J. Farjeon - Number Nineteen - Ben’s Last Case

COLLINS CRIME CLUB

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain for Crime Club by W. Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1952

Copyright © Estate of J. Jefferson Farjeon 1952

Cover design by Mike Topping © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2016

Cover background images © shutterstock.com

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780008156060

Ebook Edition © August 2016 ISBN: 9780008156077

Version: 2016-06-28

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1: Trouble on a Seat

Chapter 2: More Trouble on a Bed

Chapter 3: Mr Smith v. Mr Jones

Chapter 4: Transformation Scene

Chapter 5: Behind the Locked Door

Chapter 6: Very Brief Respite

Chapter 7: Conversation on a Doorstep

Chapter 8: The Thing

Chapter 9: Caller No. Two

Chapter 10: Conference on the Stairs

Chapter 11: Discoveries in the Dawn

Chapter 12: Ben Receives Instructions

Chapter 13: Cobwebs

Chapter 14: Overture to 10.30

Chapter 15: 10.30

Chapter 16: Where’s Mr Black?

Chapter 17: Lady No. Two

Chapter 18: Oasis

Chapter 19: Exchange of Information

Chapter 20: The Enemy Closes in

Chapter 21: The Locked Door

Chapter 22: Beyond the Cellar

Chapter 23: Who’s the Lady?

Chapter 24: Ben Bounces

Chapter 25: The Owl

Chapter 26: Conference at Top Level

Chapter 27: Topsy-Turvy

Chapter 28: The Nightmare Chimes Out

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About the Author

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About the Publisher

On a certain grey afternoon he was destined never to forget—he had a packet of them, and he called them his Album of ’Orrers—Ben paused before a park seat, wondered whether to sit down on the unoccupied end or to move on to the next, decided to move on to the next, changed his mind, sat down where he was, and thereby sealed his doom.

It was a pity there was somebody else at the other end of the seat. Ben liked to be alone, because when you’re alone no one can bother you, can they? But the man at the other end did not look the bothering kind, and as he was busy with a notebook and it was nice and quiet here, Ben could go on thinking. You could just hear the London traffic in the far distance, but only just, and with all this grass and trees about, well, you might almost be in country, mightn’t you?

What was Ben thinking about? If the man at the other end had glanced up from his notebook and made a guess, it was a thousand-to-one chance he would have guessed right, although it so happened this man was good at guessing. When Ben was passing through emotion, and he very frequently was, his thoughts were as plain as the Egyptian Pyramids, but during his contemplative periods there was no knowing what lay behind his glazed, expressionless eyes, which concealed their treasure as the surface of a mine conceals its wealth.

The safest guess was cheese. Ben loved to think of cheese. Though, of course, that came a long way behind eating it. Another possibility was corpses. These he never thought of from choice, but they had a habit of slipping into his mind from that lavish Album of ’Orrers, and—queer, this—there was a sort of fascination about them! You couldn’t get away from it. You know—once you’d done with them. For instance, take that one he’d found in the cellar in Norgate Road, or the one he’d spoken to on the Embankment, or the one he’d tumbled on in the attic of No. 17—only, of course, that hadn’t kep’ bein’ a corpse, ’ad it? You didn’t need a war for Ben to find ’em!

But Ben was not thinking of either corpses or cheese as he sat now on the park seat. He was thinking of numbers, separating the lucky ones from the unlucky ones in the light of his own experience. Seventeen you might call the plum! He wouldn’t live in a house numbered seventeen not if you paid him a couple of quid! He always gave the number a miss when he counted. You couldn’t call fifteen nice, either. That cellar at Norgate Road had been in Number Fifteen. Thirteen—well, of course, you couldn’t ever expect Thirteen to behave itself. He’d known a couple of shockers. And the day he’d found fourteen fag-ends he’d bust his braces, so fourteen was no good, either. Bending dahn fer the last one, that was. Funny how all the ’teens seemed to be against you!

No, the small numbers were best, you couldn’t get away from it. Digiots they was called, wasn’t they? Take Five. That was nice. It was at a Number Five that a girl had nearly fallen for him. Not quite, but nearly. They never did quite. Golden hair, she’d had, and my, what a wink! Then once he’d bet fivepence on a horse, the only time he’d ever won. And that little kid he’d helped across the road only yesterday. She was five, she told him, when he’d asked her. Yes, Five was nice. Very nice. You couldn’t get away from it.

Ben was so busy thinking of the number Five that he did not hear a car stop in a narrow road near where he was sitting. Why should he have paid any attention to it, if he had? It was a quiet road, and the car stopped quietly, as though the driver did not want to disturb the peaceful serenity of the afternoon, or of the two men on the seat, one intent on his notebook, the other gazing at nothing. The driver himself revealed no special characteristic as he began to stroll casually towards the seat. He had dark brown hair and a small moustache. His suit was light grey, and he carried a camera.

He approached quietly. Very quietly indeed. His first view of the two men was of their backs, which meant that neither of them had any view of him at all. He paused when he was within a few yards of them, regarding their backs with, ostensibly, only a vague interest. After a few seconds, during which Ben went on thinking and the man at the other end of the seat went on making his notes, the newcomer turned his head to glance back towards the road. Then he glanced from one side to the other. No one else was in sight. If this gratified the newcomer his expression did not register the fact. His expression, indeed, was rather bored.

Continuing his stroll, he veered a little in his route and came round Ben’s end of the seat. Ben saw him now out of the corner of his eye, but was still too absorbed in his recollection of the little girl of five to be diverted by a glimpse of a casual stroller. It was not until the newcomer had walked a little farther on and, turning, raised the camera he was carrying that he was in full view. Ben lifted his head just as the camera clicked, and a distant clock chimed four.