The Return of Battling Billson - (1)

It was a most embarrassing moment, one of those moments which plant lines on the face and turn the hair a distinguished grey at the temples. I looked at the barman. The barman looked at me. The assembled company looked at us both impartially.
    “Ho!” said the barman.
    I am very quick. I could see at once that he was not in sympathy with me. He was a large, profuse man, and his eye as it met mine conveyed the impression that he regarded me as a bad dream come true. His mobile lips curved slightly, showing a gold tooth; and the muscles of his brawny arms, which were strong as iron bands, twitched a little.
    “Ho!” he said.
    The circumstances which had brought me into my present painful position were as follows. In writing those stories for the popular magazines which at that time were causing so many editors so much regret, I was accustomed, like one of my brother-authors, to take all mankind for my province. Thus, one day I would be dealing with dukes in their castles, the next I would turn right round and start tackling the submerged tenth in their slums. Versatile. At the moment I happened to be engaged upon a rather poignant little thing about a girl called Liz, who worked in a fried-fish shop in the Ratcliff Highway, and I had accordingly gone down there to collect local colour. For whatever Posterity may say of James Corcoran, it can never say that he shrank from inconvenience where his Art was concerned.
    The Ratcliff Highway is an interesting thoroughfare, but on a warm day it breeds thirst. After wandering about for an hour or so, therefore, I entered the Prince of Wales public-house, called for a pint of beer, drained it at a draught, reached in my pocket for coin, and found emptiness. I was in a position to add to my notes on the East End of London one to the effect that pocket-pickery flourishes there as a fine art.
    “I’m awfully sorry,” I said, smiling an apologetic smile and endeavouring to put a debonair winsomeness into my voice. “I find I’ve got no money.”
    It was at this point that the barman said “Ho!” and moved out into the open through a trick door in the counter.
    “I think my pocket must have been picked,” I said.
    “Oh, do you?” said the barman.
    He gave me the idea of being rather a soured man. Years of association with unscrupulous citizens who tried to get drinks for nothing had robbed him of that fine fresh young enthusiasm with which he had started out on his career of barmanship.
    “I had better leave my name and address,” I suggested.
    “Who,” enquired the barman, coldly, “wants your blinking name and address?”
    These practical men go straight to the heart of a thing. He had put his finger on the very hub of the matter. Who did want my blinking name and address? No one.
    “I will send——” I was proceeding, when things began to happen suddenly. An obviously expert hand gripped me by the back of the neck, another closed upon the seat of my trousers, there was a rush of air, and I was rolling across the pavement in the direction of a wet and unsavoury gutter. The barman, gigantic against the dirty white front of the public-house, surveyed me grimly.
    I think that, if he had confined himself to mere looks—however offensive—I would have gone no farther into the matter. After all, the man had right on his side. How could he be expected to see into my soul and note its snowy purity? But, as I picked myself up, he could not resist the temptation to improve the occasion.
    “That’s what comes of tryin’ to snitch drinks,” he said, with what seemed to me insufferable priggishness.
    Those harsh words stung me to the quick. I burned with generous wrath. I flung myself on that barman. The futility of attacking such a Colossus never occurred to me. I forgot entirely that he could put me out of action with one hand.
    A moment later, however, he had reminded me of this fact. Even as I made my onslaught an enormous fist came from nowhere and crashed into the side of my head. I sat down again.
    “’Ullo!”
    I was aware, dimly, that someone was speaking to me, someone who was not the barman. That athlete had already dismissed me as a spent force and returned to his professional duties. I looked up and got a sort of general impression of bigness and blue serge, and then I was lifted lightly to my feet.
    My head had begun to clear now, and I was able to look more steadily at my sympathiser. And, as I looked, the feeling came to me that I had seen him before somewhere. That red hair, those glinting eyes, that impressive bulk—it was my old friend Wilberforce Billson and no other—Battling Billson, the coming champion, whom I had last seen fighting at Wonderland under the personal management of Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge.
