Beggar’s Choice

VIII

The path turned almost at once. It was just wide enough to take two people abreast. We walked along, and neither of us spoke. There was a dense undergrowth on either side.

The driver swung his torch carelessly. Now that I had him walking beside me, I could be sure that he was not the fat man whom I had seen in the tobacconist’s-he wasn’t nearly fat enough. For all I could see, he was exactly like any other taxidriver. He had spoken three times, and only a word or two each time. He seemed to have a cold-his voice sounded thick. I thought he might have been Benno, but I couldn’t be sure. The fat man’s voice still bothered me. I knew it, and I didn’t.

We took another turn, and the light flickered on to a rough hut or shelter. The door stood open, and as I stepped across the threshold, I knew that I was not the first arrival. The driver had switched off his light, and the place was in pitchy darkness, until a match spurted. A man’s hand came round it, sheltering it and keeping the light down. I could only see the hand, part of the arm, and a black hump of head and shoulder.

The hand moved, and I saw a lantern-an old-fashioned affair with a tallow candle and a dark slide. The match caught the wick, and in a moment the light was turned in my direction, and the dark slide came down with a jerk. I saw four bare walls, a wooden table, one chair, and a rough bench. Between the bench and the table, the black bulk of a man, with a hat well pulled down over his face and a coat turned up about his chin. He had some sort of scarf too, and the whole effect was of a large shapelessness.

I thought it was the fat man, but I couldn’t have sworn to him. He sat down on the bench, and as the chair was on my side of the table, I reached out for it and sat down too. The candlelight shone straight into my face. As far as I could see, we were alone. The driver certainly hadn’t come into the hut.

I reached back and shut the rickety door.

“Well?” I said.

“Mr. Fairfax?”

I nodded.

“Mr. Carthew Fairfax?”

I nodded again. If it was the fat man, he was disguising his voice. I thought he was disguising it. One voice sounds very much like another if you get it down to a sort of flat whisper, and that’s what he was doing. It was very tiresome to listen to.

“Well, Mr. Fairfax,” he said, “I’m sorry to have brought you such a long way, but my client’s interests-you see, the matter is confidential.”

“Yes-you said so on the telephone.”

He made a little pause at that. I thought he didn’t like being identified with Mr. Smith and his telephone conversation. I began to feel sure that he was Mr. Smith, but not so sure of his being the fat man at the tobacconist’s. He went on in a moment.

“It probably occurred to you when you saw the advertisement. Five hundred pounds is a large sum of money.”

I didn’t say anything. I thought he seemed vexed as he went on:

“My client is willing to pay this large sum, but he wishes to be assured in advance of your absolute discretion.”

“What does he want me to do?”

“He would like to have your word of honor that you will treat the whole of this interview as confidential, whether you accept his offer or not.”

I thought for a moment. Suppose they were planning murder… Well, I didn’t really suppose it, but the thing certainly had the air of being on the wrong side of the law.

I said, “I can’t give an absolute undertaking. I want to know a lot more before I can do that.”

“That’s very difficult.”

“Why is it difficult? You say your man is offering five hundred pounds, and I want to know what he’s offering it for. If it’s too confidential for you to tell me, the thing’s off so far as I’m concerned.”

He put up his hand and then began to fidget with the lantern, pushing it a little nearer me and fiddling with the slide. Then he went on in that embarrassed whisper.

“My client-” He jerked the lantern back. “My client-” And there he stuck.

I wondered if it was murder.

“Well,” I said, “he’s either done something shady, or else he wants me to do something shady for him. Which is it?”

I thought perhaps that would clear the air a bit, and it did.

“Neither-that is-let me explain-”

“I should be glad if you would.”

He got it out this time.

“My client has been unfortunate enough to become liable to a term of imprisonment-”

“Yes?” I said, and I tried to make my voice as encouraging as possible.

“He doesn’t wish to go to prison.”

“Naturally.”

“He is willing to pay five hundred pounds for a substitute.”

So that was it. I had thought of several things, but I wasn’t expecting that. There was a nasty drab, penal sound about it. A feeling that even the Embankment was preferable as a place of residence to the shelter of one of His Majesty’s prisons came over me pretty strongly. Besides, I didn’t see how they were going to work a thing like that. I hoped I wasn’t going to be told I was the double of a criminal who hadn’t even the courage of his crimes.

“Well, Mr. Fairfax?”

“What has your man done?” said I.

He hummed and hawed a bit, as I thought he would, and I felt my temper getting up. It always riles me when people won’t come to the point. If a man doesn’t mind doing a dirty job, he oughtn’t to mind talking about it. The fellow turned my stomach with his humming and hawing.

