James 'Spider' Buffin. |
P.G. Wodehouse
The
profession of Mr. James ("Spider") Buffin was pocket-picking. His
hobby was revenge. James had no objection to letting the sun go down on his
wrath. Indeed, it was after dark that he corrected his numerous enemies most
satisfactorily. It was on a dark night, while he was settling a small score
against one Kelly, a mere acquaintance, that he first fell foul of Constable
Keating, whose beat took him through the regions which James most frequented.
James, having "laid for" Mr. Kelly,
met him in a murky side-street down
Clerkenwell
way, and attended to his needs with a sand-bag.
It was here that Constable Keating first came
prominently into his life. Just as James, with the satisfying feeling that his
duty had been done, was preparing to depart, Officer Keating, who had been a
distant spectator of the affair, charged up and seized him.
It was intolerable that he should interfere
in a purely private falling-out between one gentleman and another, but there
was nothing to be done. The policeman weighed close upon fourteen stone, and
could have eaten Mr. Buffin. The latter, inwardly seething, went quietly, and
in due season was stowed away at the Government's expense for the space of
sixty days.
Physically, there is no doubt that his
detention did him good. The regular hours and the substitution of bread and
water for his wonted diet improved his health thirty per cent. It was mentally
that he suffered. His was one of those just-as-good cheap-substitute minds,
incapable of harbouring more than one idea at a time, and during those sixty
days of quiet seclusion it was filled with an ever-growing resentment against
Officer Keating. Every day, as he moved about his appointed tasks, he brooded
on his wrongs. Every night was to him but the end of another day that kept him
from settling down to the serious business of Revenge. To be haled to prison
for correcting a private enemy with a sand-bag—that was what stung. In the
privacy of his cell he dwelt unceasingly on the necessity for revenge. The thing
began to take on to him the aspect almost of a Holy Mission, a sort of Crusade.
* * * * *
The days slipped by, bringing winter to
Clerkenwell, and with it Mr. Buffin. He returned to his old haunts one Friday
night, thin but in excellent condition. One of the first acquaintances he met
was Officer Keating. The policeman, who had a good memory for faces, recognised
him, and stopped.
"So you're out, young feller?" he
said genially. When not in the active discharge of his professional duties the
policeman was a kindly man. He bore Mr. Buffin no grudge.
"Um," said Mr. Buffin.
"Feeling fine, eh?"
"Um."
"Goin' round to see some of the chaps
and pass them the time of day, I shouldn't wonder?"
"Um."
"Well, you keep clear of that lot down
in Frith Street, young feller. They're no good. And if you get mixed up with
them, first thing you know, you'll be in trouble again. And you want to keep
out of that now."
"Um."
"If you never get into trouble,"
said the policeman sententiously, "you'll never have to get out of
it."
"Um," said Mr. Buffin. If he had a
fault as a conversationalist, it was a certain tendency to monotony, a certain
lack of sparkle and variety in his small-talk.
Constable Keating, with a dignified but
friendly wave of the hand, as one should say, "You have our leave to
depart," went on his way; while Mr. Buffin, raging, shuffled off in the
opposite direction, thinking as hard as his limited mental equipment would
allow him.
His thoughts, which were many and confused,
finally composed themselves into some order. He arrived at a definite
conclusion, which was that if the great settlement was to be carried through
successfully it must be done when the policeman was off duty. Till then he had
pictured himself catching Officer Keating in an unguarded moment on his beat.
This, he now saw, was out of the question. On his beat the policeman had no
unguarded moments. There was a quiet alertness in his poise, a danger-signal in
itself.
"You've got to butter him up, sir. I mean, like be nice to him." |
There was only one thing for Mr. Buffin to
do. Greatly as it would go against the grain, he must foregather with the man,
win his confidence, put himself in a position where he would be able to find
out what he did with himself when off duty.
The policeman offered no obstacle to the
move. A supreme self-confidence was his leading characteristic. Few London
policemen are diffident, and Mr. Keating was no exception. It never occurred to
him that there could be an ulterior motive behind Mr. Buffin's advances. He
regarded Mr. Buffin much as one regards a dog which one has had to chastise.
One does not expect the dog to lie in wait and bite. Officer Keating did not
expect Mr. Buffin to lie in wait and bite.
So every day, as he strolled on his beat,
there sidled up to him the meagre form of Spider Buffin. Every day there
greeted him the Spider's "Good-morning, Mr. Keating," till the sight
of Officer Keating walking solidly along the pavement with Spider Buffin
shuffling along at his side, listening with rapt interest to his views on Life
and his hints on Deportment, became a familiar spectacle in Clerkenwell.
