No. 17

‘Hallo!’ exclaimed the policeman. ‘Wot’s this?’

For a moment, Ben was wordless—he never did feel really comfortable with policemen—and the woman explained.

‘Oh, he’s all right,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about him. But I’m glad you’ve come—there’s been funny goings on here, I can tell you.’

‘Yes, that’s why I’ve come,’ answered the constable. ‘This is pickpockets’ weather, and I’ve seen some funny characters round about here.’ He looked at Ben suspiciously. ‘I ain’t too sure this isn’t one of ’em!’

‘’Oo? Me?’ expostulated Ben indignantly. ‘Well, if that ain’t sorse! ’Ere I stays, ter proteck a gal, and now you comes along—’

‘Steady, steady!’ interposed the constable. ‘There’s funny people about, I tell you, and I’ve seen some of them about this place. One ran out of this inn just now, but I couldn’t catch him.’

‘Yes, there was something funny about him,’ agreed the woman. ‘He left in a hurry, without even finishing his meal.’

‘And I expect this man would have left in a hurry too,’ observed the constable, ironically. ‘Open your hand! What have you got there?’

‘Wot, this?’ answered Ben. ‘Picked it up in that room there jest now. ’Ere—don’t snatch!’

The constable whipped the piece of cardboard out of Ben’s hand.

‘Hallo!’ he exclaimed. ‘What’s this?’

‘My age,’ replied Ben.

‘Now, then, don’t be funny,’ frowned the constable.

‘Well, ’ow do I know wot it is,’ retorted Ben. ‘You ain’t give me time to look yet. Got it off the floor—’

‘Yes, so you say,’ interposed the constable, and turned to the woman. ‘Have you seen this before?’

‘No, never.’

‘He says he picked it off the floor in the next room.’

‘Well, he may have done so.’

‘Were you in the next room before him?’

‘Yes, I was.’

‘And you didn’t see anything on the floor?’

‘No. But it was dark. I didn’t look everywhere. I expect it belonged to that other man.’

‘Oh, you do? Well, that’s got to be proved, and meanwhile it’s on this man—’

‘Yes, but what is it, anyway?’ asked the woman, trying to get a peep at it.

‘Something—mighty queer,’ replied the constable darkly. ‘Don’t ask no questions, and you won’t be told no lies. But I dare say our friend here—’

He turned to Ben. But Ben was gone. He had decided to forgo his Carlton luncheon.

3

Ben Finds His Port

Swallowed completely by the fog, for the first time Ben appreciated it. Perhaps he had left the inn more hurriedly than wisely, and the sacrifice of a good square meal certainly rankled in his hungry breast. But Ben liked a quiet life—he had only chosen the sea because it took him away from the land—and it had seemed to him that he had been caught up in a network of uncomfortable matters which were no concern of his, and for which he was in no way responsible. That being so, he argued that the best thing he could do was to cut quite clear of them, and to begin, so to speak, afresh.

The constable may have been talking through his hat, of course. He may have been saying more than he meant. But, contrariwise, he may have meant more than he said, and Ben did not see why he should take any chances. Particularly with a nice, comfortable, all-concealing fog just outside.

So into the fog he had slipped, and through it he now ran, in the innocent belief that his troubles were over. He managed to steer an uninterrupted course for a full ten minutes, and then the person he bumped into was nothing more alarming than an elderly gentleman with a bad corn.

‘Where are you going to?’ barked the elderly gentleman.

‘Sime spot as you was,’ replied Ben, hunger and the fog rendering him something of a daredevil.

As he hurried on, he recalled the gleam of the elderly gentleman’s gold watch-chain, and he wondered how many square meals that could have been converted into.

‘It’s a lucky thing fer gold watches,’ he reflected, ‘that me mother taught me ter say me prayers reg’lar!’

Presently, feeling secure, he slackened his pace; and indeed this was necessary, for although he could not see London, he felt it beginning to envelop him. Houses loomed up, when he hit one side of the road or the other. People became more frequent, and meetings ceased to be events, or bumpings to surprise. Traffic groped and hooted along the road, lamp-posts dawned—a mile away one moment and upon you the next—and, every now and again, voices were suddenly raised in warning, or anxiety, or irony.

The fog entered Ben’s brain, as well as his eyes. Soon, he was walking in a sort of a trance. If you had stopped him and asked where he was walking, he could not have told you, and he might have had difficulty, also, in telling you why he walked—until, at any rate, he had had several seconds to consider the matter. He was travelling very much like a rudderless ship, borne by the tide into whatever port, or on to whatever rocks, that tide decreed.