    “Did ’e ’it yer?” enquired Mr. Billson.
    There was only one answer to this. Disordered though my faculties were, I was clear upon this point. I said, “Yes, he did hit me.”
    “’R!” said Mr. Billson, and immediately passed into the hostelry.
    It was not at once that I understood the significance of this move. The interpretation I placed upon his abrupt departure was that, having wearied of my society, he had decided to go and have some refreshment. Only when the sound of raised voices from within came pouring through the door did I begin to suspect that in attributing to it such callousness I might have wronged that golden nature. With the sudden reappearance of the barman—who shot out as if impelled by some imperious force and did a sort of backwards fox-trot across the pavement—suspicion became certainty.
    The barman, as becomes a man plying his trade in the Ratcliff Highway, was made of stern stuff. He was no poltroon. As soon as he had managed to stop himself from pirouetting, he dabbed at his right cheek-bone in a delicate manner, soliloquised for a moment, and then dashed back into the bar. And it was after the door had swung to again behind him that the proceedings may have been said formally to have begun.
    What precisely was going on inside that bar I was still too enfeebled to go and see. It sounded like an earthquake, and no meagre earthquake at that. All the glassware in the world seemed to be smashing simultaneously, the populations of several cities were shouting in unison, and I could almost fancy that I saw the walls of the building shake and heave. And then somebody blew a police-whistle.
    There is a magic about the sound of a police-whistle. It acts like oil on the most troubled waters. This one brought about an instant lull in the tumult. Glasses ceased to break, voices were hushed, and a moment later out came Mr. Billson, standing not upon the order of his going. His nose was bleeding a little and there was the scenario of a black eye forming on his face, but otherwise there seemed nothing much the matter with him. He cast a wary look up and down the street and sprinted for the nearest corner. And I, shaking off the dreamy after-effects of my encounter with the barman, sprinted in his wake. I was glowing with gratitude and admiration. I wanted to catch this man up and thank him formally. I wanted to assure him of my undying esteem. Moreover, I wanted to borrow sixpence from him. The realisation that he was the only man in the whole wide East End of London who was likely to lend me the money to save me having to walk back to Ebury Street gave me a rare burst of speed.
    It was not easy to overtake him, for the sound of my pursuing feet evidently suggested to Mr. Billson that the hunt was up, and he made good going. Eventually, however, when in addition to running I began to emit a plaintive “Mr. Billson! I say, Mr. Billson!” at every second stride, he seemed to gather that he was among friends.
    “Oh, it’s you, is it?” he said, halting.
    He was plainly relieved. He produced a murky pipe and lit it. I delivered my speech of thanks. Having heard me out, he removed his pipe and put into a few short words the moral of the whole affair.
    “Nobody don’t dot no pals of mine not when I’m around,” said Mr. Billson.
    “It was awfully good of you to trouble,” I said with feeling.
    “No trouble,” said Mr. Billson.
    “You must have hit that barman pretty hard. He came out at about forty miles an hour.”
    “I dotted him,” agreed Mr. Billson.
    “I’m afraid he has hurt your eye,” I said, sympathetically.
    “Him!” said Mr. Billson, expectorating with scorn. “That wasn’t him. That was his pals. Six or seven of ’em there was.”
    “And did you dot them too?” I cried, amazed at the prowess of this wonder-man.
    “’R!” said Mr. Billson. He smoked awhile. “But I dotted ’im most,” he proceeded. He looked at me with honest warmth, his chivalrous heart plainly stirred to its depths. “The idea,” he said, disgustedly, “of a —— —— ’is size”—he defined the barman crisply and, as far as I could judge after so brief an acquaintanceship, accurately—“goin’ and dottin’ a little —— —— like you!”
    The sentiment was so admirable that I could not take exception to its phraseology. Nor did I rebel at being called “little.” To a man of Mr. Billson’s mould I supposed most people looked little.
    “Well, I’m very much obliged,” I said.
    Mr. Billson smoked in silence.
