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Britannia and Eve, February 1938, with "The Holiday"
NEARLY everyone in the small block of old-fashioned mansion-flats seemed to be going on holiday, with the exception of Charles Bevan.
Checked in his ambition to become one of Trenchard's young men, for the past eight months he had been lying in a back ground-floor flat, which looked out into the well of the courtyard. He disliked reading, so had nothing to do but listen to the rush of bath-water down the pipes from six o'clock in the morning, and to watch the lights appear in the opposite building until the final eclipse.
The walls were thick, so that he could not hear the voices or footsteps of the other tenants. He had but few visitors, and depended mainly on the society of the porter—Tory—and his wife, who looked after him. That was his life.
In the circumstances, it was hardly surprising that his energy had corroded to mental irritation, his ambition had turned to poison, and all hope had soured and died. On this particular hot August morning he had sunk to a stage when he doubted not only the doctor's assurance of his ultimate recovery—but his own power to endure....
At the top of the building, Janet Lewis—the girl in a fifth-floor flat—was going on a holiday. She did not want to go, but as there was a lull in her typing-commissions it seemed prudent to take advantage of the chance, for reasons of health.
Her suit-case was packed and lay on the floor; inside the tradesman's lift was placed a note to Mrs. Tory, who shopped for her, asking her to send up no more provisions until further notice. Before she left, she was finishing an article intended for a woman's journal, which contained hints on holiday preparations.
As she typed it, she checked its points for her own benefit.
"Turn off gas, water, and electricity at the mains." She would do this just before she left.
"Make provision for pets." She had none, for lack of room.
"Dispose of all perishable food." While she thought of it, she would crumble up the remains of the loaf for the birds.
Plate in hand, she unlocked her front door and ran up the last flight of stairs to the roof. It was hot weather, and as she gazed down at the forest of chimneys pricking through the smoky haze, she suddenly realised that she was stale and overworked.
In spite of her youth, she had known the horrors of poverty, as a result of which she had begun a twenty years' plan. This involved continuous work to secure an annuity at the age of forty, when she would live in a cottage in the country and grow her own spinach.
Although she was sacrificing everything to her purpose—leisure, exercise and amusement—she remained surprisingly healthy and attractive, with fresh colouring which accompanied the dash of red in her brown hair. She was too busy to worry or question, while her flat which consisted of two rooms—a living-room and kitchen, with a hall which held the usual offices—seemed a luxury apartment to her.
But as she looked down at the city, for the first time, she welcomed the prospect of a holiday, when she would be free to wander, according to her whim and without a single plan.
Next door to the mansion-flats, the cashier of a small branch-bank was thinking also of his holiday. He had booked rooms at Eastbourne, and was due to meet his wife and young family at Victoria Station, in half an hour. Anticipating his emancipation, he was wearing grey flannel bags, and he sported in his buttonhole an orange carnation, from his garden.
There only remained two minutes to closing time, so he looked up with a slight frown, at the entrance of a latecomer.
The man walked to the counter, but instead of a cheque, he presented a revolver at him.
Even as he realised that he was being held-up, the cashier rushed at the bandit. The next second, he lay, crumpled upon the floor, with a bullet in his brain—while his wife was watching the clock at Victoria Station and his children sucked toffee-apples.
The bandit worked swiftly, but even as he packed his bag, the alarm was raised. He reached the door just in time to see his partner scorch away in the car, either to save his own skin or to draw the pursuit. Panic-stricken, he darted into the entrance hall of the flats and tore up flight after flight of stairs until he reached the haven of an open door.
A minute later, Janet ran down from the roof and entered her flat. The first thing she saw was a leather bag on the floor of the hall. She was wondering where it came from, when someone behind her sprang on her and gripped her throat.
"One squeal and you're dead," he whispered. "I've just killed a man."
TOO stunned with shock to feel fear, she realised the strength of his position. He could shoot her and be invulnerable to reprisal, since the law could not hang him twice.
In any case, she could not have cried for help, because of the pressure on her wind pipe. She was beginning to choke, when she heard the sound of heavy footsteps ringing out on the stone stairs.
They stopped on the fifth-floor landing and then someone hammered on her door. With a throb of deep gratitude, she realised that the hunt had picked up the man's trail and was hot on the scent.
