The Complete Stories (62 page)

  When Tom recovered his senses it was dark he felt in his pocett and struck a light he was lying on a bush petruding from the side. Braycaw had been caught in the bush also but by his neck and he lay dead Tom shuddered. But he had other thinks than a murderer's fate to trouble his mind. In a few hours his brother would be tried and he must get there with the confetion. He looked about him and saw the only possible way to escape was by most dangerous and wll nigh imposiple climb. But he saw that if he was to save his brother he must act and act quicly slowly raised himselfe to a stanidng possition then he felt above him and gripped the rock above slowly he puled himselfe up and then he found himselfe looking into a cave. He then remembered that it was a sumuggler's cave that led to the old inn. He made his way up and opened the trap door which opened into the inn yard he pulled himselfe up and then began the race against time he rushed to the station just as the train was starting and leapt to the footboard of the engin "Would you like to earn a five pound note and save a man's life" he cried The man looked amazed "Then reach Sherborough before ten" that was all. The driver opened the throttle of the engine and she sped forward into the night.

  Chapter V

  Nine o'clock struck and Ralfe paced his sell restlesly He put his hand to his hot head "could it be true? or was only a dreadful nightmare?" he flung himselfe on the hard bench "What if the trial did go against him? hung" he shuddered there was one window in his sell a small grating he could not escape.

  Ralfe clung to the rail of the box as one witness after another rose and then suddenly there staggered into the room a young man his colar undone his tie twisted and blood on his face a bandage round his head. it was Tom. It is needless to desscribe the whole trial. Let it be said only that Tom's arival saved Ralfe who was aquitted "without a stain on his character. Now he has a pretty wife and two children and often on Autumn evening they sit round the fire never tiered of following with their father his adventures and those of his brother in the race against time to get Fidon's confetion.

  THE END

  MULTA PECUNIA

  Chapter I

  Sir Alfred James, a great collector of books, one day chanced to look at an old volume which had the curious name of "Multa Pecunia," which told him that under his house there was a cave in which was untold of wealth. He did not trouble to read any more, for he had heard the yarn before, and did not believe it.

  When Tom came home, being Sir Alfred's son, he was treated with great respect by the servants and therefore was allowed to go into every nook and corner of the house. He was in a little poky room one day, when he saw this carving "Multa Pecunia." He stared for some time at the carving, when suddenly he remembered seeing a book in the library with the same title. Immediately he ran to the library and took out the catalogue. There he saw these words, "Multa Pecunia, shelf 7, place 13." He was immediately at shelf 7, but place 13 was empty!

  Chapter II

  What could it mean? Why had the book gone? He was quite bewildered. "Jumping Golliwogs" cried Tom at last, "I must tell the Pater." He left the room with the intention of going to tell his father about the mysterious disappearance of the old volume; perhaps his father had it, or—Hark! what was that! the rustling of stiff paper was audible. He was now quite close to Smith, the butler's room. The door was open so he looked in. There he saw Smith leaning over the old volume deeply engrossed. Suddenly he got up and walked stealthily to the door. Then he walked off in the direction of the room with the carving. When he got there he pressed the letter "U" and immediately a little trap door opened which was about 17 by 13 inches. Into this crept Smith followed by Tom. The two crept along a passage, and stopped at the sight of a great granite door. "Smith! what does this mean?" cried Tom putting his hand on Smith's collar. Smith fairly staggered when he saw Tom; in fact he simply lost his head, and flew at Tom's throat. A tremendous fight ensued in which Tom with his knowledge of boxing gave him, gave Smith an "up shot" blow that fairly staggered him. But in the end weight won and Tom was knocked senseless to the ground: but Smith was not a fellow to leave him there, he carried him up the steps and laying him down at the door of the library, then closing the door of the secret cave, and putting back the old volume in the library as he found it, he went back to bed.

  Sir Alfred came striding along the passage to the library when he suddenly stopped in utter astonishment. "Tom!" he gasped as he saw the boy's pale face.

