr Cox listened in a dazed fashion, and as he concluded threw himself into a chair, and gave way to a terrible outburst of grief.

  “The way I’ve worked for that woman,” he said, brokenly, “to think it should come to this! The deceit of the thing; the wickedness of it. My heart is broken; I shall never be the same man again—never!”

  Mr Piper made a sympathetic noise.

  “It’s been very unpleasant for me,” he said, “but my niece is so masterful.”

  “I don’t blame you,” said Mr Cox, kindly; “shake hands.”

  They shook hands solemnly, and Mr Piper, muttering something about a draught, closed the window.

  “You might have been killed in trying to jump out of that window,” said Mr Cox; “fancy the feelings of those two deceitful women then.”

  “Fancy my feelings!” said Mr Piper, with a shudder. “Playing with fire, that’s what I call it. My niece is coming this afternoon; it would serve her right if you gave her a fright by telling her you had killed me. Perhaps it would be a lesson to her not to be so officious.”

  “It would serve ’em both right,” agreed Mr Cox; “only Mrs Berry might send for the police.”

  “I never thought of that,” said Mr Piper fondling his chin.

  “I might frighten my wife,” mused the amiable Mr Cox; “it would be a lesson to her not to be deceitful again. And, by Jove, I’ll get some money from her to escape with; I know she’s got some, and if she hasn’t she will have in a day or two. There’s a little p
ub at Newstead, eight miles from here, where we could be as happy as fighting-cocks with a fiver or two. And while we’re there enjoying ourselves my wife’ll be half out of her mind trying to account for your disappearance to Mrs Berry.”

  “It sounds all right,” said Mr Piper, cautiously, “but she won’t believe you. You don’t look wild enough to have killed anybody.”

  “I’ll look wild enough when the time comes,” said the other, nodding. “You get on to the ‘White Horse’ at Newstead and wait for me. I’ll let you out at the back way. Come along.”

  “But you said it was eight miles,” said Mr Piper.

  “Eight miles easy walking,” rejoined Mr Cox. “Or there’s a train at three o’clock. There’s a sign post at the corner there, and if you don’t hurry I shall be able to catch you up. Goodbye.”

  He patted the hesitating Mr Piper on the back, and letting him out through the garden, indicated the road. Then he returned to the drawing-room, and carefully rumpling his hair, tore his collar from the stud, overturned a couple of chairs and a small table, and sat down to wait as patiently as he could for the return of his wife.

  He waited about twenty minutes, and then he heard a key turn in the door below and his wife’s footsteps slowly mounting the stairs. By the time she reached the drawing room his tableau was complete, and she fell back with a faint shriek at the frenzied figure which met her eyes.

  “Hush,” said the tragedian, putting his finger to his lips.

  “Henry, what is it?” cried Mrs Cox. “What is the matter?”

  “The broker’s man,” said her husband, in a thrilling whisper. “We had words—he struck me. In a fit of fury I—I—choked him.”