She was waiting for the end of a brief yet concentrated thrill when the man pushed her forward.
"Open the door," he whispered fiercely.
As he spoke, she felt a ring of metal against her back. Flinching from the contact, she drew back the catch of the lock with trembling fingers.
The porter and a policeman stood outside; both were out of breath and appeared hot. She looked at Tory with beseeching eyes as he mopped his face. Although she could touch him, she was divided from him by a gulf she could not bridge.
"Did you hear anyone pass this way?" asked the policeman.
Her unwelcome guest stood behind her where he was screened from view; but she felt the increased pressure of the metallic ring. It was a hint whose nature she could neither mistake nor ignore.
"No," she replied quickly.
"Has your door been open?"
"No."
As she spoke, a hope flared up that they would insist on searching her flat; but Tory crushed it immediately by a suggestion.
"We'd better try the roof, to satisfy you."
Once again Janet was left alone with the man. He took no notice of her, but looked around him with intent eyes which missed no detail.
"Yours?" he asked, kicking her suitcase aside. "Are you going away?"
"Yes," she replied.
"How long?"
"A fortnight."
"Do your friends know?"
"Yes."
She answered mechanically, for she was listening for the sound of footsteps coming down from the roof. It was a cheering reflection that the man was only waiting for the chance of a safe getaway She was wondering how long he would linger in the building, and whether he would force her to act as his scout, when he snatched her note to Mrs. Tory, off the lift.
She swallowed her indignation as he tore it open and read it.
"Does this woman send up all your food?" he asked.
"Yes," she replied. "Don't you ever go out?"
"Yes, sometimes, when—"
"Shut up."
The threat of his revolver made her realise that Tory and the policeman were returning from the roof. They tramped across her landing, passed her door, and went down the stairs.
When they reached the hall, Tory had the satisfaction of reminding the policeman that he was right.
"I told you he couldn't be here. All the flats are kept locked and there's nowhere he could hide."
He was still very pleased with himself when he entered the ground-floor back flat, to give his gentleman a second-hand thrill. His idea was to cheer up the invalid, so he was taken aback by the glum misery of Bevan's face, as he interrupted the tale.
"He came in all right. I heard him on the stairs, but I didn't give it a thought. Even if I had. Amusing, isn't it? On the spot and able to do nothing, while some decent chap is sent west, and his murderer gets away with it. I'm a valuable member of society."
"Now, sir," protested Tory, "you'll soon be all right again. The doctor says—"
"Don't quote that comedian. It's his daily joke. Of course, it's obvious what happened. The man went up to the roof and came down by the fire escape to the back entrance, while you were on the tiles. He's well away by now. Will you tell Mrs. Tory not to trouble to send me in lunch. Thank her very much."
When Tory repeated the message to his wife, her jolly face grew grave.
"I don't like it," she objected. "He's too polite. If only he'd buck up and swear. I'm getting afraid of going in to his room, for fear of smelling gas."
IN contradiction of Bevan's statement, the bandit was in a state of nervous tension when he experienced the aggressive terror of a cornered rat. Since he had been followed to the flat, he felt sure that the building would be kept under observation, and he dared not leave, for fear of walking out into an ambush.
But Fate had provided him with a solution of his problem. He reasoned that the police would count on his being starved into submission, in the event of his having found some hiding place on the premises. Therefore, if he remained in this girl's room for a definite period, their suspicions would be destroyed and they would call off any guard.
Whistling under his breath, he considered the possibilities of his scheme. The girl would not be missed at her place of business for the duration of her holiday, while supplies of food would arrive daily. The fact that she did not go out would not be noticed unless a deliberate watch was set on her movements. In this case, there would be nothing to attract attention, since apparently she would be carrying on her usual routine.
The flaw seemed to lie in her holiday arrangements. He knew it was useless to question her about these, since she would lie, but he counted on the fact that anyone who was puzzled at her non-arrival, would ring up the flat—when he could compel her to reassure them.
Fortunately for his conspiracy, the telephone, speaking-tube and tradesman's lift were all in the kitchen, where he could control them. Success depended on whether he had the nerve to lie low and sit tight. Spinning a coin for luck, he tore up Janet's note to Mrs. Tory, countermanding supplies.