  Chapter III

  When Tom came to consciousness he found himself in a soft feather bed with a nurse at his bedside. "Ah! that's good, he is conscious now" she whispered. "Why did Smith attack me? asked Tom feebly. "He's delirious" said the nurse turning to the doctor, "I thought he would be after that fall, poor boy"; for the library being at the foot of a flight of steps, Sir Alfred and the nurse naturally thought he had fallen down them.

  A long time had past and Tom had not been allowed to see anyone as he had concussion of the brain. At last he was allowed to see someone and nurse asked him who he would choose for his first visitor. "Smith" was the reply. In came Smith very shyly. Why did you fling me down on that stone" demanded Tom.

  Chapter IV

  Now Smith was not usually a butler. He was really a professional thief and so he soon thought of what to say, so turning to the nurse he said "I think I had better go for the excitement of seeing anybody after such a long time of quiet has made him a bit mad," with that he left the room.

  Tom was quite well and able to run about the house, so he thought he would see Smith. Smith was not in his room, so Tom thought that he would go into the secret cave. He went to the old carving, pressed the letter "U," immediately the same door opened. He went along the passage. Suddenly he stopped abruptly, for footsteps could be heard coming towards him. He crouched down waiting ready to spring. The footsteps came nearer and nearer. Tom could feel his heart thumping against his ribs. Suddenly appeared round the corner of the passage, Tom was on his in a minute and taken by surprise Smith was flung senseless to the ground. Tom was just getting up when he saw a piece of old parchment, he opened it and this is what he read—"I, Wilfred James have stolen these articles of great price from Queen Elizabeth. I could not keep the secret so I put my confidence in Sir Walter Raleigh who gave a hint about it to the great statesman Bacon, who told Queen Elizabeth. The troops of soldiers will be here in one hour and if they find the jewels I shall be locked in the Tower." There the paper ended, so Tom began to look for the jewels, and found them in Smith's pocket. Then putting Smith back on his bed he went to his father's study and told Sir Alfred all the paper had said, and showed him the jewels.

  The next day Sir Alfred gave Smith the "sack" and the day after he was found to be the worst thief that ever puzzled Scotland Yard and was arrested and sent to Dartmoor convict prison.

  THE END

  FRAGMENT OF A NOVEL

  To myself,

  Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh

  to whose sympathy and

  appreciation alone it owes its being,

  this book is dedicated.

  Dedicatory letter,

  My dear Evelyn,

  Much has been written and spoken about the lot of the boy with literary aspirations in a philistine family; little can adequately convey his difficulties, when the surroundings, which he has known from childhood, have been entirely literary. It is a sign of victory over these difficulties that this book is chiefly, if at all, worthy of attention.

  Many of your relatives and most of your father's friends are more or less directly interested in paper and print. Ever since you first left the nursery for meals with your parents downstairs, the conversation, to which you were an insatiable listener, has been of books, their writers and producers; ever since, as a sleepy but triumphantly emancipate school-boy, you were allowed to sit up with our elders in the "bookroom" after dinner, you have heard little but discussion about books. Your home has always been full of them; all new books of any merit, and most of none, seem by one way or another to find their place in the files which have long overflowed the shelves. Among books your whole life has been layed and you are now rising up in your turn to add one more to the everlasting bonfire of the ephemeral.

  And all this will be brought up against you. "Another of these precocious Waughs," they will say, "one more nursery novel." So be it. There is always a certain romance, to the author at least, about a first novel which no reviewer can quite shatter. Good luck! You have still high hopes and big ambitions and have not yet been crushed in the mill of professionalism. Soon perhaps you will join the "wordsmiths" jostling one another for royalties and contracts, meanwhile you are still very young.