    “Have you been back long?” I asked, for something to say. Outstanding as were his other merits, he was not good at keeping a conversation alive.
    “Back?” said Mr. Billson.
    “Back in London. Ukridge told me that you had gone to sea again.”
    “Say, mister,” exclaimed Mr. Billson, for the first time seeming to show real interest in my remarks, “you seen ’im lately?”
    “Ukridge? Oh, yes, I see him nearly every day.”
    “I been tryin’ to find ’im.”
    “I can give you his address,” I said. And I wrote it down on the back of an envelope. Then, having shaken his hand, I thanked him once more for his courteous assistance and borrowed my fare back to Civilisation on the Underground, and we parted with mutual expressions of good will.
    The next step in the march of events was what I shall call the Episode of the Inexplicable Female. It occurred two days later. Returning shortly after lunch to my rooms in Ebury Street, I was met in the hall by Mrs. Bowles, my landlord’s wife. I greeted her a trifle nervously, for, like her husband, she always exercised a rather oppressive effect on me. She lacked Bowles’s ambassadorial dignity, but made up for it by a manner so peculiarly sepulchral that strong men quailed before her pale gaze. Scotch by birth, she had an eye that looked as if it was for ever searching for astral bodies wrapped in winding-sheets—this, I believe, being a favourite indoor sport among certain sets in North Britain.
    “Sir,” said Mrs. Bowles, “there is a body in your sitting-room.”
    “A body!” I am bound to say that this Phillips-Oppenheim-like opening to the conversation gave me something of a shock. Then I remembered her nationality. “Oh, you mean a man?”
    “A woman,” corrected Mrs. Bowles. “A body in a pink hat.”
    I was conscious of a feeling of guilt. In this pure and modest house, female bodies in pink hats seemed to require explanation. I felt that the correct thing to do would have been to call upon Heaven to witness that this woman was nothing to me, nothing.
    “I was to give you this letter, sir.”
    I took it and opened the envelope with a sigh. I had recognised the handwriting of Ukridge, and for the hundredth time in our close acquaintanceship there smote me like a blow the sad suspicion that this man had once more gone and wished upon me some frightful thing.
    “My dear old Horse,—
    “It’s not often I ask you to do anything for me...
    I laughed hollowly.
    “My dear old Horse,—
    “It’s not often I ask you to do anything for me, laddie, but I beg and implore you to rally round now and show yourself the true friend I know you are. The one thing I’ve always said about you, Corky my boy, is that you’re a real pal who never lets a fellow down.
    “The bearer of this—a delightful woman, you’ll like her—is Flossie’s mother. She’s up for the day by excursion from the North, and it is absolutely vital that she be lushed up and seen off at Euston at six-forty-five. I can’t look after her myself, as unfortunately I’m laid up with a sprained ankle. Otherwise I wouldn’t trouble you.
    “This is a life and death matter, old man, and I’m relying on you. I can’t possibly tell you how important it is that this old bird should be suitably entertained. The gravest issues hang on it. So shove on your hat and go to it, laddie, and blessings will reward you. Tell you all the details when we meet.
    “Yours ever,
    “S. F. Ukridge.
    “P.S.—I will defray all expenses later.”
    Those last words did wring a faint, melancholy smile from me, but apart from them this hideous document seemed to me to be entirely free from comic relief. I looked at my watch and found that it was barely two-thirty. This female, therefore, was on my hands for a solid four hours and a quarter. I breathed maledictions—futile, of course, for it was a peculiar characteristic of the demon Ukridge on these occasions that, unless one were strong-minded enough to disregard his frenzied pleadings altogether (a thing which was nearly always beyond me), he gave one no chance of escape. He sprang his foul schemes on one at the very last moment, leaving no opportunity for a graceful refusal.
