'What was your previous address?'

'How old are you? When was your last birthday?'

'What is your Trade, Calling, Employment, or Occupation?'

'Are you Married or single or a Widower or what?'

'How many children have you? How many boys? How many girls? Do they go to work? What do they earn?'

'What kind of a house do you live in? How many rooms are there?'

'How much rent do you owe?'

'Who was your last employer? What was the foreman's name? How long did you work there? What kind of work did you do? Why did you leave?'

'What have you been doing for the last five years? What kind of work, how many hours a day? What wages did you get?'

'Give the full names and addresses of all the different employers you have worked for during the last five years, and the reasons why you left them?'

'Give the names of all the foremen you have worked under during the last five years?'

'Does your wife earn anything? How much?'

'Do you get any money from any Club or Society, or from any Charity, or from any other source?'

'Have you ever received Poor Relief?'

'Have you ever worked for a Distress Committee before?'

'Have you ever done any other kinds of work than those you have mentioned? Do you think you would be fit for any other kind? 'Have you any references?' and so on and so forth.

When the criminal had answered all the questions, and when his answers had all been duly written down, he was informed that a member of the Committee, or an Authorized Officer, or some Other Person, would in due course visit his home and make inquiries about him, after which the Authorized Officer or Other Person would make a report to the Committee, who would consider it at their next meeting.

As the interrogation of each criminal occupied about half an hour, to say nothing of the time he was kept waiting, it will be seen that as a means of keeping down the number of registered unemployed the idea worked splendidly.

When Rushton introduced this new rule it was carried unanimously, Dr Weakling being the only dissentient, but of course he--as Brother Grinder remarked--was always opposed to any sensible proposal. There was one consolation, however, Grinder added, they was not likely to be pestered with 'im much longer; the first of November was coming and if he--Grinder--knowed anything of working men they was sure to give Weakling the dirty kick out directly they got the chance.

A few days afterwards the result of the munic.i.p.al election justified Brother Grinder's prognostications, for the working men voters of Dr Weakling's ward did give him the dirty kick out: but Rushton, Didlum, Grinder and several other members of the band were triumphantly returned with increased majorities.

Mr Dauber, of Dauber and Botchit, had already been elected a Guardian of the Poor.

During all this time Hunter, who looked more worried and miserable as the dreary weeks went by, was occupied every day in supervising what work was being done and in running about seeking for more. Nearly every night he remained at the office until a late hour, poring over specifications and making out estimates. The police had become so accustomed to seeing the light in the office that as a rule they took no notice of it, but one Thursday night--exactly one week after the scene between Owen and Rushton about the boy--the constable on the beat observed the light there much later than usual. At first he paid no particular attention to the fact, but when night merged into morning and the light still remained, his curiosity was aroused.

He knocked at the door, but no one came in answer, and no sound disturbed the deathlike stillness that reigned within. The door was locked, but he was not able to tell whether it had been closed from the inside or outside, because it had a spring latch. The office window was low down, but it was not possible to see in because the back of the gla.s.s had been painted.

The constable thought that the most probable explanation of the mystery was that whoever had been there earlier in the evening had forgotten to turn out the light when they went away; it was not likely that thieves or anyone who had no business to be there would advertise their presence by lighting the gas.

He made a note of the incident in his pocket-book and was about to resume his beat when he was joined by his inspector. The latter agreed that the conclusion arrived at by the constable was probably the right one and they were about to pa.s.s on when the inspector noticed a small speck of light shining through the lower part of the painted window, where a small piece of the paint had either been scratched or had sh.e.l.led off the gla.s.s. He knelt down and found that it was possible to get a view of the interior of the office, and as he peered through he gave a low exclamation. When he made way for his subordinate to look in his turn, the constable was with some difficulty able to distinguish the figure of a man lying p.r.o.ne upon the floor.

It was an easy task for the burly policeman to force open the office door: a single push of his shoulder wrenched it from its fastenings and as it flew back the socket of the lock fell with a splash into a great pool of blood that had acc.u.mulated against the threshold, flowing from the place where Hunter was lying on his back, his arms extended and his head nearly severed from his body. On the floor, close to his right hand, was an open razor. An overturned chair lay on the floor by the side of the table where he usually worked, the table itself being littered with papers and drenched with blood.

Within the next few days Cra.s.s resumed the role he had played when Hunter was ill during the summer, taking charge of the work and generally doing his best to fill the dead man's place, although--as he confided to certain of his cronies in the bar of the Cricketers--he had no intention of allowing Rushton to do the same as Hunter had done.

One of his first jobs--on the morning after the discovery of the body--was to go with Mr Rushton to look over a house where some work was to be done for which an estimate had to be given. It was this estimate that Hunter had been trying to make out the previous evening in the office, for they found that the papers on his table were covered with figures and writing relating to this work. These papers justified the subsequent verdict of the Coroner's jury that Hunter committed suicide in a fit of temporary insanity, for they were covered with a lot of meaningless scribbling, the words wrongly spelt and having no intelligible connection with each other. There was one sum that he had evidently tried repeatedly to do correctly, but which came wrong in a different way every time. The fact that he had the razor in his possession seemed to point to his having premeditated the act, but this was accounted for at the inquest by the evidence of the last person who saw him alive, a hairdresser, who stated that Hunter had left the razor with him to be sharpened a few days previously and that he had called for it on the evening of the tragedy. He had ground this razor for Mr Hunter several times before.

Cra.s.s took charge of all the arrangements for the funeral. He bought a new second-hand pair of black trousers at a cast-off clothing shop in honour of the occasion, and discarded his own low-crowned silk hat--which was getting rather shabby--in favour of Hunter's tall one, which he found in the office and annexed without hesitation or scruple.