"Listen, you," he said. "You're not going away. I'm staying here—and you've got to stay too. You've only one chance. Keep quiet!"
Too terrified to protest, Janet stared at him with dull wonder that he should look so average and normal. He did not resemble the gangsters of the screen, neither did he use their slang. Hard-eyed and tight-lipped, with smooth hair, there was nothing to distinguish him from any keen young business-man, who determines to rise.
Yet, in spite of her fear, she found it impossible to believe in such an amazing situation.
"It can't last," she told herself. "Someone is bound to come to the flat—Tory, or the postman. I must make them suspect something is wrong."
Her hope rising at a sudden inspiration, she ventured to speak to the bandit.
"I think I had better send a message for extra supplies. I don't eat much and you won't like my food. I don't have meat."
His sneer at her flimsy ruse shrivelled any expectation of success. He did not even trouble to reply, but asked a sudden question.
"Has the porter a master-key of the flats?"
"Yes, in case of fire," she told him.
"Well, if he uses it, for any reason, he's a dead man. That goes for anyone who tries to come in. And the next bullet will be yours."
He went to the door, locked it, and put the key in his pocket, thus formally making her his prisoner.
She was too stunned to protest. His last speech had reminded her of the hideous truth that he had just killed a harmless citizen in cold blood, and that any unsuspecting person who entered her flat would meet with the same fate.
It would be an invitation to be murdered, if she incited Tory to come to her rescue, unless she could smuggle through a note to him, telling him the facts. If he communicated with the police, she knew that they would devise a means to draw the man's fire and take him by surprise.
But, pending such information, she must do her utmost to keep the porter—or anyone else—away.
"Directly I've a chance, I'll write to Tory," she decided. "I don't suppose he'll let me get near the lift—but I can throw it out of my window."
As though he were playing into her hands, the man went into the living-room and wheeled out the divan, which served as her bed, by night, and a couch, by day.
"I'm sleeping in the kitchen," he told her. "There'll be no monkey business with the lift. You stay in the other room."
Even as her heart lightened at the prospect of privacy, he went into the living-room and jerked the pictures from the walls. Wrenching out the long nails, he drove them through the frame of the window, so that it was impossible to open it. Then he came close to her and stared into her eyes.
"It's a noisy business to try and break glass," he said. "I don't advise you to try. I shall hear you. And now listen I don't like you. I don't want you here. Keep out of my sight. Don't speak to me. If you call out, or try to attract attention, I'll shoot you like a rabbit. And this is to show you I mean it."
His fist shot out and she fell down limply to the floor.
Her holiday had begun,
WHEN the man had gone back to the kitchen, Janet sat in the living-room and tried to think. Although she felt mentally bruised, and her cheek was beginning to swell, in one way, she was vaguely relieved by the man's attack. It expunged the human element from the situation, and made him seem almost disembodied, like a destructive force of indiscriminate and universal hatred.
As she lit a cigarette to soothe her nerves, he reappeared at the door.
"So you smoke?" he muttered. "Fags, too."
He snatched up the packet of cigarettes as he nodded at the typewriter.
"Carry on as usual with that," he then commanded.
The incident made her realise the cunning of his imagination, which foresaw every possible pitfall. In his determination to avoid any discrepancy, he had refrained from smoking, until he had learned her own habits. He meant to shield himself with her identity. It was fortunate for her sanity that she was allowed occupation. In accordance with her principle of never refusing work, she had accepted some heavy monotonous matter, which was poorly paid, but which she was privileged to deliver them in instalments.
She now set herself the task of clearing it off in bulk. As she tapped away, her thoughts circled around her imprisonment. She could see no shred of hope anywhere. The other tenants of the fifth floor were away on holiday, and no one could possibly miss her, or know of her predicament.
When she set out to compass her twenty years' plan, she had isolated herself rather too well. All wires were cut, while signals were worse than useless.
"I could keep flashing the light, when it is dark," she told herself. "But whoever noticed it would only tell Tory and send him up. Sherlock Holmes is the only person who could help me now."
Presently, when Tory whistled up the tube—as a preliminary to winding up the lift with her supplies—the bandit ordered her into the kitchen.
"Thank you, Tory," she said faintly.
"Have you got a cold, miss?" he called up. "Your voice sounds rather queer."