    I proceeded slowly up the stairs to my sitting-room. It would have been a distinct advantage, I felt, if I had known who on earth this Flossie was of whom he wrote with such airy familiarity. The name, though Ukridge plainly expected it to touch a chord in me, left me entirely unresponsive. As far as I was aware, there was no Flossie of any description in my life. I thought back through the years. Long-forgotten Janes and Kates and Muriels and Elizabeths rose from the murky depths of my memory as I stirred it, but no Flossie. It occurred to me as I opened the door that, if Ukridge was expecting pleasant reminiscences of Flossie to form a tender bond between me and her mother, he was building on sandy soil.
    The first impression I got on entering the room was that Mrs. Bowles possessed the true reporter’s gift for picking out the detail that really mattered. One could have said many things about Flossie’s mother, as, for instance, that she was stout, cheerful, and far more tightly laced than a doctor would have considered judicious; but what stood out above all the others was the fact that she was wearing a pink hat. It was the largest, gayest, most exuberantly ornate specimen of head-wear that I had ever seen, and the prospect of spending four hours and a quarter in its society added the last touch to my already poignant gloom. The only gleam of sunshine that lightened my darkness was the reflection that, if we went to a picture-palace, she would have to remove it.
    “Er—how do you do?” I said, pausing in the doorway.
    “’Ow do you do?” said a voice from under the hat. “Say ‘’Ow-do-you-do?’ to the gentleman, Cecil.”
    I perceived a small, shiny boy by the window. Ukridge, realising with the true artist’s instinct that the secret of all successful prose is the knowledge of what to omit, had not mentioned him in his letter; and, as he turned reluctantly to go through the necessary civilities, it seemed to me that the burden was more than I could bear. He was a rat-faced, sinister-looking boy, and he gazed at me with a frigid distaste which reminded me of the barman at the Prince of Wales public-house in Ratcliff Highway.
    “I brought Cecil along,” said Flossie’s (and presumably Cecil’s) mother, after the stripling, having growled a cautious greeting, obviously with the mental reservation that it committed him to nothing, had returned to the window, “because I thought it would be nice for ’im to say he had seen London.”
    “Quite, quite,” I replied, while Cecil, at the window, gazed darkly out at London as if he did not think much of it.
    “Mr. Ukridge said you would trot us round.”
    “Delighted, delighted,” I quavered, looking at the hat and looking swiftly away again. “I think we had better go to a picture-palace, don’t you?”
    “Naw!” said Cecil. And there was that in his manner which suggested that when he said “Naw!” it was final.
    “Cecil wants to see the sights,” explained his mother. “We can see all the pictures back at home. ’E’s been lookin’ forward to seein’ the sights of London. It’ll be an education for ’im, like, to see all the sights.”
    “Westminster Abbey?” I suggested. After all, what could be better for the lad’s growing mind than to inspect the memorials of the great past and, if disposed, pick out a suitable site for his own burial at some later date? Also, I had a fleeting notion, which a moment’s reflection exploded before it could bring me much comfort, that women removed their hats in Westminster Abbey.
    “Naw!” said Cecil.
    “’E wants to see the murders,” explained Flossie’s mother.
    She spoke as if it were the most reasonable of boyish desires, but it sounded to me impracticable. Homicides do not publish formal programmes of their intended activities. I had no notion what murders were scheduled for to-day.
    “’E always reads up all the murders in the Sunday paper,” went on the parent, throwing light on the matter.
    “Oh, I understand,” I said. “Then Madame Tussaud’s is the spot he wants. They’ve got all the murderers.”
    “Naw!” said Cecil.
    “It’s the places ’e wants to see,” said Flossie’s mother, amiably tolerant of my density. “The places where all them murders was committed. ’E’s clipped out the addresses and ’e wants to be able to tell ’is friends when he gets back that ’e’s seen ’em.”
    A profound relief surged over me.
    “Why, we can do the whole thing in a cab,” I cried. “We can stay in a cab from start to finish. No need to leave the cab at all.”
    “Or a bus?”
    “Not a bus,” I said firmly. I was quite decided on a cab—one with blinds that would pull down, if possible.