It was rather large for him, but he put some folded strips of paper inside the leather lining. Cra.s.s was a proud man as he walked in Hunter's place at the head of the procession, trying to look solemn, but with a half-smile on his fat, pasty face, dest.i.tute of colour except one spot on his chin near his underlip, where there was a small patch of inflammation about the size of a threepenny piece. This spot had been there for a very long time. At first--as well as he could remember--it was only a small pimple, but it had grown larger, with something the appearance of scurvy. Cra.s.s attributed its continuation to the cold having 'got into it last winter'. It was rather strange, too, because he generally took care of himself when it was cold: he always wore the warm wrap that had formerly belonged to the old lady who died of cancer. However, Cra.s.s did not worry much about this little sore place; he just put a little zinc ointment on it occasionally and had no doubt that it would get well in time.

Chapter 53

Barrington Finds a Situation

The revulsion of feeling that Barrington experienced during the progress of the election was intensified by the final result. The blind, stupid, enthusiastic admiration displayed by the philanthropists for those who exploited and robbed them; their extraordinary apathy with regard to their own interests; the patient, broken-spirited way in which they endured their sufferings, tamely submitting to live in poverty in the midst of the wealth they had helped to create; their callous indifference to the fate of their children, and the savage hatred they exhibited towards anyone who dared to suggest the possibility of better things, forced upon him the thought that the hopes he cherished were impossible of realization. The words of the renegade Socialist recurred constantly to his mind:

'You can be a Jesus Christ if you like, but for my part I'm finished.

For the future I intend to look after myself. As for these people, they vote for what they want, they get what they vote for, and, by G.o.d!

they deserve nothing better! They are being beaten with whips of their own choosing, and if I had my way they should be chastised with scorpions. For them, the present system means joyless drudgery, semi-starvation, rags and premature death; and they vote for it and uphold it. Let them have what they vote for! Let them drudge and let them starve!'

These words kept ringing in his ears as he walked through the crowded streets early one fine evening a few days before Christmas. The shops were all brilliantly lighted for the display of their Christmas stores, and the pavements and even the carriageways were thronged with sightseers.

Barrington was specially interested in the groups of shabbily dressed men and women and children who gathered in the roadway in front of the poulterers' and butchers' shops, gazing at the meat and the serried rows of turkeys and geese decorated with coloured ribbons and rosettes.

He knew that to come here and look at these things was the only share many of these poor people would have of them, and he marvelled greatly at their wonderful patience and abject resignation.

But what struck him most of all was the appearance of many of the women, evidently working men's wives. Their faded, ill-fitting garments and the tired, sad expressions on their pale and careworn faces. Some of them were alone; others were accompanied by little children who trotted along trustfully clinging to their mothers' hands.

The sight of these poor little ones, their utter helplessness and dependence, their patched unsightly clothing and broken boots, and the wistful looks on their pitiful faces as they gazed into the windows of the toy-shops, sent a pang of actual physical pain to his heart and filled his eyes with tears. He knew that these children--naked of joy and all that makes life dear--were being tortured by the sight of the things that were placed so cruelly before their eyes, but which they were not permitted to touch or to share; and, like Joseph of old, his heart yearned over his younger brethren.

He felt like a criminal because he was warmly clad and well fed in the midst of all this want and unhappiness, and he flushed with shame because he had momentarily faltered in his devotion to the n.o.blest cause that any man could be privileged to fight for--the uplifting of the disconsolate and the oppressed.

He presently came to a large toy shop outside which several children were standing admiring the contents of the window. He recognized some of these children and paused to watch them and to listen to their talk.

They did not notice him standing behind them as they ranged to and fro before the window, and as he looked at them, he was reminded of the way in which captive animals walk up and down behind the bars of their cages. These children wandered repeatedly, backwards and forwards from one end of the window to the other, with their little hands pressed against the impenetrable plate gla.s.s, choosing and pointing out to each other the particular toys that took their fancies.

'That's mine!' cried Charley Linden, enthusiastically indicating a large strongly built waggon. 'If I had that I'd give Freddie rides in it and bring home lots of firewood, and we could play at fire engines as well.'

'I'd rather have this railway,' said Frankie Owen. 'There's a real tunnel and real coal in the tenders; then there's the station and the signals and a place to turn the engine round, and a red lantern to light when there's danger on the line.'

'Mine's this doll--not the biggest one, the one in pink with clothes that you can take off,' said Elsie; 'and this tea set; and this needlecase for Mother.'

Little Freddie had let go his hold of Elsie, to whom he usually clung tightly and was clapping his hands and chuckling with delight and desire. 'Gee-gee?' he cried eagerly. 'Gee-gee. Pwetty Gee-gee!

Fweddy want gee-gee!'

'But it's no use lookin' at them any longer,' continued Elsie, with a sigh, as she took hold of Freddie's hand to lead him away. 'It's no use lookin' at 'em any longer; the likes of us can't expect to have such good things as them.'

This remark served to recall Frankie and Charley to the stern realities of life, and turning reluctantly away from the window they prepared to follow Elsie, but Freddie had not yet learnt the lesson--he had not lived long enough to understand that the good things of the world were not for the likes of him; so when Elsie attempted to draw him away he pursed up his underlip and began to cry, repeating that he wanted a gee-gee. The other children cl.u.s.tered round trying to coax and comfort him by telling him that no one was allowed to have anything out of the windows yet--until Christmas--and that Santa Claus would be sure to bring him a gee-gee then; but these arguments failed to make any impression on Freddie, who tearfully insisted upon being supplied at once.

Whilst they were thus occupied they caught sight of Barrington, whom they hailed with evident pleasure born of the recollection of certain gifts of pennies and cakes they had at different times received from him.