Storytelling. The adventure of the creeping man and other stories

On the bench by his side sat an elderly gentleman with a drooping air of defiance that was probably the remaining vestige of self-respect in an individual who had ceased to defy successfully anybody or anything. His clothes could scarcely be called shabby, at least they passed muster in the half-light, but one’s imagination could not have pictured the wearer embarking on the purchase of a half-crown box of chocolates or laying out ninepence on a carnation buttonhole. He belonged unmistakably to that forlorn orchestra to whose piping no one dances; he was one of the world’s lamenters who induce no responsive weeping. As he rose to go Gortsby imagined him returning to a home circle where he was snubbed and of no account, or to some bleak lodging where his ability to pay a weekly bill was the beginning and end of the interest he inspired. His retreating figure vanished slowly into the shadows, and his place on the bench was taken almost immediately by a young man, fairly well dressed but scarcely more cheerful of mien than his predecessor. As if to emphasise the fact that the world went badly with him the new-corner unburdened himself of an angry and very audible expletive as he flung himself into the seat.

“You don’t seem in a very good temper,” said Gortsby, judging that he was expected to take due notice of the demonstration.

The young man turned to him with a look of disarming frankness which put him instantly on his guard.

“You wouldn’t be in a good temper if you were in the fix I’m in,” he said; “I’ve done the silliest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

“Yes?” said Gortsby dispassionately.

“Came up this afternoon, meaning to stay at the Patagonian Hotel in Berkshire Square,” continued the young man; “when I got there I found it had been pulled down some weeks ago and a cinema theatre run up on the site. The taxi driver recommended me to another hotel some way off and I went there. I just sent a letter to my people, giving them the address, and then I went out to buy some soap – I’d forgotten to pack any and I hate using hotel soap. Then I strolled about a bit, had a drink at a bar and looked at the shops, and when I came to turn my steps back to the hotel I suddenly realised that I didn’t remember its name or even what street it was in. There’s a nice predicament for a fellow who hasn’t any friends or connections in London! Of course I can wire to my people for the address, but they won’t have got my letter till to-morrow; meantime I’m without any money, came out with about a shilling on me, which went in buying the soap and getting the drink, and here I am, wandering about with twopence in my pocket and nowhere to go for the night.”

There was an eloquent pause after the story had been told. “I suppose you think I’ve spun you rather an impossible yarn,” said the young man presently, with a suggestion of resentment in his voice.

“Not at all impossible,” said Gortsby judicially; “I remember doing exactly the same thing once in a foreign capital, and on that occasion there were two of us, which made it more remarkable. Luckily we remembered that the hotel was on a sort of canal, and when we struck the canal we were able to find our way back to the hotel.”

The youth brightened at the reminiscence. “In a foreign city I wouldn’t mind so much,” he said; “one could go to one’s Consul and get the requisite help from him. Here in one’s own land one is far more derelict if one gets into a fix. Unless I can find some decent chap to swallow my story and lend me some money I seem likely to spend the night on the Embankment. I’m glad, anyhow, that you don’t think the story outrageously improbable.”

He threw a good deal of warmth into the last remark, as though perhaps to indicate his hope that Gortsby did not fall far short of the requisite decency.

“Of course,” said Gortsby slowly, “the weak point of your story is that you can’t produce the soap.”

The young man sat forward hurriedly, felt rapidly in the pockets of his overcoat, and then jumped to his feet.

“I must have lost it,” he muttered angrily.

“To lose an hotel and a cake of soap on one afternoon suggests wilful carelessness,” said Gortsby, but the young man scarcely waited to hear the end of the remark. He flitted away down the path, his head held high, with an air of somewhat jaded jauntiness.

“It was a pity,” mused Gortsby; “the going out to get one’s own soap was the one convincing touch in the whole story, and yet it was just that little detail that brought him to grief. If he had had the brilliant forethought to provide himself with a cake of soap, wrapped and sealed with all the solicitude of the chemist’s counter, he would have been a genius in his particular line. In his particular line genius certainly consists of an infinite capacity for taking precautions.”