    “’Ave it your own way,” said Flossie’s mother, agreeably. “Speaking as far as I’m personally concerned, I’m shaw there’s nothing I would rather prefer than a nice ride in a keb. Jear what the gentleman says, Cecil? You’re goin’ to ride in a keb.”
    “Urgh!” said Cecil, as if he would believe it when he saw it. A sceptical boy.
    It was not an afternoon to which I look back as among the happiest I have spent. For one thing, the expedition far exceeded my hasty estimates in the matter of expense. Why it should be so I cannot say, but all the best murders appear to take place in remote spots like Stepney and Canning Town, and cab-fares to these places run into money. Then, again, Cecil’s was not one of those personalities which become more attractive with familiarity. I should say at a venture that those who liked him best were those who saw the least of him. And, finally, there was a monotony about the entire proceedings which soon began to afflict my nerves. The cab would draw up outside some mouldering house in some desolate street miles from civilisation, Cecil would thrust his unpleasant head out of the window and drink the place in for a few moments of silent ecstasy, and then he would deliver his lecture. He had evidently read well and thoughtfully. He had all the information.
    “The Canning Town ’Orror,” he would announce.
    “Yes, dearie?” His mother cast a fond glance at him and a proud one at me. “In this very ’ouse, was it?”
    “In this very ’ouse,” said Cecil, with the gloomy importance of a confirmed bore about to hold forth on his favourite subject. “Jimes Potter ’is nime was. ’E was found at seven in the morning underneaf the kitchen sink wiv ’is froat cut from ear to ear. It was the landlady’s brother done it. They ’anged ’im at Pentonville.”
    Some more data from the child’s inexhaustible store, and then on to the next historic site.
    “The Bing Street ’Orror!”
    “In this very ’ouse, dearie?”
    “In this very ’ouse. Body was found in the cellar in an advanced stige of dee-cawm-po-sition wiv its ’ead bashed in, prezoomably by some blunt instrument.”
    At six-forty-six, ignoring the pink hat which protruded from the window of a third-class compartment and the stout hand that waved a rollicking farewell, I turned from the train with a pale, set face, and, passing down the platform of Euston Station, told a cabman to take me with all speed to Ukridge’s lodgings in Arundel Street, Leicester Square. There had never, so far as I knew, been a murder in Arundel Street, but I was strongly of opinion that that time was ripe. Cecil’s society and conversation had done much to neutralise the effects of a gentle upbringing, and I toyed almost luxuriously with the thought of supplying him with an Arundel Street Horror for his next visit to the Metropolis.
    “Aha, laddie,” said Ukridge, as I entered. “Come in, old horse. Glad to see you. Been wondering when you would turn up.”
    He was in bed, but that did not remove the suspicion which had been growing in me all the afternoon that he was a low malingerer. I refused to believe for a moment in that sprained ankle of his. My view was that he had had the advantage of a first look at Flossie’s mother and her engaging child and had shrewdly passed them on to me.
    “I’ve been reading your book, old man,” said Ukridge, breaking a pregnant silence with an overdone carelessness. He brandished winningly the only novel I had ever written, and I can offer no better proof of the black hostility of my soul than the statement that even this did not soften me. “It’s immense, laddie. No other word for it. Immense. Damme, I’ve been crying like a child.”
    “It is supposed to be a humorous novel,” I pointed out, coldly.
    “Crying with laughter,” explained Ukridge, hurriedly.
    I eyed him with loathing.
    “Where do you keep your blunt instruments?” I asked.
    “My what?”
    “Your blunt instrument. I want a blunt instrument. Give me a blunt instrument. My God! Don’t tell me you have no blunt instrument.”
    “Only a safety-razor.”
    I sat down wearily on the bed.
    “Hi! Mind my ankle!”
    “Your ankle!” I laughed a hideous laugh, the sort of laugh the landlady’s brother might have emitted before beginning operations on James Potter. “A lot there is the matter with your ankle.”
    “Sprained it yesterday, old man. Nothing serious,” said Ukridge, reassuringly. “Just enough to lay me up for a couple of days.”