  Yourself,

  Evelyn

  I

  Peter Audley awoke with "second bell" ringing dismally down the cloisters and rolling over in bed looked at his watch. Reassured that he had another five minutes before he need begin getting up, he pulled his rug up over his shoulders and lay back gazing contentedly down the dormitory, which was already stirring with the profoundly comforting sounds made by other people dressing. The splashing of the showers next door, the chipping of the thick crockery and the muttered oaths at backstuds accentuated the pleasure of the last minutes.

  Early school was kept up practically all the year round at Selchurch, which took a certain pride in the gloom of these early mornings. Peter, however, had got his "privileges" which took away the bitterest sting of frantic punctuality and allowed him, after reporting to his form master, to sit out and work in his study.

  With a heave he got out of bed and went to wash. The showers looked singularly uninviting but the water for the basins was stone cold—the furnaces were not lit until midday in March 1918—and with rising gloom he returned shivering and half dry to the dormitory. Some fanatic had opened one of the high Gothic windows and a cold gust of wind swept down the room. There was a chorus of protestastion and the window was closed. He dressed dully and leaving the dormitory at a few minutes past seven crossed the quad to "report." Several fags, laden with books, dashed past him, trying desperately to avoid recognition by the prefect "taking lates." His form master nodded to him and he turned on his heel and made for his study. The gravel was dark with fallen rain, the sky menacing with monstrous rough hewn clouds; over everything spread a fine, wet mist.

  The handle of his study door was cold; he went in, kicked the door to and fell into an easy chair gazing round the tiny room. It was pleasant enough and he had spent considerable pains on it, but this morning it afforded him no pleasure.

  The carpet was black—a burst of aestheticism which he had long regretted as it took a great deal of brushing and earned his study the name of the "coal cellar"—and the walls distempered a bluish grey. On them were hung four large Medici prints, the gift of his grandmother but his own choice; Botticelli's Mars & Venus—he had had some difficulty over this with his house master, to whom a nude was indecent whether it came from the National Gallery or La Vie Parisienne—Beatrice d'Este, Rembrandt's "Philosopher" and Holbein's Duchess of Milan. These he liked either because they were very beautiful or because they gave an air of distinction which his friends' Harrison Fishers and Rilette pictures lacked. The curtains, cushions on the window seat and table cloth were blue; the whole room was pleasantly redolent of the coffee of the evening before.

  Peter, however, lay back staring gloomily at the grey block of class rooms opposite. It was Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon was the time chosen, as being the longest uninterrupted time in the week, for the uniform parade. He could just remember when, his first term, summer 1914, it had been the great social time of the week when tea was brewed and quantities of eclaires eaten, and now that he had grown to an age to have a study and enjoy these things, they were all blotted out and from two to six he would have to manoeuvre a section of sullen fags over the wet downs in some futile "attack scheme."

  He knew exactly what would happen. They would fall in on one of the quads and be inspected—that meant half an hours work with reeking brasso and s.a.p. cleaning his uniform and equipment. They would then march up to the downs and in a driving wind stand easy while the O.C. explained the afternoons work. Ordnance maps would be issued to all N.C.O.'s with which to follow the explanation; these always bulged with incorrect folding and flapped in the wind.

  It was never considered sufficient for one company merely to come and attack the other; a huge campaign of which they formed a tiny part would have to be elaborated. A company would be the advanced guard of part of an army, which had landed at Littlehampton and was advancing upon Hasting, intending to capture important bridge heads on the local river on their way; B company, with white hat bands, would be a force set to hold the spur of the downs above the Sanatorium cooperating with hypothetical divisions on either flank, until another division could arrive from Arundel. Rattles would be issued to serve as Lewis guns and this game of make-believe would go on for three hours, with extreme discomfort to both sides, when whistles and bugles would sound and the corps form up again for a criticism of the afternoon's work. They would be told that, when the parade was dismissed, all rifles were to be wiped over with an oily rag before being returned to the armoury and that all uniforms were to be back in the lockers before six o'clock. They would then dismiss, hungry, bad tempered and with only twenty minutes in which to change for Chapel.