With that reflection Gortsby rose to go; as he did so an exclamation of concern escaped him. Lying on the ground by the side of the bench was a small oval packet, wrapped and sealed with the solicitude of a chemist’s counter. It could be nothing else but a cake of soap, and it had evidently fallen out of the youth’s overcoat pocket when he flung himself down on the seat. In another moment Gortsby was scudding along the dusk-shrouded path in anxious quest for a youthful figure in a light overcoat. He had nearly given up the search when he caught sight of the object of his pursuit standing irresolutely on the border of the carriage drive, evidently uncertain whether to strike across the Park or make for the bustling pavements of Knightsbridge. He turned round sharply with an air of defensive hostility when he found Gortsby hailing him.

“The important witness to the genuineness of your story has turned up,” said Gortsby, holding out the cake of soap; “it must have slid out of your overcoat pocket when you sat down on the seat. I saw it on the ground after you left. You must excuse my disbelief, but appearances were really rather against you, and now, as I appealed to the testimony of the soap I think I ought to abide by its verdict. If the loan of a sovereign is any good to you – ”

The young man hastily removed all doubt on the subject by pocketing the coin.

“Here is my card with my address,” continued Gortsby; “any day this week will do for returning the money, and here is the soap – don’t lose it again it’s been a good friend to you.”

“Lucky thing your finding it,” said the youth, and then, with a catch in his voice, he blurted out a word or two of thanks and fled headlong in the direction of Knightsbridge.

“Poor boy, he as nearly as possible broke down,” said Gortsby to himself. “I don’t wonder either; the relief from his quandary must have been acute. It’s a lesson to me not to be too clever in judging by circumstances.”

As Gortsby retraced his steps past the seat where the little drama had taken place he saw an elderly gentleman poking and peering beneath it and on all sides of it, and recognised his earlier fellow occupant.

“Have you lost anything, sir?” he asked.

“Yes, sir, a cake of soap.”

The lost sanjak

by Saki

The prison Chaplain entered the condemned’s cell for the last time, to give such consolation as he might.

“The only consolation I crave for,” said the condemned, “is to tell my story in its entirety to some one who will at least give it a respectful hearing.”

“We must not be too long over it,” said the Chaplain, looking at his watch.

The condemned repressed a shiver and commenced.

“Most people will be of opinion that I am paying the penalty of my own violent deeds. In reality I am a victim to a lack of specialisation in my education and character.”

“Lack of specialisation!” said the Chaplain.

“Yes. If I had been known as one of the few men in England familiar with the fauna of the Outer Hebrides, or able to repeat stanzas of Camoens’ poetry in the original, I should have had no difficulty in proving my identity in the crisis when my identity became a matter of life and death for me. But my education was merely a moderately good one, and my temperament was of the general order that avoids specialisation. I know a little in a general way about gardening and history and old masters, but I could never tell you off-hand whether ‘Stella van der Loopen’ was a chrysanthemum or a heroine of the American War of Independence, or something by Romney in the Louvre.”

The Chaplain shifted uneasily in his seat. Now that the alternatives had been suggested they all seemed dreadfully possible.

“I fell in love, or thought I did, with the local doctor’s wife,” continued the condemned. “Why I should have done so, I cannot say, for I do not remember that she possessed any particular attractions of mind or body. On looking back at past events if seems to me that she must have been distinctly ordinary, but I suppose the doctor had fallen in love with her once, and what man had done man can do. She appeared to be pleased with the attentions which I paid her, and to that extent I suppose I might say she encouraged me, but I think she was honestly unaware that I meant anything more than a little neighbourly interest. When one is face to face with Death one wishes to be just.”

The Chaplain murmured approval. “At any rate, she was genuinely horrified when I took advantage of the doctor’s absence one evening to declare what I believed to be my passion. She begged me to pass out of her life, and I could scarcely do otherwise than agree, though I hadn’t the dimmest idea of how it was to be done. In novels and plays I knew it was a regular occurrence, and if you mistook a lady’s sentiments or intentions you went off to India and did things on the frontier as a matter of course. As I stumbled along the doctor’s carriage-drive I had no very clear idea as to what my line of action was to be, but I had a vague feeling that I must look at the Times Atlas before going to bed. Then, on the dark and lonely highway, I came suddenly on a dead body.”