As the bandit flourished his revolver, she forced herself to speak brightly.
"No, thanks, Tory. I feel splendid."
Then the lift was wound down, empty, and her brief interlude of intercourse with the world was ended.
"Is this all?" snarled the man, as he looked at the small supply of wholemeal bread, butter, an egg, and salad.
"I warned you," she told him.
"Then take this."
As he handed her the lettuce and fruit as her portion, she managed to pluck up her spirit.
"I'd better smash the window and let you shoot me," she told him. "It's quicker than starvation."
She could not know that the man's calculations were seriously upset by the food shortage. While her own rations were sparrow's food to him, and he did not scruple about reducing her to a state of semi-starvation, he did not want to lose his official voice, whose function was to quell any outside suspicion. Therefore he was relieved by her suggestion to order a tin of biscuits.
"I always have one in stock," she told him. "The last one is practically finished."
When he had tested the truth of her words by finding the empty container in the cupboard, he allowed her to whistle down the tube to Tory, who was not too pleased with the request.
"Won't to-morrow do, miss?" he asked.
"No, to-day, please," she told him. "I'm terribly hungry."
"Very good, miss."
As he expected, his wife was annoyed at the prospect of having to go out again, when she had finished her day's shopping.
"Give me a man to do for every time," she declared. "If she can't remember, she shouldn't order in penny numbers. She can wait till to-morrow."
Tory, as usual, saved the situation with a suggestion.
"There's Mr. Bevan's new tin, not opened. He never eats now with his tea. You can get in another tin for him by the time he asks for them again. If he ever does."
In spite of the calendar, that day was the longest in the year for Janet, but at last, it came to an end. As she dozed—fully dressed—in an armchair, she kept reminding herself of her identity, and also that there was a time-limit to her ordeal.
"I'm Janet Lewis," she told herself. "Something has happened to me—but it will pass. In three weeks' time, he will be gone and I shall be here. I'll still be Janet Lewis."
DURING the hideous days that followed, the fifth-floor flat was not a dwelling, but a temporary shelter where two alien personalities shared an intolerable situation. Except for unavoidable contacts, they kept apart. Sometimes the man gave her an order in a penetrating whisper, but otherwise they remained silent.
Janet grew pale and thin from semi-starvation, but she suffered most from the enclosed atmosphere. In spite of the relief of an almost continuous wind which whistled down her chimney, the air grew daily thicker and fouler, so that she had to deny herself the consolation of smoking. She made cups of tea over the gas-ring in her room, when she forced herself to nibble biscuits, but all appetite for food had deserted her.
As she tapped away at her machine, she lost all sense of place and felt suspended in a curious dimension outside space, even while she was enclosed within the walls of her flat. She could hear people pass by her door and see them cross the courtyard, yet she was cut off from all intercourse with humanity.
Sometimes she wondered whether Tory would remark her closed window, but he never appeared to look up. In any case, it was almost screened from observation by the high coping of the small balcony in front.
Besides—she did not want him to notice any unusual feature—lest it should prove his death-warrant.
Although she welcomed the end of every day, as one stage nearer release, the nights were even worse, when she sat, in her clothes and dozed, starting awake at every creak of the divan in the kitchen. The man, too, scarcely slept, for he was strung up to a state of nervous expectancy which exceeded her own, and which kept him continually on guard.
Through the day, he lay on the divan, smoking and counting his piles of new notes; but while he was obsessed by his fortune, his main object was to get away in safety. He always turned on the wireless to get the news, in case of a police SOS; and he strained his ears for the movements of the porter and other tenants, in order to get a clue to their time table.
Although he ate Janet's daily rations, after his first outburst, he seemed indifferent to food. At night, he removed only his boots and slept with one eye open—his revolver beside him—ready for instant flight.
As he grew daily more red-eyed and unkempt, Janet shrank from him. She guessed that he was maddened to a pitch when, at her first false move, he might shoot her from panic. Being shut up with him was about as safe as sharing a confined space with an infernal machine, but she endured because of her confidence of the end.
One hot muggy night, however, when she was panting for fresh air, this certainty of release was replaced by a new and ghastly dread. Suddenly she remembered a picture she had seen at a cinema, when a gangster shot the doctor and nurse who had rendered him a service, in order to secure their silence.
