Dictator's Way (4 page)

“Hullo, Clarence,” Bobby exclaimed, wondering what on earth this East End bully's presence here might mean.

“All right, all right,” the other growled, “you aren't pinching me – I'll do you in first, may as well swing for two as for one.”

As he spoke, he charged.

Bobby had no time for any expression of surprise, protest, remonstrance, no time indeed even for conscious thought as that mountain of a man charged down upon him, with flaming eyes and pounding feet, his arms revolving like those of a windmill.

Instinctively Bobby knew that at close quarters he would stand no chance. As well risk close quarters with a grizzly bear as with oncoming Clarence. His only hope was to keep at a distance and to remember that it had been said of Clarence in his boxing days that to hit him was as easy as to hit a house, even though hitting him seemed to have little more effect than such hitting would have on a house.

Swiftly then, with a speed indeed on which he knew his life depended, for it was murder unmistakable that glared from under those shaggy, overhanging brows, from those small red-rimmed eyes, Bobby sprang to one side, and as Clarence thundered by hit him twice, once on the temple, once just behind the ear.

They were good blows, well timed, well delivered, behind them all the force of Bobby's vigorous young manhood. Either might well, with most opponents, have ended the fight then and there. Clarence gave no sign of having even noticed them.

He swung round and came again, and this time Bobby changed his tactics, leaving that small, bullet-like head alone and aiming instead his blows at the other's heart, leaping in to deliver them, springing away again in time to avoid Clarence's slow enormous fists. This time Clarence paid Bobby's efforts the tribute of a grunt or two, drew back a moment as if to recover breath, and then again came on. But once more Bobby slipped away, getting in as he did so, however, yet another vicious short-arm jab, on the same spot, just above the heart.

Clarence let loose a stream of profanity and again came in pursuit, and still Bobby employed the same tactics, fighting coolly and warily, careful to keep without the range of the other's flail-like arms, taking every chance to let his own fists beat a tattoo on the same spot, just above the heart. Not that this long succession of blows seemed as yet to be having much effect, and the knowledge was clear at the back of Bobby's mind that if even one of those threshing fists of Clarence's got home, that would be the end. So far he had succeeded in either avoiding them altogether, or in taking them on the retreat with diminished force, but the mixture of skill and of good fortune that had hitherto served him so well he knew must in the end break down. But not yet, and once more he ran in under the other's guard and flung all his weight into two more blows on the same spot and was away again, untouched himself.

One hope Bobby had, and that lay in the fact that Clarence was very evidently not in good condition. A steady devotion to the new dogma that ‘beer is best' was having its natural and due effect, and then, too, Bobby's fists, thudding home time and again upon that one spot just above the heart, were beginning to produce results. Also Clarence was wasting a great deal of breath in the use of a very great deal of very bad language, as, too, he was expending much of his strength in those bull-like rushes that all the same Bobby was finding it increasingly difficult to avoid.

Once more his fists, with all his weight behind them, got home, and this time Clarence gasped and stood still a moment, slightly dazed, it seemed, so that Bobby had time to leap in and hit, swift right and left, on the same spot and so away again. Not quite unharmed this time, however, for one of Clarence's flail-like swings caught him on the right cheek and sent him reeling back a dozen feet or more.

It was the heaviest blow he had yet received, for another that had cut his lip and set it bleeding, had been comparatively light. For the moment, under the weight of that left-handed swing, it was all Bobby could do to keep his footing, and had Clarence followed it up, the fight might well have ended then and there. But Clarence did not even see his opportunity. He was standing still, trying to get his breath and to get rid of an odd feeling he had, as if his heart was missing a beat occasionally.

The pause gave time for the mists to clear that had gathered before Bobby's eyes. He wiped away the blood trickling from his cut lip into his mouth and he told himself that if only he could get in a few more hits on his opponent's heart, the victory might still be his. A kind of exultation filled him at the thought, a swift energy of combat, so that he knew no longer anything in all the world but this rage of conflict, this urge to conquer.