The Chaplain’s interest in the story visibly quickened.

“Judging by the clothes it wore, the corpse was that of a Salvation Army captain. Some shocking accident seemed to have struck him down, and the head was crushed and battered out of all human semblance. Probably, I thought, a motor-car fatality; and then, with a sudden overmastering insistence, came another thought, that here was a remarkable opportunity for losing my identity and passing out of the life of the doctor’s wife for ever. No tiresome and risky voyage to distant lands, but a mere exchange of clothes and identity with the unknown victim of an unwitnessed accident. With considerable difficulty I undressed the corpse, and clothed it anew in my own garments. Any one who has valeted a dead Salvation Army captain in an uncertain light will appreciate the difficulty. With the idea, presumably, of inducing the doctor’s wife to leave her husband’s roof-tree for some habitation which would be run at my expense, I had crammed my pockets with a store of banknotes, which represented a good deal of my immediate worldly wealth. When, therefore, I stole away into the world in the guise of a nameless Salvationist, I was not without resources which would easily support so humble a rôle for a considerable period. I tramped to a neighbouring market-town, and, late as the hour was, the production of a few shillings procured me supper and a night’s lodging in a cheap coffee-house. The next day I started forth on an aimless course of wandering from one small town to another. I was already somewhat disgusted with the upshot of my sudden freak; in a few hours’ time I was considerably more so. In the contents-bill of a local news sheet I read the announcement of my own murder at the hands of some person unknown; on buying a copy of the paper for a detailed account of the tragedy, which at first had aroused in me a certain grim amusement, I found that the deed ascribed to a wandering Salvationist of doubtful antecedents, who had been seen lurking in the roadway near the scene of the crime. I was no longer amused. The matter promised to be embarrassing. What I had mistaken for a motor accident was evidently a case of savage assault and murder, and, until the real culprit was found, I should have much difficulty in explaining my intrusion into the affair. Of course I could establish my own identity; but how, without disagreeably involving the doctor’s wife, could I give any adequate reason for changing clothes with the murdered man? While my brain worked feverishly at this problem, I subconsciously obeyed a secondary instinct-to get as far away as possible from the scene of the crime, and to get rid at all costs of my incriminating uniform. There I found a difficulty. I tried two or three obscure clothes shops, but my entrance invariably aroused an attitude of hostile suspicion in the proprietors, and on one excuse or another they avoided serving me with the now ardently desired change of clothing. The uniform that I had so thoughtlessly donned seemed as difficult to get out of as the fatal shirt of – You know, I forget the creature’s name.”

“Yes, yes,” said the Chaplain hurriedly. “Go on with your story.”