For the first time, she asked herself the question—"What will my own fate be?"
Meanwhile the occupants of the fifth-floor flat were not the only sufferers. Bevan, too, was feeling the heat acutely and was more than usually depressed. In his morbid condition, he seemed to assume responsibility for the fact that the criminal who had shot the bank cashier, was still at liberty. He feverishly searched numerous newspapers for news of his capture, and practically ceased to eat.
One afternoon, however, he staggered Tory by a request for biscuits with his tea.
"I'm afraid you've finished your tin," he said. "The missus will slip out and get you some in two minutes."
"It doesn't matter, thanks." Bevan's voice was listless. "It's very quiet," he added. "I suppose everyone this side of the building is away?"
"All but the young lady up there."
Glad to change the subject, Tory pointed to a window set high in the side of the wall.
"She sits typing all day," he told Bevan. "She's so set in her ways, you could put a clock by her, for all she's young and pretty. My missus shops for her too, as she doesn't get out much."
"Sounds unhealthy," yawned Bevan, who had lost all interest in young and pretty girls.
"But she looks blooming," Tory told him. "She eats well, too. I'll confess now we let her have your tin of biscuits because she told me she was extra hungry."
"Oh. confound the blasted biscuits," said Bevan with unfamiliar vigour.
WHILE the two men chatted, life went on somehow in the fifth-floor flat. Every morning, Janet told herself, "This can't last another day," but the hours crawled on until she was faced with the torment of another night, with its question of haunting suspense.
"What will my fate be?" A week passed, every day of which left its mark upon her. She lost all personal pride and stopped looking in the mirror. Because of her shrinking dread of passing through the kitchen, in order to reach the hall, she did the minimum of washing—although she powdered her face with some vague notion of covering up deficiencies.
Nothing seemed to matter in this nightmare, except the fact that the end must come. Whenever she typed, her thoughts winged on strange journeys. Gradually she became a kind of split personality, when she carried on conversations with herself. Semi-delirious from strain and hunger, she listened to a girl of twenty—her own age—who reproached a woman of forty.
"You're a selfish introvert. You've never considered me. I've never been to dances. I've had no time to make friends. I've had to slave for you.... Why couldn't you wait till you were fifty-five to get your cottage in the country?"
The voice droned on in unison with an imprisoned fly which buzzed maddeningly over the window-pane. But in the lucid interlude which followed, Janet admitted the truth of her ravings. She had wasted her youth and was losing the present for the future.
In this connection, she remembered with a pang, that Tory had told her of a bedridden young man on the ground floor, to whom she could have lent books, in token of sympathy. Now, as though in punishment, it was her turn to feel completely cut off from the world.
ON the eighth morning, the bandit returned from the hall, completely altered in appearance. He was cleanly shaved, his hair shone, and his coat was well brushed. He looked like any smart young business man, except for the revolver with which he drove her into the kitchen.
"Whistle down to the porter," he commanded. "Tell him to stop sending up food, as you are going away on your holiday."
Too excited to think clearly, Janet rushed to the tube and delivered the message to Tory.
"Will you want a taxi?" he called up.
"No, thank you," she replied, obedient to the shake of the bandit's head.
"Then, a pleasant time, miss," said Tory. "If you should want me for anything, I'll be over in the back block, after eleven, as I'm showing some people a flat."
Janet noticed the sudden glint of the bandit's eye, and realised that, unconsciously, Tory had revealed the exact time when the entrance hall would be unwatched.
The next half-hour was an agony of suspense, when hope struggled with fear of her fate. Suddenly the man glanced at his watch, and, laying his revolver on the table, came towards her.
"If this was a picture, I should seize it and hold him up," she thought wildly.
Even while she was trying to nerve herself for the attempt, the man threw a double of laundry cord around her and the back of the chair on which she was sitting, pinioning her to her seat. Too terrified to cry out, she struggled silently and vainly, while he bound her wrists together and fastened her legs to the rungs.
"What will happen to me?" she whispered.
"Shut up," he growled. "You'll be all right."
These words were all she had to guide her to make a terrible choice, as the man took a kitchen cloth from the table drawer. She told herself that if he meant to leave her gagged and bound in a locked flat, her end would be so terrible that she had better scream, and so ensure the swift mercy of a bullet. But, on the other hand, there was a glimmer of hope that he might send information to the porter, which would lead to her release, once he was safely away.
