Mr Corbett's Ghost (4 page)

‘Sleep well, Mist—'

They
were
moving! They were circling about. They were creeping nearer and nearer, and always in pairs. They
were
eyes!

The boy let go of his burden with a cry of dismay. The Heath was alive! Dark and obscure shapes were rising up from it. Shapes of ragged, powerful men. A dozen, fifteen—even twenty of them. Monstrous fellows who stared and grinned and scowled.

‘Coming with us, young 'un?' murmured a voice. ‘For it looks like that's where you belongs!'

‘Done 'im in,' muttered another admiringly. ‘Neat as kiss-your-'and. Needle, knife, or skewer, young 'un? What did you use? My, but you're a nifty slicer!'

‘I . . . I never touched him,' whispered Benjamin, half out of his mind with terror.

‘We all know that one!' mumbled a third voice, fruity with phlegm. ‘We've all tried that one—from time to time. “Never touched 'im, yer Honour. 'E just fell dead at me feet!” But they 'angs you just the same, young 'un.'

On which there was a confused sound of agreement and these violent, desolate creatures from the darkness began to climb up and over the edge of the road.

Very bushy they were about the chops, and thorny and horny in their skins. They were the lurking murderers and footpads of the Heath.

‘Neat . . . very neat indeed,' mumbled a foxy brute with a torn cheek. ‘Get you five shilling a time for work like that anywheres. What say, young 'un? Make a tidy forchun between us. Never seed a man dropped so neat!'

‘I never touched him,' moaned Benjamin: on which the felons laughed silently, exposing their broken teeth to the moon.

‘You'd best come along with us, young 'un,' repeated the first speaker. He was a tall, lean man with some rags of authority about him. Maybe a dismissed sergeant or the mate of some doubtful ship?

He made to lay his hand on Benjamin's shoulder, but the boy shrank back. The man stank to the stars.

‘Not good enough for you, you little grey-faced rat? Giving yourself airs? You'll be sorry for that!'

Angrily he turned to his companions. ‘Don't no one 'elp 'im. Though 'is back may break and 'is 'eart may crack, don't no one 'elp 'im. We ain't good enough for 'im. So let's be going, brothers.'

Now there followed a truly dismal sight. One by one, each of these grim men turned to the dark of the Heath and one by one came back, bearing a heavy burden. Drunken wayfarers, boozed horseboys who'd missed their way, servants who'd taken short cuts, even a youth who'd strayed to look for his hat the wind had blown away. Old men, young men, men who'd been in the prime of their lives, now lying like dull old bags across powerful shoulders—in the prime of their deaths. Murdered, each and every one.

But none so neatly as Mister Corbett.

‘Makes you ashamed, don't it?' wheezed the foxy man, who grunted under a fat coachman he'd drowned in the Whitestone Pond.

‘W-where are you going?' whispered Benjamin, whose terror, by this time, had passed all mortal bounds.

‘To the Highgate graveyards,' replied the foxy one softly, as if anxious not to be heard talking to him. ‘We always does. Can't leave our 'andiwork to rot and betray us, can we? We buries it, friend—good and deep.'

They were all upon the road again. The tall man, who wore his corpse like a bulky halter, nodded, and the melancholy procession began to shuffle along the road to Highgate.

‘Best come along, young 'un—else you'll be took and 'anged.'

‘But I never touched him!' moaned Benjamin piteously. ‘They can't hang me for nothing!'

But who would believe him? In all truth, his situation was not promising. The abominable Mister Corbett gaped accusingly up at him. Plainly his chief hope lay with those who, from experience, knew best.

He bent down and seized Mister Corbett's chilly wrists. He pulled and heaved and strained. His back cracked, his heart nearly burst, but at last Mister Corbett was folded across his shoulder with a bony hip digging into Benjamin's neck.

It was monstrously uncomfortable, but none the less, with tottering steps he hastened on, striving to overtake the glum crew ahead.

Which was not difficult, for his horrible foxy friend with the fat, wet coachman loitered and complained of his lot.

‘Catch me death,' he kept muttering. ‘'E's soaking through to me lungs. 'E must 'ave took up 'alf the pond inside of 'im. For that's what 'e's discharging now! Still—I saved 'is watch from a wetting, so it weren't for nothing. It's an ill wind, as they say! What did you prig from your'n, young 'un?'

Benjamin, who'd thieved nothing from Mister Corbett save his life, felt suddenly awkward and almost ashamed.

‘How much farther?' he panted. ‘He's growing that heavy!'

‘Leastways, he ain't wet,' mumbled the drowner. ‘Leastways, you'll not be catching your death! Be thankful you got a skill, young 'un, and can drop 'em neat. Make a forchun between us—if you should change your mind!'

Benjamin shook his head as best he could against the obstruction of the dead apothecary and shuddered. Not for the hugest fortune in the world would he have joined this dreadful procession nightly. All he longed for was to get Mister Corbett safely underground.

There was a halt ahead. Much shuffling and grunting
and soft cursing as dead arms gently swung and smacked the backs that had borne them. Why the delay? Constables? God forbid! No: they were arrived at the toll-house.

Formidable legality: not to be avoided.

A copper oil lamp hung on a bracket outside the toll-house, lighting the list of tolls.

Lord, but the turnpike keeper took a mean advantage! But in the circumstances, what could a poor murderer do? Pay up—or be hanged!

‘Pay up or be hanged!' joked the keeper as the grim gentry crowded at the gate.

‘Rogue!' ‘Villain!' ‘Lousy thief!' ‘Stinking robber!' were the various greetings, spoke low and weary.

There came a general heaving as of a black mountainous sea, followed by the clink of coin as hands went to obstructed pockets and found the passage money.

One by one they payed up and passed on, till at last it was Benjamin's turn.

