Fate, dipping into the extremes of affluence and poverty with a disregard totally unknown to its own puppets, had thrown Ben and Miss Holbrooke together and had interwoven their destinies, but it was in this cold-stoned Spanish cellar, towards the conclusion of their strange adventure, that they actually conversed for the first time. Miss Holbrooke had only seen Ben once before, and then only for a few passing seconds. She barely saw him now, on this second occasion. And though he had seen her more often, it had nearly always been during her periods of unconsciousness, so that he had almost come to regard her in his thoughts as a fellow-creature doomed to perpetual silence and inactivity.
When Sims’s spotlight had played upon her, however, he had suddenly awakened to her vivid reality. She had looked pale and frail. The effects of the drugging were still on her. But her limbs now had movement, her face expression, and her eyes light. The reason for all this upheaval ceased to be a theory; it had become a living fact.
And though Sims’s spotlight no longer played upon her, and she had become a vague shadow again, her reality remained. Silent and conscious of each other, they allowed a full minute to pass, while the hurried steps outside grew fainter and fainter, and the low, anxious voices ceased. They waited tensely for something to happen. The something that had caused Sims to order the hurried exit, and that appeared to have permitted this unpremeditated interview. For would Sims otherwise have left these two alone together, knowing how anxious they would be to talk? But the something they waited for did not happen—or, if it did no sign of it percolated down to this underground cellar … ‘Cellar—I alius hends hup in a cellar,’ thought Ben … No shouting; no cries; no explosion.
‘What is it? I don’t understand!’
Miss Holbrooke’s voice came to him presently through the darkness.
‘’Oo does, miss?’ replied Ben, and moved a little closer to the voice.
‘Who are you?’
Ben tried to think how he could explain himself.
‘Aren’t you the stowaway?’ she helped him.
‘Yus, that’s right, miss,’ he murmured, and moved a little closer still. It seemed to be a bit warmer where she was, like.
‘But what are you doing here?’
‘Tryin’ ter git away.’
‘You’re not—one of them, then?’
‘Lummy, no!’
‘Then—are they kidnapping you too?’
‘Me? Gawd, I ain’t worth ’arf a brace-button!’
Something indistinguishable happened a few feet off.
‘Say, are you funny, or is it my head?’ came Miss Holbrooke’s voice again, after a little pause. ‘I guess this dope’s given my brains a holiday.’
‘Doncher worry, miss,’ answered Ben hopelessly. ‘It’ll orl come right.’
‘What makes you say that? Don’t they—?’
‘Wot?’
‘Mean it?’
‘You bet, they mean it!’
‘Then how can it come right?’
‘’Cos—well, wot’s the use o’ thinkin’ it won’t? Tike it from me, miss, yer never dead till yer dead, and then yer ain’t. I bin killed ’undred an’ two times, twenty of ’em terday, and I’m still ’ere.’
‘Are you serious—have they really tried to kill you?’ she asked.
‘Well, they ain’t tried boilin’ me in fat yet,’ replied Ben; ‘but I hexpeck they got that dahn fer nine-thirty.’
‘Oh, I wish you’d explain! This little mind of mine just won’t function! Why should they try to kill you? Why? Why?’
‘Oh, everybody does that,’ he answered evasively. ‘That ain’t nothink.’
‘You’re not making it any clearer.’
‘It ain’t rightly clear ter me. Seems like people’s told three things when they’re born—git a job, git married, and ’ave a shot at Ben.’
‘Ben?’
‘That’s me, miss.’
‘Ben! I’ll remember. And now tell me, please. We’ve got to stop all this guessing game and get down to facts. Try and help me, Ben—I’m feeling pretty punk. What special reason have they for trying to kill you?’
‘Eh?’
‘Please!’
‘Well, seein’ as ’ow I’m sorter friend o’ your’n—ain’t I?’
‘I’m beginning to think so,’ she murmured.
‘Well, then.’
‘I see. Yes, I’m getting wise. Are you my only friend?’
‘No. You got another.’
‘Who?’
‘A gal.’
‘But why—well, never mind that now. Where is she?’
Ben suddenly chuckled. Of course, it wasn’t the time to chuckle, but you have to sometimes, when you get a bit of a chance.