It was taking a desperate chance, for she had noticed no scruple or sign of ordinary humanity in the bandit; yet the passion for life was so overpowering, that she resolved to remain silent.
As the man folded a strip of linen into a pad, there was an unexpected interruption. A loud scrape and rattle against the outside wall of the building was followed by the appearance of the top of a ladder against the kitchen window.
"The cleaner," gasped Janet.
With an oath, the man pushed her chair towards the window.
"Tell him to go away," he ordered.
His back was turned to the door, so that he was unable to gauge the significance of that psychological moment of distraction. But even as Janet remembered that the window cleaner was not yet due, she realised that the noise of the ladder had covered the silent entrance of Tory with two policemen.
With the fury of a tidal-bore, they rushed at the bandit. Unarmed and taken completely by surprise, he fought like a maniac; but after a period of noise and confusion, he was overcome and handcuffed.
After the police had tramped away in triumph with their prisoner, Tory stayed behind to release Janet. Now that her ordeal was ended, she had become hysterical, and she overwhelmed him with blessings and thanks.
"How did you know about me?" she asked, when she had grown calmer.
"I didn't," he told her. "It was Mr. Bevan, the gentleman in the ground-floor flat. He fixed everything up. If you are ail right now, I must go down and tell him everything went off according to plan."
"I'm coming, too," said Janet. "I must thank him."
She drew out her pocket mirror and then gave a scream.
"Is that me?" she gasped. "You'd better go down without me. I won't be long."
WHEN Tory opened the door of the ground-floor flat to her, ten minutes later, it was evident that Bevan also had prepared for a reception. He looked as gorgeous as a Sultan in a new dark purple dressing-gown, while his thin face wore an unaccustomed grin.
"Don't tell me who you are," he called out, before Janet could speak. "You're the six o'clock bath. I've known you for eight months. You're punctual to the dot. And you're cold."
"How could you tell that?" gasped Janet.
"Because no steam ever issued from the overflow. I knew the exact point in this antiquated plumbing where to expect to see you. And since a cold morning bath is a Spartan habit which, once acquired, is not lightly or wantonly abandoned, I noticed the fact when you stopped running down the pipe." "I had to give it up," explained Janet. "You see, the bath is in—"
"In the kitchen," finished Bevan. "I knew that, from the arrangement of my own flat. At first, of course, I paid no attention to your lapse, as it was obvious that you were either ill, or away. But when Tory told me that you were still in residence, and eating rather above form, I grew reflective."
Suddenly Janet began to feel hungry.
"He ate all my food," she said piteously.
"That's why you are going to have lunch with me at once. Mrs. Tory has kindly promised to arrange it."
Tory caught his wink and beamed at the new development. While he hurried away to tell his wife. Bevan went on with his explanation.
"As, providentially, I had nothing to do but lie still and puzzle it out, I came to the conclusion that you might be entertaining an uninvited visitor of a certain type, in your kitchen. I remembered the scare over the bank bandit, and as he was still at large, I thought I might connect the two. After that, the significant feature of your continued silence pointed to the threat of a bullet."
Janet forgot to shudder as she gazed at Bevan with shining eyes.
"I can never thank you," she told him. "It was marvellous of you."
"Oh, that part of it was elementary," he told her lightly. "The difficult bits were, first, to prevent the gallant Tory from using his master-key on his lonesome, and then to sell the idea of a surprise visit to the police. By the way, you appear to have the remains of an old-fashioned black eye."
"Yes. He knocked me down."
"Good luck for you. He might have been amorous. When I'm up again—and that will be very soon—we must go to the pictures together and see a gangster film, to criticise its technique."
"No," shuddered Janet. "It will bring it all back."
"Now, don't be sorry for yourself. I know it's Satan rebuking sin, but we're both alive—and that should be enough for us. You've been jolted out of your rut, and I—"
He lowered his voice as he added, "You'll never know what this has meant to me. I had lost my faith. Everything seemed a futile mess and waste. But now I know why I had to lie like a log for eight months, and listen to water rushing down the pipes. It was because I had to miss the six o'clock bath. You."
Roy Glashan's Library
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