It was he who was the attacker now. Hitherto he had fought on the defensive, but now he attacked and Clarence was forced to stand and endure his fierce assault. A little bewildered he stood still as Bobby almost danced around, feinting here, threatening there, dodging, leaping in and away again, and yet scarcely ever actually delivering a blow save on that one spot he had made his target.

“Stand still, stand still, can't ye?” Clarence growled, and Bobby laughed aloud, for the sweet joy of battle was alight in him, aflame in every nerve and vein, and once more he feinted and hit and dodged away, unhurt himself.

But now Clarence, a little blue about the lips but still strong upon his feet, and a little tired perhaps of standing to serve as a kind of stationary target, started to follow, slowly, ponderously, determinedly, enduring Bobby's blows, paying almost each one the tribute of a grunt but somehow with the air of knowing that not for long could such a fire and blaze of attack endure and that when it died down, his turn would come.

But Bobby had no feeling that the fierce energy flowing through him would ever slacken, and he had noted that blue tinge come upon the other's lips, and he believed himself assured of victory.

“Now I've got you,” Clarence said; and in his turn laughed, if that can be called a laugh which sounded more like a bulldog's growl.

With a start Bobby realized that they had drawn close to the edge of the pond, so that the water behind prevented any further movement in that direction and to one side. And on the other side the ground was damp and sodden from water seeping in from where the choked grid and drain were failing to take it away.

And in front was Clarence, still upon his feet, huge and formidable.

Bobby saw that he had allowed himself to be cornered, that his only chance now was to slip away again into the open. Suddenly he ran straight in at Clarence, hoping to confuse him and then to slip by on one side or the other. But the damp and heavy ground hampered his feet and held them down. For once, too, Clarence guessed right what Bobby intended, received and never heeded another blow, and flung wide his enormous arms so that Bobby found himself caught in the grasp of a man by far his superior in weight and brute strength.

Nor was any referee there to order ‘break away', no referee or umpire indeed, nothing between them save the primeval urge to kill and hurt.

With all his force Bobby hit Clarence on the chin. He might as well have hit a brick wall. His own knuckles bled, but that was all. He tried the rabbit punch, for his need was desperate, and the life slowly ebbing from him under the pressure of the grip wherein he was held. But it had no effect, for he could not free his arm enough to deliver it effectively. They fell and rolled together on the ground.

With all the strength despair can give, Bobby tried to wrench himself free, to get his arms free, to make some effective defence against that mountainous grip in which he was held. But he was undermost, and now he saw death glaring at him from the other's red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes, felt now the other's hands groping for his throat, about to squeeze the life from him.

A darkness came before his eyes and a sound of running waters.

Running waters. A splashing, a gurgling. The pressure on his throat relaxed. He perceived that from somewhere a stream of cold water was descending through the bright sunlight, aimed very accurately at Clarence's mouth.

It was wide open. He was trying to shout something, a threat or a curse. The stream of water caught it full. Clarence choked. Bobby wrenched himself free. He perceived he had his own share of the drenching and that he was soaked from head to foot. Clarence, wrathful and wet, was scrambling to his feet, spluttering, gasping, choking. The stream of water continued to play upon his face with extreme accuracy. Probably it was years, not since his childhood's days very likely, since so much pure, unmixed water had found its way into his interior. He disliked it intensely. Nor was he used to cold baths and now he was dripping from head to foot. Thoughts of pneumonia passed through his mind. A girl's voice said: 

“Dad taught me that. He always said when two dogs started fighting, there was nothing like a pail of cold water.”

“Water,” said Clarence, still spluttering. “Water,” he repeated as Herr Hitler might say ‘Jew' – or a Jew say ‘Hitler'.

“Want some more, or is that enough?” asked the girl, deflecting the stream of water.

Bobby perceived now that she had connected up a length of old hose with a stand-pipe some thirty or forty feet away, and from a distance of about ten feet had been directing the stream with considerable accuracy upon the two of them, though with special attention to Clarence's mouth whenever he opened it in an attempt to speak.