But, at last, Ben’s dormant will did assert itself for a brief instant, though even here Fate selected the particular restaurant into which he turned, to add another link to the strange chain that was binding him. It was, of course, a cheap restaurant, for an out-of-work seaman can patronise no other, and it was nearly empty. Ben shuffled to a pew-like seat with a high back, sat down, and ordered a cup of tea and as much bread-and-butter as would be covered by fourpence. Then he settled himself to his simple meal, comparing it regretfully with the more lavish repast he had missed earlier in the day.

He was seated near the end of the long, narrow room, and only one table lay beyond—a table completely hidden by the high back of his bench. He had vaguely imagined this end table to be unoccupied, but suddenly a word fell upon his ears, and he paused in the act of conveying a substantial piece of bread-and-butter to his mouth. For the word he had heard was ‘Seventeen.’

‘That’s rum,’ he thought. ‘Seems as if I can’t git away from the blinkin’ number terday!’

He cocked his ears. Soon, another voice made a remark—a girl’s voice this time. The first voice had been a man’s.

‘Isn’t there any other way?’ asked the girl’s voice.

It was sullen and dissatisfied, and the man’s voice replied somewhat tartly:

‘What other way do you suggest?’

Apparently the girl made no response, for the man repeated his question, as though nervous and irritated.

‘Oh, I don’t care,’ said the girl’s voice, in accents suggesting the accompaniment of a shrug. ‘It’s all the same in the end.’

‘That’s where you’re a fool!’ rasped the man’s voice. It was kept low, but Ben had no difficulty in hearing the words. ‘It’s not the same in the end. There’s a hell of a difference!’

‘To you, I dare say.’

‘And to you, to. Why—’ The remark was interrupted by the dull sound of a train. Evidently, there was a line running past the back of the shop. ‘That’s a bit funny, isn’t it?’ exclaimed the man’s voice.

‘What’s funny?’ demanded the girl’s voice.

‘Why—that train.’

‘I can’t see where the fun comes in.’

‘’Ear, ’ear,’ thought Ben. ‘Wot’s funny in a trine—hexcep’ when it’s on time?’

The voices ceased, and the piece of bread-and-butter completed its postponed journey to Ben’s mouth. While it was followed by another, and another, Ben tried to visualise the owners of the voices. It may be mentioned that he visualised them all wrong. The man developed in his mind like Charlie Peace, and the girl like Princess Mary.

He began to fall into a reverie, but all at once he cocked his ears again. The conversation behind him was being resumed.

‘Well, well, we needn’t decide this minute,’ muttered the man, ‘but the only thing I can see is Number Seventeen.’

‘Blimy, and it’s the on’y thing I can ’ear,’ thought Ben.

‘I’ll tell you what it is,’ retorted the girl. ‘You’re getting nervy.’

‘Nervy, is it?’

‘Yes. Nothing’s happened to worry about yet. Why, we’ve only just—’

‘Quiet!’ whispered the man fiercely. ‘Haven’t you got any sense at all?’

After a short silence, the girl’s voice remarked, with irony:

‘I haven’t had much up till now. But it’s coming.’

‘A bit cryptic, aren’t you, my girl?’ observed the man.

‘Then here’s something else cryptic,’ she answered. ‘Why will some people persist in wearing blinkers?’

‘Now we’re goin’ ter ’ave a little dust-up,’ thought Ben. ‘Two ter one on the gal!’

The dust-up did not materialise, however. Instead, a bulky form materialised, walking up the shop. It was the bulky form of a policeman, and the policeman entered Ben’s pew, and sat down opposite him.

‘Well, I’m blowed!’ thought Ben. ‘This is my lucky dye! Thank Gawd, the bobbies don’t turn hup in seventeens!’

The policeman looked at Ben, and nodded.

‘Pretty thick outside there, isn’t it?’ he remarked.

‘Yus,’ answered Ben.

‘Worst fog I ever remember,’ continued the policeman. ‘Looks as if it’s going to last a week.’

‘Yus,’ said Ben.

The policeman smiled. ‘Putting something warm inside you, eh?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, tea’s better than beer.’

‘No. I means, yus.’

‘How would you like another cup?’

Ben began to grow suspicious. People were not usually kind to him unless they had some ulterior motive.

‘No, thanks, guv’nor,’ he mumbled, rising abruptly. ‘I got an appointment.’