* * * * *
Mr. Buffin played his part well. In fact, too
well. It was on the seventh day that, sidling along in the direction of his
favourite place of refreshment, he found himself tapped on the shoulder. At the
same moment an arm, linking itself in his, brought him gently to a halt. Beside
him were standing two of the most eminent of the great Frith Street Gang, Otto
the Sausage and Rabbit Butler. It was the finger of the Rabbit that had tapped
his shoulder. The arm tucked in his was the arm of Otto the Sausage.
"Hi, Spider," said Mr. Butler,
"Sid wants to see you a minute."
The Spider's legs felt boneless. There was
nothing in the words to alarm a man, but his practised ear had seemed to detect
a certain unpleasant dryness in the speaker's tone. Sid Marks, the all-powerful
leader of the Frith Street Gang, was a youth whose company the Spider had
always avoided with some care.
The great Sid, seated in state at a
neighbouring hostelry, fixed his visitor with a cold and questioning eye. Mr.
Buffin looked nervous and interrogative. Mr. Marks spoke.
"Your pal Keating pinched Porky Binns
this mornin'," said Sid.
The Spider's heart turned to water.
"You and that slop," observed Sid
dreamily, "have been bloomin' thick these days."
Mr. Buffin did not affect to misunderstand.
Sid Marks was looking at him in that nasty way. Otto the Sausage was looking at
him in that nasty way. Rabbit Butler was looking at him in that nasty way. This
was an occasion where manly frankness was the quality most to be aimed at. To
be misunderstood in the circles in which Mr. Buffin moved meant something more
than the mere risk of being treated with cold displeasure.
He began to explain with feverish eagerness.
"Strike me, Sid," he stammered,
"it ain't like that. It's all right. Blimey, you don't fink I'm a
nark?"
Mr. Marks chewed a straw in silence.
"I'm layin' for him, Sid," babbled
Mr. Buffin. "That's true. Strike me if it ain't. I'm just tryin' to find
out where he goes when he's off duty. He pinched me, so I'm layin' for
him."
Mr. Marks perpended. Rabbit Butler
respectfully gave it as his opinion that it would be well to put Mr. Buffin
through it. There was nothing like being on the safe side. By putting Mr. Buffin
through it, argued Rabbit Butler, they would stand to win either way. If
he had "smitched" to Officer Keating about Porky Binns he
would deserve it. If he had not—well, it would prevent him doing so on some
future occasion. Play for safety, was Mr. Butler's advice, seconded by Otto the
Sausage. Mr. Buffin, pale to the lips, thought he had never met two more
unpleasant persons.
"It's just that The Sausage has been asking about you, Spider. Nothin' personal." |
The Great Sid, having chewed his straw for a
while in silence, delivered judgment. The prisoner should have the benefit of
the doubt this time. His story, however unplausible, might possibly be true.
Officer Keating undoubtedly had pinched him. That was in his favour.
"You can hop it this time," he
said, "but if you ever do start smitchin', Spider, yer knows what'll
happen."
Mr. Buffin withdrew, quaking.
Matters had now come to a head. Unless he
very speedily gave proof of his pure and noble intentions, life would become
extremely unsafe for him. He must act at once. The thought of what would happen
should another of the Frith Streeters be pinched before he, Mr. Buffin, could
prove himself innocent of the crime of friendliness with Officer Keating,
turned him cold.
Fate played into his hands. On the very next
morning Mr. Keating, all unsuspecting, asked him to go to his home with a
message for his wife.
"Tell her," said Mr. Keating,
"a newspaper gent has given me seats for the play to-night, and I'll be
home at a quarter to seven."
Mr. Buffin felt as Cromwell must have felt at
Dunbar when the Scots left their stronghold on the hills and came down to the
open plain.
The winter had set in with some severity that
year, and Mr. Buffin's toes, as he stood in the shadows close to the entrance
of the villa where Officer Keating lived when off duty, were soon thoroughly
frozen. He did not dare to stamp his feet, for at any moment now the victim
might arrive. And when the victim weighs fourteen stone, against the high
priest's eight and a half, it behooves the latter to be circumspect, if the
sacrifice is to be anything like a success. So Mr. Buffin waited and froze in
silence. It was a painful process, and he added it to the black score which
already stood against Officer Keating. Never had his thirst for revenge been
more tormenting. It is doubtful if a strictly logical and impartial judge would
have held Mr. Keating to blame for the fact that Sid Marks' suspicions (and all
that those suspicions entailed) had fallen upon Mr. Buffin; but the Spider did
so. He felt fiercely resentful against the policeman for placing him in such an
unpleasant and dangerous position. As his thoughts ran on the matter, he
twisted his fingers tighter round his stick.
As he did so there came from down the road
the brisk tramp of feet and a cheerful whistling of "The Wearing of the
Green." It is a lugubrious song as a rule, but, as rendered by Officer
Keating returning home with theatre tickets, it had all the joyousness of a
march-tune.
Every muscle in Mr. Buffin's body stiffened.
He gripped his stick and waited. The road was deserted. In another moment….