She was very tall, very thin, even for these slimming days, with a thin, narrow, dead-white face whereon lips painted a deep crimson made a vivid unnatural patch. Her eyebrows had been plucked to a nearly straight line, her nose was long and straight, her crimsoned lips thin and straight, so that it almost seemed as if there were exemplified in her the modern belief that the straight line and the angle are the lines of beauty. But it was her eyes that were her most noticeable feature, large, dark, fringed with long dark lashes, they gave an odd impression of seeing nothing that was near by, only things that were very far away. Even while she had been aiming that stream of water so accurately at the two struggling men, her gaze had seemed directed not at them but at something she was aware of in the far distance. A strong, unusual personality, Bobby thought, more striking than attractive, neither wholly feminine nor yet in any way masculine, something between the two perhaps, or else something above both, as if sex had been long left behind, forgotten in a greater aim.

‘‘Here, you,” Clarence protested fiercely, difficult though it is to be effectively fierce when soaked from head to foot, “you leave us alone, he was going to pinch me, he was, and I'm not standing for it.”

“Looked like a good deal more than pinching to me,” observed the girl, to whom the technical use of the word ‘pinch' was not familiar.

“What for?” Bobby asked Clarence. “Been up to anything lately? I suppose I had better pinch you now,” he added. “Evidently you think it's what's wanted.”

“No, you don't,” said Clarence, glaring.

The girl negligently lifted her hose-pipe.

“If you start again, this starts again,” she observed in her cool, detached way.

“Now, look here, lady,” began Clarence.

“Wait a moment,” Bobby said, beginning to remember the remark with which Clarence had heralded his attack. “What was that you said about ‘swinging'? what did that mean? what for?”

“You blokes after me, aren't you? trying to put it on me; always do once a bloke's been sent up, hasn't got a chance then, always after him, you are,” Clarence grumbled.

“Well, what are we after you for now?” Bobby asked. “I don't know anything about it, anyhow.”

Clarence broke into a long, confused, rambling statement. Bobby listened patiently, asking a question now and then. The girl, apparently convinced that truce had been established, strolled away to turn off the water at the stand-pipe and then came back to listen. Clarence concluded with a fierce declaration that he wasn't going to swing for no woman he had never set eyes on in his life, and never been near where she was found, innocent as the babe unborn he was, but what did the ‘busies' care so long as they could pinch someone and get a spot of promotion all round?

“Doubtless, Clarence,” Bobby observed meditatively and reminiscently when Clarence was at last silent, “doubtless God could have made a bigger fool than you, but doubtless God never did.”

“I should rather like,” observed the girl, “to know what it's all about – just as a matter of curiosity, of course. Have you something to do with the police?” she added to Bobby, and, he thought, with less detachment than her voice had shown before.

“Yes,” he answered briefly. He went on: “A woman named Wilkinson was found dead on the Hackney marshes last week – drink, exposure, and T.B. Natural death, if you call that natural. But it seems an anonymous letter came along, accusing Clarence here of having murdered her. We get dozens of anonymous letters at Scotland Yard. Generally they're worth nothing – mere spite very often – but once in a way one of them means something, and so they all have to be checked. Probably this letter would be sent on to the Divisional Detective-Inspector and he would send someone round to make inquiries. It does sound as if that hadn't been done quite tactfully, and anyhow Clarence heard inquiries were being made about him in connection with the death of a woman, and promptly got the wind up, and thought he was going to be brought in for it. When he saw me just now he thought I meant to arrest him, and so he decided to make sure of getting hung by doing his best to murder me. He always was the good Lord's prize, champion fool.”

“Mean to say you don't want me?” inquired Clarence. “Mean to say you don't think I had nothing to do with it?”

“There's no reason to suppose the woman was murdered at all,” Bobby answered, “and no reason to suppose you knew her or that she knew you. Besides, you would be at the Essex greyhound racing track all that evening, I suppose, unless Adams has given you the sack lately.”