The policeman looked at him rather hard.

‘Where are you going to sleep tonight?’ he asked.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ben saw the waitress approaching.

‘’Aven’t reely decided yet,’ he answered. ‘Is the Ritz any good?’

‘Fourpence,’ said the waitress.

While Ben forked out, the policeman seemed to be looking at him rather harder. In fact, he was so interested in Ben’s pockets, that Ben turned them inside out.

‘No deception, guv’nor,’ he remarked. ‘There goes the end of it.’

‘Then it don’t look much like the Ritz for you,’ observed the policeman. ‘But, of course, if you’d done a little post-office robbery today, now, you’d keep your notes in some other pocket, wouldn’t you?’ Ben stared at him, and the policeman laughed. ‘Your face tells your story, mate, as well as your pockets,’ he said. ‘Here’s a shilling for that bed at the Ritz.’

Ben began to readjust his ideas about the police force.

‘Wot’s this?’ he asked. ‘A catch?’

‘That depends on you,’ smiled the policeman, and tossed him the coin.

Ben caught it. It occurred to him that, if he stayed any longer, he might grow sentimental, or the policeman might want his shilling back. Both events would be pitiable. So, slipping the coin into his pocket, he murmured, ‘Toff, guv’nor, yer are—stright!’ and shuffled out of the shop.

Through the fog once more Ben resumed his strange way, drawing nearer and nearer every moment to the unseen port that was waiting for him. Warmed by the tea, and cheered by his unexpected affluence, he groped his way along while the short day began to slip unnoticed into evening. The death of the day was not marked by gathering darkness, but by a change in the texture of a darkness already present.

‘Wunner wot it’s orl abart?’ reflected Ben. ‘Fust that there ticket I picked up in that there pub—Number Seventeen—and then that there tork in that there restrong—Number Seventeen agin. And then them bobbies. And then that feller leavin’ in the middle of ’is meal like that. And then that fice at the winder—Gawd, that give me the creeps, stright! And then those two quarrellin’ quiet-like, and then that bobby torkin’ ter me abart a post-orfice robbery, and then givin’ me a shillin’ becos’ o’ me angel-fice … It’s rum, ’owever yer looks at it … ’Allo. Steady, there!’

He had swerved against a parapet, and as he collected himself and began to swerve away again, a faint, muffled sound rushed by on the other side of the wall.

‘Trine,’ thought Ben, and his mind harped back to the reference to the train in the restaurant. ‘Wot’s funny abart a trine?’

He swerved a little too far from the wall, and got off the pavement. A bus-driver shouted at him. He shouted back, and returned to the pavement. Progress grew more difficult. Instinctively, he groped about for some quiet district, where the traffic would be less and the expectation of life greater. He walked mechanically for ten minutes, or an hour, or two hours—he couldn’t say which. And then, abruptly, a practical sense entered into him, he realised that he was tired, and that he needed a plan.

‘This ain’t no night fer the Embankment,’ he pondered. ‘Besides, ’ow’d one find the blinkin’ Embankment?’

It would be a pity, too, to waste precious coppers in an apology for a bed—even if he could find that, either. Maybe, if he set seriously to work, he could discover some odd corner to curl into for the night, a corner that would cost him nothing and would allow him to wake up no poorer than he had been when he went to sleep. Somewhere round about here, perhaps. It was quiet enough. Not a sound came to him, not a movement. Even the fog itself hung heavy and static.

‘Yus, I’ll ’ave a look rahnd,’ thought Ben, and suddenly stopped dead.

He was standing by a lamp-post, the light of which revealed dimly the lower portion of an empty house. The door of the house was ajar, and upon it was the number ‘Seventeen.’

4

The Empty House

Ben stared at the number, closed his eyes, opened them again, and then emitted a simple but expressive exclamation.

‘Well, I’ll be blowed!’ he gasped. ‘There ain’t no gettin’ away from it!’

A queer sensation passed through him as he stood on the narrow strip of pavement that divided the lamp-post from the railings, and blinked at the number that had dogged him ever since he had entered the arena of fog. But, after all—why should he get away from it? The number had not hurt him yet. There were hundreds of houses numbered ‘Seventeen.’ And this house was an empty house, with the door ajar!

‘Come in!’ the door seemed to say. ‘Here’s your free lodging. I’ve been waiting for you!’