“Somehow, until I could get out of those compromising garments, I felt it would not be safe to surrender myself to the police. The thing that puzzled me was why no attempt was made to arrest me, since there was no question as to the suspicion which followed me, like an inseparable shadow, wherever I went. Stares, nudgings, whisperings, and even loud-spoken remarks of ‘that’s ’im’ greeted my every appearance, and the meanest and most deserted eating-house that I patronised soon became filled with a crowd of furtively watching customers. I began to sympathise with the feeling of Royal personages trying to do a little private shopping under the unsparing scrutiny of an irrepressible public. And still, with all this inarticulate shadowing, which weighed on my nerves almost worse than open hostility would have done, no attempt was made to interfere with my liberty. Later on I discovered the reason. At the time of the murder on the lonely highway a series of important bloodhound trials had been taking place in the near neighbourhood, and some dozen and a half couples of trained animals had been put on the track of the supposed murderer – on my track. One of our most public-spirited London dailies had offered a princely prize to the owner of the pair that should first track me down, and betting on the chances of the respective competitors became rife throughout the land. The dogs ranged far and wide over about thirteen counties, and though my own movements had become by this time perfectly well-known to police and public alike, the sporting instincts of the nation stepped in to prevent my premature arrest. “Give the dogs a chance,” was the prevailing sentiment, whenever some ambitious local constable wished to put an end to my drawn-out evasion of justice. My final capture by the winning pair was not a very dramatic episode, in fact, I’m not sure that they would have taken any notice of me if I hadn’t spoken to them and patted them, but the event gave rise to an extraordinary amount of partisan excitement. The owner of the pair who were next nearest up at the finish was an American, and he lodged a protest on the ground that an otterhound had married into the family of the winning pair six generations ago, and that the prize had been offered to the first pair of bloodhounds to capture the murderer, and that a dog that had 1/64th part of otterhound blood in it couldn’t technically be considered a bloodhound. I forget how the matter was ultimately settled, but it aroused a tremendous amount of acrimonious discussion on both sides of the Atlantic. My own contribution to the controversy consisted in pointing out that the whole dispute was beside the mark, as the actual murderer had not yet been captured; but I soon discovered that on this point there was not the least divergence of public or expert opinion. I had looked forward apprehensively to the proving of my identity and the establishment of my motives as a disagreeable necessity; I speedily found out that the most disagreeable part of the business was that it couldn’t be done. When I saw in the glass the haggard and hunted expression which the experiences of the past few weeks had stamped on my erstwhile placid countenance, I could scarcely feel surprised that the few friends and relations I possessed refused to recognise me in my altered guise, and persisted in their obstinate but widely shared belief that it was I who had been done to death on the highway. To make matters worse, infinitely worse, an aunt of the really murdered man, an appalling female of an obviously low order of intelligence, identified me as her nephew, and gave the authorities a lurid account of my depraved youth and of her laudable but unavailing efforts to spank me into a better way. I believe it was even proposed to search me for fingerprints.”

“But,” said the Chaplain, “surely your educational attainments – ”

“That was just the crucial point,” said the condemned; “that was where my lack of specialisation told so fatally against me. The dead Salvationist, whose identity I had so lightly and so disastrously adopted, had possessed a veneer of cheap modern education. It should have been easy to demonstrate that my learning was on altogether another plane to his, but in my nervousness I bungled miserably over test after test that was put to me. The little French I had ever known deserted me; I could not render a simple phrase about the gooseberry of the gardener into that language, because I had forgotten the French for gooseberry.”

The Chaplain again wriggled uneasily in his seat. “And then,” resumed the condemned, “came the final discomfiture. In our village we had a modest little debating club, and I remembered having promised, chiefly, I suppose, to please and impress the doctor’s wife, to give a sketchy kind of lecture on the Balkan Crisis. I had relied on being able to get up my facts from one or two standard works, and the back-numbers of certain periodicals. The prosecution had made a careful note of the circumstance that the man whom I claimed to be – and actually was – had posed locally as some sort of second-hand authority on Balkan affairs, and, in the midst of a string of questions on indifferent topics, the examining counsel asked me with a diabolical suddenness if I could tell the Court the whereabouts of Novibazar. I felt the question to be a crucial one; something told me that the answer was St. Petersburg or Baker Street. I hesitated, looked helplessly round at the sea of tensely expectant faces, pulled myself together, and chose Baker Street. And then I knew that everything was lost. The prosecution had no difficulty in demonstrating that an individual, even moderately versed in the affairs of the Near East, could never have so unceremoniously dislocated Novibazar from its accustomed corner of the map. It was an answer which the Salvation Army captain might conceivably have made – and I made it. The circumstantial evidence connecting the Salvationist with the crime was overwhelmingly convincing, and I had inextricably identified myself with the Salvationist. And thus it comes to pass that in ten minutes’ time I shall be hanged by the neck until I am dead in expiation of the murder of myself, which murder never took place, and of which, in any case, I am innocent.”

When the Chaplain returned to his quarters some fifteen minutes later, the black flag was floating over the prison tower. Breakfast was waiting for him in the dining-room, but he first passed into his library, and, taking up the Times Atlas, consulted a map of the Balkan Peninsula. “A thing like that,” he observed, closing the volume with a snap, “might happen to any one.”

The man who sought

Dion Fortune

One of Taverner’s cases will always stand out in my mind – the case of Black, the airman. The ordinary doctor would have bromided Black into an asylum, but Taverner staked the sanity of two people upon a theory, and saved them both.