‘Ah, that’s what they wanter know!’ he answered. ‘But I wouldn’t tell ’em! Fust they tries ter kill me with knives. One each side o’ me fice an’ the third in the middle, they ses. And when the third come along … Gawd! I bin through a bit but I don’t want that agine! And then they brings me ’ere, ter mike me think they’d do it on you if I didn’t tell ’em.’
‘But you did tell them!’ exclaimed Miss Holbrooke, suddenly recollecting.
‘Nah, miss. That was high-wash, that was. Yer see, fust I’m goin’ ter. I couldn’t ’ave you killed, could I? I was in a fair pickle, and me mind was like a pot o’ jam with wasps in it. Tork abart buzzin’! But then I ses ter meself, when ’e gits ter four—lummy, ain’t that countin’ ’orrible?—I was bein’ both of us, like, when it was goin’ on, if yer know wot I mean—well, then I ses ter meself, “Go on, they wouldn’t kill ’er, she ain’t worth sixpence dead.” And then I ses, when ’e gits ter five, “Why not tell ’em a lie an’ put ’em orf the skent?”’
‘Skent?’
‘Yus, miss. That’s the one word I knows ’ow ter spell. Skent. Wot yer puts on her ’ankerchiff.’
‘Oh, Ben!’
‘Wot?’
‘Never mind. But how I’m growing to love England! England! Say, where are we now?’
‘Spine, miss. Villerpanzy.’
‘How did we get here?’
‘One day, miss, when I got a couple o’ years, I’ll tell yer.’
‘Yes, yes. Of course, there’s no time now. We must do something. What do you suppose is happening upstairs?’
‘Can’t ’ear nothink, miss.’
‘Go and listen. I would, but I feel so weak—’
Ben tiptoed back to the door. He heard someone breathing on the other side. Then he heard himself breathing on his side, and deduced, with relief, that he must be a sort of breathing ventriloquist. ‘But I wish I’d on’y do it when I wanted ter,’ he thought.
He turned to Miss Holbrooke, who was now sitting bolt upright on the trestle, trying to listen also.
‘Nothing,’ he reported.
‘Of course, the door’s locked?’
He went back again. He returned again.
‘Yus,’ he said.
‘Then we can only wait,’ she sighed.
‘Yus,’ agreed Ben; ‘but it’ll orl come aht right, I tell yer, like I sed. ’Cos why? ’Cos we got somethink ter wait for, see? That’s why.’
‘Something to wait for?’ exclaimed Miss Holbrooke, with sudden hope. ‘What?’
‘I’ll tell yer. Do yer remember that long speech wot was mide ter me afore Sims—that’s the white-’aired bloke—afore ’e starts countin’? Well, ’e wanted ter know if Molly Smith—that’s the gal ’oo’s yer friend, like me—’e wanted ter know if she’d give me the nime o’ this plice.’
‘Yes, I remember.’
‘Well, she ’ad.’
‘How did she know it?’
‘She ’eard ’im say it once. But ’e also wanted ter know if she’d tole hennybody helse.’
‘Well?’
‘She ’as!’
‘Oh, who? My father?’
‘I dunno, miss. And, rightly speakin’, she ’asn’t. Wot I mean is, she rote it on a bit o’ piper, and if they’ve fahnd the piper, then they’ll come along and find hus, see? ’Cos they’ll see on it Don Manuel, Villerspangle—’
‘Spangle? I thought you said—’
‘Well, wotever it is. The end don’t matter. You bet they’ll find it, miss, and you bet they’ll come along. Lummy!’ he cried, all at once. ‘P’r’aps they’re ’ere! P’r’aps it was them wot mide ’em orl ’op it jest nah!’
Miss Holbrooke’s hand shot out and caught hold of his sleeve. The theory was almost too wonderful to be borne! A rescue party, upstairs … at this moment …
But only silence greeted their strained ears.
‘And the girl—my other friend—where is she, really?’ asked Miss Holbrooke.
‘She’s waitin’ at the nearest cottage dahn the road,’ answered Ben. ‘A hempty one.’
As he spoke, the door of the cellar opened, and Sims’s voice came across the cold stone floor to them.
‘Thank you for a most interesting and enlightening conversation, Ben,’ said Sims. ‘I enjoyed every word of it.’
Then the door closed again, and the key groaned in the lock.