Number Nineteen: Ben’s Last Case. J. Farjeon Jefferson

no ’elp!’

      ‘I have no doubt you could, but I suggest Mr Smith. What am I to call you? I confess I find Winston Churchill rather a mouthful.’

      ‘Orl right. Yer can call me Jones.’

      ‘That being your real name?’

      ‘As much as I reckon Smith is your’n!’

      ‘Very well. Then that is settled—for the moment. I am Smith and you are Jones, and we are discussing the demise—or death, if you prefer simple terms—of a third party who so far has to be nameless.’ He sat down by the bed. ‘Oh, but perhaps you can tell me his name?’

      ‘Corse I carn’t!’ retorted Ben. ‘’Ow’d I know it?’

      ‘Well, it occurred to me that you might, since you were so obviously interested in him?’

      ‘’Ow was I interested in ’im?’

      ‘That is what I hope to learn, for only lunatics—and I haven’t yet decided that you are a lunatic, though it is a theory—only lunatics attack perfect strangers—’

      ‘Nah, then, I don’t want no more o’ that!’ interrupted Ben, with anxious indignation. ‘I never seed the bloke afore in me life, and you ain’t goin’ ter put that on me!’

      Mr Smith shook his head reprovingly.

      ‘I fear you are getting me all wrong,’ he said. ‘I am not putting anything on you—or, more correctly speaking, what I put on you need not matter. Your headache, Mr Jones, is what the police may put on you, and that actually is what you and I have got to discuss.’

      ‘The pleece carn’t put nothink on me!’

      ‘I wish I could agree.’

      ‘Well, as I didn’t do it—’

      ‘Somebody did it!’

      ‘Yus, but we ain’t torkin’ abart anyone else jest nah, we’re torkin’ abart me, and as I didn’t do it I ain’t got ter worry abart the pleece!’

      Mr Smith gave a little sigh, turned his head for a moment towards the door, and then turned it back again.

      ‘You really are being very difficult, Mr Jones,’ he complained. ‘Here I am, trying to help you—’

      ‘Oh, ’elp me, is it?’

      ‘Can’t you see?’

      ‘I couldn’t see that withaht a telerscope!’

      ‘You say the most delightful things. My desire to help you increases every moment, and the best way to prove it is to explain to you precisely what your position is, and what the police could put on you if you had the misfortune to meet them. I am afraid we can no longer mince matters, Mr Jones, and we shall have to say exactly what we mean, after all. And, come to think of it, you didn’t mince matters when you attempted to put the murder on me! Not many would forgive you for that, yet here am I, still sticking to you! Now, then, let us begin. You deny, I understand, that you stabbed the man on the other end of your seat?’

      ‘’Ow many more times?’ growled Ben.

      ‘One of your troubles, of course, is that you cannot prove an alibi. You know what an alibi is?’

      ‘Yus. It’s when yer can prove yer wasn’t where they say yer was.’

      ‘Correct. If ever you write a dictionary I shall buy a copy. And you cannot prove that you were not on that seat.’

      ‘Come ter that, ’oo could prove I was?’

      ‘Well—I could!’

      ‘That’s not sayin’ they’d believe yer.’

      ‘No, but then I could prove you were, if my word wasn’t good enough.’

      ‘’Ow could yer?’

      ‘You have a very short memory. Don’t you remember that, a few moments before the tragedy, I took a photograph?’

      ‘Lummy, so yer did!’

      ‘The police might give a lot for a copy of that photograph. Don’t you agree?’

      Ben offered no opinion.

      ‘And then,’ went on Mr Smith, ‘there is something else you ought to know. That horrible knife sticking in the poor man’s back—I had to leave it there, for I had not the nerve to take it out—horrible, horrible!—the police will naturally examine the handle, and they will find your fingerprints upon it.’

      ‘Wot’s that?’ gasped Ben.

      ‘You really ought to have wiped them off,’ said Mr Smith, sadly. ‘You can be quite sure that, if I had done the deed, I would have wiped mine off! You might like to make a note of that. Oh, no! Oh, no! I would never have left mine on!’

      ‘But mine carn’t be on!’ cried Ben, desperately.

      ‘Not so loud, not so loud!’ admonished Mr Smith. ‘I assure you, Mr Jones, your fingerprints are on that knife. You may deny it till you are blue in the face. It will make no difference. The fingerprints are there.’

      ‘Owjer know?’

      ‘A needless question, surely? I was present at the tragedy. I saw the deed, and I know you did not wipe the knife-handle after using it.’

      Ben shut his eyes hard to think. It was easier in the dark, without Mr Smith’s face before him. First the photograph—and now the fingerprints. Clearly Mr Smith had not left his own prints on the knife; he had told Ben to make a note of this, and he was far too wily a customer to commit such a cardinal blunder. But he had not merely wiped his fingerprints off, he had apparently stamped Ben’s on! While he was unconscious! He’d worked the whole thing out from the word go …

      ‘Are you asleep?’ came Mr Smith’s voice.

      If only he had been! Apprehensively and slowly, Ben opened his eyes.

      ‘So you see,’ went on Mr Smith smoothly, as though there had been no interruption, ‘you are in a bit of a hole, are you not?’

      ‘S’pose I am?’ answered Ben.

      ‘There is no suppose about it. You are. And you will be in a worse hole if, in addition to the fingerprints, I am unable to prevent that photograph from appearing in all the newspapers—a photograph of a murdered man on one end of a seat with another man wanted for enquiries at the other. You say you never saw the murdered man before today?’

      ‘Never in me life,’ replied Ben.

      He knew this was a frame-up, but would it be wise to let Mr Smith know he knew? Perhaps he’d better lie doggo for a bit—stop makin’ a fuss like—and act as though he thought Mr Smith were really trying to help him, until he found out where it was all leading?

      ‘Then why did you kill him?’

      Still wavering as to his best policy, and with his mind beginning to rocket again, Ben could not answer that one and remained silent. He was stunned by the cool audacity of Mr Smith, who now bent forward and continued, almost confidentially.

      ‘Do you know, I’ve got a theory about this murder of yours, and you need not tell me whether I am right or wrong. As a matter of fact, it was because of my idea that I brought you along here instead of handing you over to the police, as of course I ought to have done. Oh, don’t make any mistake, I am taking a big risk myself in acting like this—but let that go. I like to help people in trouble—if they’re worth it, of course—and the reason I’m helping you is because I feel sure yours wasn’t a premeditated murder.’

      ‘Pre ’oo?’ blinked Ben.

      ‘You didn’t set out to murder this poor fellow,’ explained Mr Smith, ‘as—for instance—I might have done if I had been the culprit. You were ill, perhaps.