“What is it?” I said sharply. “Murder?”

That rattled him. He drew back.

“Murder? No! What are you thinking of?”

I laughed.

“You’re not very communicative, you know. If I’m to have committed a crime, I shall want to know what it is. It seems to me that that is only reasonable. You see, there are some crimes that aren’t just in my line.”

I suppose it was stupid of me to be sarcastic-it always puts a man’s back up worse than anything. He got back on me all right when he said,

“You can afford to be particular?” And then after a moment, “You were Lymington’s secretary, weren’t you?”

I nodded. That beastly candle shone full in my face, and I was afraid I had flushed.

He leaned forward with a change of manner.

“Look here, Fairfax, are you in a position to refuse five hundred pounds? You could get away abroad and start fresh.”

“After I came out of prison?”

He waved that away. There was something familiar in the gesture. I was sure he was the man I had seen in the tobacconist’s, and I was sure that that wasn’t the first time I had seen him, but I couldn’t place him yet. He wasn’t any one I knew, but I had certainly seen him and heard his voice. He talked about his “client,” but he seemed too blundering to be a lawyer.

“You’d get off with three years if you’d any luck.”

That got my goat. Three years! I could have driven my fist into his fat face.

“I’ve not had much luck so far,” I said, “so I don’t think I’ll count on it now.”

Then it came over me that they were offering me under two hundred a year to go to prison, and it made me mad to be reckoned so cheap. I suppose he saw something in my face, for he pushed back the bench and stood up. I think his feet were cold, and seeing him afraid like that made me think that the driver was out of earshot. And then next minute I thought I was mistaken, for I heard the door behind me open softly. I looked over my shoulder and saw about an inch of black night showing between the door and the jamb. I couldn’t see anything else. The door didn’t move; but I thought that some one was standing there listening.

I turned back again. It didn’t matter to me who listened.

“Well?” I said. “What’s my crime? You haven’t told me yet.”

“You agree?” said he with a show of eagerness.

“I don’t agree or disagree till I know where I am.”

He sat down again.

“Well, just suppose a case. Let us suppose that a person- who we needn’t name-has anticipated a sum of money which would in all probability have passed to him legally within a year or two.”

“All right,” I said, “he anticipated some money. In other words he pinched it.”

He waved again. I thought the door moved behind me.

“Do you mind telling me how?” I proceeded.

“There was a matter of a check,” said he.

“Forgery runs to more than three years,” said I-and I thought the door moved again.

I looked back, but it was still just ajar. The smell of violets came in out of the dark outside. There are no violets in a Surrey wood in September; but there had been a scent of violets in the car. I did not think that it was the driver who had opened the door. I thought that there was a woman standing there listening, and I wondered who she was.

The fat man spread out his hands.

“A first offense-it would be that, I suppose.”

“I really don’t know. You haven’t told me who your forger is.”

“That,” he said, “is not necessary.”

“Or how you propose to persuade a jury to accept your-substitute.”

He had an answer ready for that. I suppose he had prepared it.

“Let us put it this way. Money has been withdrawn from a certain account-let us call it Mr. A’s account, and Mr. A’s suspicions have become aroused. He knows that a check has been forged. He is determined to find out who forged it and to prosecute. His suspicions will inevitably lead him to the right person unless they are diverted to a substitute-”

He talked like a man who has learnt a thing by heart. Every now and then he slid a paper into the light and looked at it.

“And how do you propose they should be diverted?”

“If a second check were presented-a second forgery-in circumstances which plainly indicated the-substitute, Mr. A would naturally conclude that his suspicions had been groundless, and that the two checks were the work of the same hand.”

I put my fist on the table and looked at it.

“My hand?”

He nodded and sat back with the air of having got the thing off his chest.

“Thanks,” I said. “I think not.” And I got up to go.

“Five hundred pounds,” he said, and rapped the table.

Like an echo I heard Fay say, “Five hundred pounds-I must have five hundred pounds.”

It was a relief to get the light out of my eyes. Standing, it didn’t worry me. I looked over the top of the lantern, but I couldn’t see his face. He had both hands on the table and was leaning over them. I saw his hat, his bulky shoulders, and his stubby hands, and I stood there, pulled this way and that. He said five hundred pounds, and Fay said five hundred pounds. He was offering it, and she was going to everlasting smash if she didn’t get it. Then prison-three years of it-a perfectly damnable thought. And then… Not much use being free to starve. I was pulled this way and that.

I opened my mouth to speak. The thing I was going to say never got said. All at once I knew I couldn’t do it.

I said “No,” and turned on my heel and went out.