J. Farjeon - Ben on the Job

COLLINS CRIME CLUB

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

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.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008156039

Ebook Edition © August 2016 ISBN: 9780008156046

Version: 2016-06-14

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1: Misbehaviour of Two Thumbs

Chapter 2: Strange Partnership

Chapter 3: Step by Step

Chapter 4: The Lady of the Picture

Chapter 5: Ben Gets a Job

Chapter 6: The Kentons at Home

Chapter 7: Conversation on a Doorstep

Chapter 8: Vanishing Act

Chapter 9: Ben V. Maudie

Chapter 10: Concerning Two Others

Chapter 11: Start of a Bad Day

Chapter 12: Waiting for Maudie

Chapter 13: Parlour Tricks

Chapter 14: Back in Drewet Road

Chapter 15: Mrs Wilby Talks

Chapter 16: Face to Face

Chapter 17: What Happened at Euston

Chapter 18: Two in a Train

Chapter 19: Conference Over Coffee

Chapter 20: Re-Enter Blake

Chapter 21: Ben Listens to the Impossible

Chapter 22: The Truth at Last

Chapter 23: Completion of the Job

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also in This Series

About the Publisher

When Ben had got up that morning—getting up with Ben was mainly the process of changing from a prone to an erect position and peering into a mirror, if there happened to be one, to work out whether he’d washed last week or the week before—he had been quite sure that something would happen to him before the time came to lie down again. He knew it by the infallible sign of itching thumbs.

Whenever his thumbs itched, something ’orrible always happened. His thumbs had itched on that never-to-be-forgotten foggy afternoon when he had stumbled into a house numbered ‘Seventeen’, to die a hundred deaths before he stumbled out again. They had itched before he had advised a bloke leaning over a low stone parapet not to jump into the Thames—‘I wouldn’t, mate, if I was you,’ he’d said, ‘it looks narsty!’—to discover that the bloke was already dead. They had itched before a peculiarly unpleasant meeting with an Indian. Ben ’ated Injuns. They had itched before a shipwreck that had hurled him into a situation so completely and fantastically impossible that he still didn’t believe it.

And now, here they were, itching again! Lummy, what was it going to be this time?

Well, there was nothing to do but to wait and see. What was was, what is is, and what will be will be, for once. Fate puts the spotlight on you there’s no slipping out of it. And so, resigned but alert, Ben paused at a morning coffee stall to fortify himself for whatever lay ahead.

‘Mornin’, guv’nor,’ he said, ‘wot’s the noos terday? ’Ave they started the Fif’ World War yet?’

‘Wouldn’t surprise me,’ grinned the stall-keeper.

‘Nor me neither,’ answered Ben, ‘but let’s ’ope they stop at ’arf a dozen. Cup o’ corfee.’

‘Did you pay for the last?’ inquired the stall-keeper good-naturedly.

‘On’y by mistike.’

The stall-keeper laughed as he pushed a thick cup across. Ben took a cautious sip.

‘What’s the matter? Think it’s poisoned?’

‘Well, there’s no ’arm in bein’ careful,’ returned Ben. ‘See, this ain’t goin’ ter be my lucky day. Coo, call this corfee? Am I s’posed ter fork aht threepence fer this? ’

‘Not if you can give me a tip for the two-thirty?’

‘Saucy Sossidge.’

‘That’s a new one on me.’

‘Go on, wot higgerence! I’m ridin’ it meself!’

Warmed by the coffee—warmed but not ruined, for the stall-keeper said he had had three penn’orth of fun and allowed his comic customer to depart with his last shilling intact—Ben shuffled off to face the day, and the morning passed, most surprisingly, without any shocks. It was indeed a remarkably successful morning, for it produced seven fag-ends, one almost half its original length, and twopence for helping a nervous old lady across the road.

At one o’clock he partially filled a neglected void with two substantial sandwiches. They were so substantial that you couldn’t taste what was inside them. Thinking it might be a good idea to find out, Ben opened one to see, but as he found nothing he supposed he had opened it in the wrong place. Nevertheless, they did their job, and half an hour on an Embankment seat put him right again.

He might have stayed longer on the seat, for Ben liked sitting down, it was comfortable, if an old man with fuzzy white hair had not suddenly darted towards him and sat down by his side. The old man was breathing heavily, and his tongue kept shooting out to moisten his lips. ‘If this is It,’ thought Ben, ‘I ain’t stoppin’!’ And he got up and departed.

To his considerable relief, and even more considerable surprise, the old man did not get up and follow him. False alarm! This was not It!

‘I wunner if me thumbs was wrong this time?’ reflected Ben, as he resumed his way to nowhere. The day was passing too smoothly to believe. ‘Arter orl, I expeck yer can get a nitch wot’s jest a nitch, even in yer thumbs?’

There was yet another theory that might explain his strange immunity. Perhaps Fate could be dodged if you were nippy enough? Suppose, for instance, that nasty old man, and he was nasty, the way his tongue was working overtime—suppose Fate had sent him along, but Ben had beaten Fate on the post? With sudden hope Ben grinned. ‘That’s wot it is!’ he decided. ‘I’ve given Faite the KO!’

Before long, however, he found his self-faith weakening. Here came the mist! That was a second sign of trouble. In rather surprising obedience to a weather forecast, a thin, depressing mist began to weave through the streets; and half Ben’s woes took place in fog. He had even been born in one, birth being the initial woe that preceded all the rest. A fog in the street and an itch on the thumb formed a combination to kill all hope.

A minor drawback of foggy weather was that it made fag-ends harder to find. In order not to miss them you had to keep your nose well down, which often made you bump into people …