Ben hesitated, annoyed with himself for his hesitation. This was the very thing he had been looking for. A gift from the gods! Just because …

‘G’arn!’ he muttered to himself, and walked to the front steps.

Now he was on them—there were only four—and the half-open door was two feet in front of his nose. He turned his head, and glanced back into the fog. It was so thick that he could not see the railings he had passed through. The dim light from the lamp-post sent its feeble rays above them, appearing to have no object in the world but to tell a wayfaring seaman that this house was No. 17, and that he must not pass it by. It would hardly have surprised Ben if the lamp-post had suddenly gone out now, its mission done. It appeared to be waning from where he stood.

Satisfied that nobody was immediately behind him, Ben turned to the door again, crept up to it, and gave it a careful, gentle push. It yielded rather more easily than he had expected, and he prepared to spring back. But nothing jumped out at him. A dark, narrow passage was revealed, and the beginning of an ascending staircase.

Rounding upon himself once more for his fears, he entered; and as soon as he entered, his fears returned.

‘’Ow do I know there ain’t nobody be’ind that door?’ he thought.

Anxiously, he peeped. Nobody was hiding behind the door. The house was as silent as a tomb.

‘Well, we’ll keep the fog aht, any’ow,’ muttered Ben, and closed the front door quickly.

That was better! Now no one could leap in from the street. To ensure further against this unpleasant possibility, Ben bolted the door, and then turned to other places where leaping creatures might lurk. It will have been noted, long before now, that Ben was not a man of iron; but even a man made of sterner stuff than Ben might be forgiven for a few qualms in a strange, empty house, with a thick fog outside, and no illumination inside.

To remedy the latter evil—temporarily—Ben struck a match.

‘Oi!’ he shouted, as something rose and jumped at him.

He dropped the match, and it went out. He lunged, and hit nothing. Whatever had jumped at him had not repeated the attack.

Trembling, he struck another match, holding it behind him ready to hurl at the oncomer. Something stood against the wall … His shadow.

‘Oh, my Gawd!’ chattered Ben, and gave himself ten seconds to recover.

A thought came to him. Until he was quite certain that the house was unoccupied, was it wise, after all, to have the front door bolted? A bolted door would militate against his speed if, by chance, he desired a sudden exit. Napoleon, working out the tactics of Waterloo, was no more earnestly absorbed than was Ben, working out the tactics of a bolted door.

‘Yus, I better hunbolt it, I reckons,’ he concluded, at last. ‘Yus—that’s the idea. Hunbolt it.’

So he unbolted the front door, suppressing a shiver as he did so, and then, striking another match, surveyed the passage in detail.

On his right was a door. A little farther along on the right, where the hall narrowed to accommodate the rickety stairway that ascended by the left wall, was another door. And opposite the second door was a gap, presumably leading down to the basement.

He approached the first door. ‘Wot’s wrong with knockin’?’ he thought. He knocked. There was no response. Opening the door slowly, he inserted his head, holding his match about him. An empty, furnitureless room greeted his eyes. The match flickered out.

‘’Andsome dining-room,’ he commented, ‘with ceiling comin’ dahn.’

Closing the door, he proceeded to the second door, farther along the passage, and repeated the operation. The result was similar, only this time it was a ‘’andsome drawing-room, with piper peelin’ orf.’ Having closed the drawing-room door, he turned and peered into the inky gap that led down to the basement.

‘Oh, well—’ere goes!’ he murmured. ‘Sailors was made ter go dahn!’

He descended into the unpleasant abyss, and spent five more matches on it. They revealed the usual rooms one finds in a basement, bare and tenantless; but there was one door he could not open. It was a stout door, evidently locked, though his match went out before he could find the keyhole. Deciding not to waste any more matches—for they were growing precious—he felt about in the darkness, even running his fingers along the bottom of the door.

‘Cupboard, I hexpeck,’ he muttered. ‘But it’s got a ’ell of a draught!’

The next moment, he bounded back. Something was happening beneath him. The floor was vibrating, and a faint, rhythmic clack came to his ears. Then, suddenly, the vibration increased, a dull roar grew out of the bowels of the earth, and something rushed beneath him. Ben wiped his damp forehead.

‘If I ’ad the bloke ’ere,’ he thought, ‘wot hinvented trines, I’d give ’im somethin’.’

He ascended from the basement to the ground floor. He walked to the foot of the stairs leading to the upper floors. He raised his eyes, and peered, and listened.