Early in May I was sitting with him in his Harley Street consulting-room, taking down case notes while he examined his patients. We had dispatched various hysterics and neurotics to other specialists for treatment, when a man of an entirely different type was ushered in by the butler. He looked absolutely healthy, his face was tanned with the open air and had no sign of nervous tension; but when I met his eyes I noticed something unusual about them. The expression was peculiar.

They did not hold the haunting fear one so often sees in the eyes of the mentally sick; he reminded me of nothing in the world but a running hound that has sighted its prey.

“I think I am going off my head,” announced our visitor. “What form does your trouble take?” inquired Taverner. “Can’t do my work. Can’t sit still. Can’t do a thing except tear all over the country in my car as hard as ever I can lick. Look at my endorsements.” He held out a driving license filled with writing. “Next time they’ll quod me, and that will finish me off altogether. If they shut me up inside four walls I’ll buzz around like a cockchafer in a bottle till I knock myself to pieces. I’d go clean mad if I couldn’t move about. The only relief I get is speed, to feel that I am going somewhere. I drive and drive and drive till I’m clean tuckered out, and then I roll into the nearest wayside pub and sleep; but it doesn’t do me any good, because I only dream, and that seems to make things more real, and I wake up madder than ever and go on driving again.”

“What is your work?” said Taverner.

“Motor-racing and flying.”

“Are you Arnold Black, by any chance?” asked Taverner.

“That’s me,” said our patient. “Praise the Lord I haven’t lost my nerve yet.”

“You had a crash a little while ago, did you not?” inquired my colleague.

“That was what started the trouble,” said Black. “I was all right till then.

Banged my head, I suppose. I was unconscious three days, and when I came round I was seedy, and have been so ever since.”

I thought Taverner would refuse the case, for an ordinary head injury could have little interest for him, but instead he asked: “What made you come to me?”

“I was on my beam ends,” said Black. “I’d been to two or three old ducks, but could get no sense out of them; in fact I’ve just come on from the blankest geyser of the lot.” He named a name of eminence. “Told me to stop in bed a month and feed up. I wandered down the road and liked the look of your brass plate, so I came in. Why? Aren’t I in your line?

What do you go in for? Babies or senile decay?”

“If a chance like that brought you to me, you probably are in my line,” said Taverner. “Now tell me the physical side of your case. What do you feel like in yourself?”

Our patient wriggled uneasily in his chair.

“I dunno,” he said. “I feel more of a fool than anything else.”

“That,” said Taverner, “is often the beginning of wisdom.”

Black half turned away from us. His painfully assumed jauntiness fell from him. There was a long pause, and then he blurted out:

“I feel as if I were in love.”

“And you’ve been hard hit?” suggested Taverner.

“No, I’ve not,” said the patient. “I’m not in love, I only feel as if I were.

There isn’t a girl in the case – not that I know of, anyway and yet I’m in love – horribly in love – with a woman who doesn’t exist. And it’s not the tomcat side of me, but the biggest and best that there is in me. If I can’t get someone to love me back in the same way that I am loving, then I’ll go off my head. All the time I feel that there must be someone somewhere, and that she’ll suddenly turn up. She must turn up.” His jaw set in a savage line. “That’s why I drive so much, because I feel that round the next bend I’ll find her.”

The man’s face was quivering, and I saw that his hands were wet with sweat.

“Have you any mental picture of the woman you are seeking?” asked Taverner.

“Nothing definite,” said Black. “I only get the feel of her. But I shall know her when I see her; I am certain of that. Do you think such a woman exists? Do you think it is possible I shall ever meet her?” He appealed to us with a child’s pathetic eagerness.

“Whether she is in the flesh or not I cannot say at the present moment,” said Taverner, “but of her existence I have no doubt. Now tell me, when did you first notice this sensation?”

“The very first twinge I had of it,” explained Black, “was we got into the nose dive that put me to bed. We went down, down, down, faster and faster, and just as we were going to crash I felt something. I can’t say I saw anything, but I got the feel of a pair of eyes. Can you realize what I mean? And when I came round from my three days’ down-and-out I was in love.”