‘Pay up or be hanged!' grinned the keeper, hand outstretched.

‘Four shillings. That's all I've got,' mumbled Benjamin.

‘Don't no one 'elp 'im!' called out the lean man sourly.

‘Sorry, young 'un,' breathed the foxy gent. ‘Can't afford new friends in our line of business. See you in hell, maybe.'

With that he turned his back and shuffled off into the dark towards the Highgate graveyards, with the drowned coachman weeping over his shoulder and seeming to wave a shrewd goodbye.

Very soon, they were gone—the creeping murderers—and even the creaking of their feet was lost in the ordinary sounds of the night . . .

‘Pay up—or be hanged,' repeated the keeper.

‘For God's sake, sir, won't you take my four shillings? I got to get through! Can't you see, I got to bury him?'

The keeper shook his crafty head.

‘Sorry, lad. No exceptions, else where would we be? Letting 'em all through for sixpence in no time!'

‘Then . . . then I'll leave him and be gone alone!' cried Benjamin in violent desperation.

‘Oh, no you don't, lad! I want none of
your
rubbish left here! Be off with you—
and
take your quiet friend! Lord, but he's an ugly customer all right.'

‘But I can't run no farther! My back's breaking and my heart's on the burst! Take pity on me!'

‘Sorry, lad. There's no room for pity in our line of business. You must take your chances with your ugly friend; and I fancy they ain't so good.' He cocked his head on a far-off sound. ‘Don't want to depress you, lad, but there's a coach on its way. And coming quick. Yes, lad, I'm a-fancying your time's come. And all for the want of another three and sixpence.'

‘But I never touched him! I never touched him!'

On which the keeper laughed, then laughed louder yet, for the lumbered apprentice had begun to run . . .

Dear God in heaven, what a piece of running it was. All the devils in hell must have screamed with merriment at it! This way—that way—tottering, capering, panting his lungs up in a manner most pitiful, while the dead apothecary kept thumping his back with stiff arms like he was no better than a beast of burden.

He staggered to the side of the road, for the coach was coming. Already he could see it, dark and implacable, with the cold moon gleaming on its carved edges.

He groaned and knelt as if in prayer.

‘May you rest in peace, Mister Corbett: and give
me
peace at last! Goodbye to you—for ever!

With a roar and a clatter the coach came racketing close. The horses plunged and shrieked. The huddled coachman shouted: dragged at the reins.

‘Madman! Madman!'

A man—the figure of a man—had toppled drunkenly into the road: seemed almost to have been pushed. The coach halted. A white-faced boy came running.

‘He's dead! I saw it! He fell in your way! Run down! The coach killed him! I saw it!'

Benjamin Partridge, rid at last of his burden, came panting to the door of the coach.

‘An accident!' he cried excitedly. ‘No one to blame! I saw it all!'

The coach door opened. Darkness within. Came a cold voice, attended by a snuffle: ‘Did you indeed, Benjamin Partridge?'

It was the old man!

‘
WHY DO YOU
tremble and shudder, Benjamin Partridge? Why do you groan as if in anguish? Why is your face as deathly as the moon?'

The old man spoke softly, but Benjamin was not deceived: softness was not in
his
line of business.

‘Why are you suddenly silent, Benjamin Partridge?' pursued the old man. ‘And why do you spread out your arms as if to hide your dead friend? It
is
Mister Corbett, ain't it?'

He peered sideways at the crumpled corpse that lay behind the boy, its spectacles all awry and shining brokenly.

‘Why do you cover your face with your hands and shake as if your soul has taken the ague? Come, young man, answer me.'

‘Help me—help me!' whispered Benjamin. ‘I can't get through the gate. I can't bury him. Help me—or I'll be hanged!'

‘Very likely, young man. Very likely you will be.'

‘But—' began Benjamin, then stopped. To plead once more he'd never touched his dead master would not be taken amiably by the old man. There'd be a difference of opinion. Benjamin saw it in his sharp, bright eyes.

The old man seemed in no hurry to be gone, even though his coachman shifted impatiently in the cold night air. Once or twice, Benjamin caught his reproachful glance (‘Tried to blame me, did you?'), but his face was so shadowed, it was hard to be sure . . .

‘But if I'm hanged, I'll not be able to pay you!' cried Benjamin suddenly. (Surely the old man would protect a customer?)

‘True enough, young man. And it wouldn't be the first time. You'd be amazed,' he went on, shaking his head as if
he
was amazed, ‘how often gentlemen don't pay me. If it's on account of judge and jury, I don't quarrel with it. No one's to blame there. But there's a surprising number who do wild things to avoid payment. Yes, indeed. Hang themselves, shoot themselves, drown themselves, poison themselves, even dash out their brains against the walls of Bedlam! The world's very full of men who fancy it to be more honourable to die than to pay their debts.'

He paused and sighed.

‘But you're not one of them, Benjamin Partridge, are you? You've an honest face—even though it's white as bone!'

‘No,' muttered Benjamin, sinking into a pit of despair so deep that the moon seemed more than ordinarily remote. ‘I'm not one of them.'

Drearily he stared down at the dead apothecary whose weight was dragging him to the gallows.

‘He's only mutton, so to speak,' murmured the old man. ‘He can't harm you now. Though his eyes seem to stare, they don't really. He cannot haunt you, young man. It's not as though he was a ghost.'

‘If only he was!' cried Benjamin. ‘It's his dead weight that's killing me! I can't go on. My heart's on the burst. Oh, if only he was a ghost!'

‘Heart and soul,' the old man reminded him. ‘And now the heart proves too weak. What of the soul, Benjamin Partridge? Could your soul carry a ghost? Or would that prove too weak likewise? Consider, young man. Think carefully. Even supposing it was possible, might not a ghost prove too heavy for your soul?'