And, as he listened, it began to dawn upon Ben that he had done about as much exploring as his nerves would stand. Why go over the entire house? He wasn’t bringing a whole family in! One floor was sufficient for him, and the drawing-room with the paper peeling off was quite good enough for his unfastidious taste.

So he sent his voice upstairs, instead of his person.

‘Oi!’ he shouted. ‘Oi! Hennybody hup there?’

Apparently not. Still, he tried again.

‘If hennybody’s hup there,’ he called, ‘this is ter let ’em know as I’m dahn ’ere!’

Again no response. Ben sighed with relief.

‘Well, it ain’t so bad,’ he observed, to the unheeding walls. ‘I reckons this is a little bit of orl right! I’m a bloomin’ ’ouse-holder. And nah, wot abart goin’ aht and gettin’ a bit o’ food?’

He went to the front door, and opened it. Fog poured in. ‘Lummy!’ he thought. ‘It’s gettin’ wuss!’ Wedging a piece of wood, of which there was plenty about, under the door to keep it open, he walked down the steps and into the street again. And, just as he reached the pavement, the door of the adjoining house opened, and a figure emerged.

‘Don’t be long, father!’ cried someone, evidently standing in the hall.

‘I’ll be as quick as I can, my dear,’ the figure answered. ‘Run in, or you’ll catch your death of cold.’

The door closed with a muffled bang, and Ben drew himself close against the railings. The figure reached him abruptly, and paused in passing.

‘Hallo—where did you spring from?’ asked the figure.

Ben made no reply. He did not see why he should. A fellow didn’t have to explain himself to every passer-by, did he, even if he had just been exploring an empty house that wasn’t his! The figure looked at him suspiciously, and barked:

‘Be off!’

And then, without waiting to find out whether this somewhat peremptory order was obeyed, went off himself.

A few seconds later, the front door of the next house again opened. Quickly, this time, as though on urgent business.

‘Father!’ called the voice he had heard before. ‘Father! I want you to …’

There was no response, and the voice trailed off.

‘Like me ter go arter ’im, miss?’ asked Ben. ‘Oi!’

The girl started at Ben’s voice, and he slipped after the vanished figure. The fog beat him, however. He returned a minute later to report failure.

‘Sorry, miss,’ he said. ‘’E was too quick fer me. It’s a reg’ler needle in a ’aystack in this fog, ain’t it?’

‘Never mind,’ replied the girl. ‘Thanks very much. It doesn’t matter.’

She was a pretty girl, with nothing swanky about her. Quite a good sort, Ben concluded. Ripe for a little human intercourse, he attempted to prolong the conversation.

‘Anythin’ I can do for yer, miss?’ he asked.

She peered down at him, and shook her head.

‘No, thank you,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t important—only a letter.’

‘Like me ter post it?’

‘No—but thank you very much.’

The door began to close. Ben felt as though a glint of sunlight had suddenly appeared, and were now vanishing.

‘Shockin’ dye, ain’t it!’ he called. The door, however, was now shut. ‘Well, that’s orl there is abart that!’ he mumbled. ‘That’s the larst I’ll see of ’er!’

An extraordinarily poor prediction, as subsequent events proved. And had Ben realised the conditions of their next meeting, he would have sat down very promptly in the middle of the road.

Alone once more, he took careful bearings, and felt his way along the street, his idea being to keep a straight line until he hit a shop. He did not hit a shop until he had crossed three roads, and then it was not much of a shop. True, it called itself an Emporium, in virtue of the fact that the old lady who kept it had blossomed out from sweets to postcards and a small selection of tinned foods; but the sweets and the post-cards were of modest quality, while the tinned foods were reduced to the single selection of pork and beans.

‘’Ow much?’ demanded Ben, taking up the single selection.

‘One-and-two, or one-and-three, I think,’ replied the old lady. ‘Dear me, I must get some more.’

‘Let it go fer a shillin’, ma?’ asked Ben.

‘We’ll say one-and-two, then.’

‘But I ain’t got one-and-two. I got a shillin’.’

She looked at him, over her glasses. He was very shabby. And it was very foggy. And she was very old. Details don’t matter quite so much when you are old.

‘All right, then—a shilling,’ she said; and the bargain was struck.

He groped his way back to the empty house, noted with satisfaction that the door was as he had left it, and slipped in with his precious packet. This time, he bolted the front door behind him and, after depositing his parcel in the back reception-room, he descended to the basement to make certain that the back door was bolted also. This settled, he returned to the back reception-room, and prepared to make himself comfortable.