And then, from nowhere, dark indistinct forms
darted out like rats. The whistling stopped in the middle of a bar. A
deep-chested oath rang out, and then a confused medley of sound, the rasping of
feet, a growling almost canine, a sharp yelp, gasps, and over all the vast
voice of Officer Keating threatening slaughter.
For a moment Mr. Buffin stood incapable of
motion. The thing had been so sudden, so unexpected. And then, as he realised
what was happening, there swept over him in a wave a sense of intolerable
injustice. It is not easy to describe his emotions, but they resembled most
nearly those of an inventor whose patent has been infringed, or an author whose
idea has been stolen. For weeks—and weeks that had seemed like years—he had
marked down Officer Keating for his prey. For weeks he had tortured a mind all
unused to thinking into providing him with schemes for accomplishing his end.
He had outraged his nature by being civil to a policeman. He had risked his
life by incurring the suspicions of Sid Marks. He had bought a stick. And he
had waited in the cold till his face was blue and his feet blocks of ice. And
now … now … after all this … a crowd of irresponsible strangers, with
no rights in the man whatsoever probably, if the truth were known, filled with
mere ignoble desire for his small change, had dared to rush in and jump his
claim before his very eyes.
Spellbound by this fiendish plot... |
With one passionate cry, Mr. Buffin,
forgetting his frozen feet, lifted his stick, and galloped down the road to
protect his property….
"That's the stuff," said a voice.
"Pour some more into him, Jerry."
Mr. Buffin opened his eyes. A familiar taste
was in his mouth. Somebody of liberal ideas seemed to be pouring whisky down
his throat. Could this be Heaven? He raised his head, and a sharp pain shot
through it. And with the pain came recollection. He remembered now, dimly, as
if it had all happened in another life, the mad rush down the road, the
momentary pause in the conflict, and then its noisy renewal on a more
impressive scale. He remembered striking out left and right with his stick. He
remembered the cries of the wounded, the pain of his frozen feet, and finally
the crash of something hard and heavy on his head.
He sat up, and found himself the centre of a
little crowd. There was Officer Keating, dishevelled but intact; three other
policemen, one of whom was kneeling by his side with a small bottle in his
hand; and, in the grip of the two were standing two youths.
One was Otto the Sausage; the other was
Rabbit Butler.
The kneeling policeman was proffering the
bottle once more. Mr. Buffin snatched at it. He felt that it was just what at
that moment he needed most.
* * * * *
He did what he could. The magistrate asked
for his evidence. He said he had none. He said he thought there must be some
mistake. With a twisted smile in the direction of the prisoners, he said that
he did not remember having seen either of them at the combat. He didn't believe
they were there at all. He didn't believe they were capable of such a thing. If
there was one man who was less likely to assault a policeman than Otto the
Sausage, it was Rabbit Butler. The Bench reminded him that both these innocents
had actually been discovered in Officer Keating's grasp. Mr. Buffin smiled a
harassed smile, and wiped a drop of perspiration from his brow.
Officer Keating was enthusiastic. He
described the affair from start to finish. But for Mr. Buffin he would have
been killed. But for Mr. Buffin there would have been no prisoners in court
that day. The world was full of men with more or less golden hearts, but there
was only one Mr. Buffin. Might he shake hands with Mr. Buffin?
The magistrate ruled that he might. More, he
would shake hands with him himself. Summoning Mr. Buffin behind his desk, he
proceeded to do so. If there were more men like Mr. Buffin, London would be a
better place. It was the occasional discovery in our midst of ethereal natures
like that of Mr. Buffin which made one so confident for the future of the race.
The paragon shuffled out. It was bright and
sunny in the street, but in Mr. Buffin's heart there was no sunlight. He was
not a quick thinker, but he had come quite swiftly to the conclusion that
London was no longer the place for him. Sid Marks had been in court chewing a
straw and listening with grave attention to the evidence, and for one moment
Mr. Buffin had happened to catch his eye. No medical testimony as to the
unhealthiness of London could have moved him more.
"Well, Jeeves. One more fine mystery wrapped up..." |
Once round the corner, he ran. It hurt his
head to run, but there were things behind him that could hurt his head more
than running.
* * * * *
At the entrance to the Tube he stopped. To
leave the locality he must have money. He felt in his pockets. Slowly, one by
one, he pulled forth his little valuables. His knife … his revolver … the
magistrate's gold watch … He inspected them sadly. They must all go.
He went into a pawnbroker's shop at the
corner of the street. A few moments later, with money in his pockets, he dived
into the Tube.
END
Louis
Shalako has books and stories available from Amazon.
See
his art on Fine Art America.
Here’s
a free audiobook from Google Play.
More
on P.G. Wodehouse from Wikipedia.
Thank
you for reading, and listening.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please feel free to comment on the blog posts, art or editing.