‘Wasn’t that enough of an adventure for you?’ he said.
Their eyes met across the table. Seated between them, Mr Birdsey looked from one to the other, vaguely disturbed. Something was happening, a drama was going on, and he had not the key to it.
Johnson’s face was pale, and the tablecloth crumpled into a crooked ridge under his fingers, but his voice was steady as he replied:
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Will you understand if I give you your right name, Mr Benyon?’
‘What’s all this?’ said Mr Birdsey feebly.
Waterall turned to him, the vulturine cast of his face more noticeable than ever. Mr Birdsey was conscious of a sudden distaste for this young man.
‘It’s quite simple, Mr Birdsey. If you have not been entertaining angels unawares, you have at least been giving a dinner to a celebrity. I told you I was sure I had seen this gentleman before. I have just remembered where, and when. This is Mr John Benyon, and I last saw him five years ago when I was a reporter in New York, and covered his trial.’
‘His trial?’
‘He robbed the New Asiatic Bank of a hundred thousand dollars, jumped his bail, and was never heard of again.’
‘For the love of Mike!’
Mr Birdsey stared at his guest with eyes that grew momently wider. He was amazed to find that deep down in him there was an unmistakable feeling of elation. He had made up his mind, when he left home that morning, that this was to be a day of days. Well, nobody could call this an anti-climax.
‘So that’s why you have been living in Algiers?’
Benyon did not reply. Outside, the Strand traffic sent a faint murmur into the warm, comfortable room.
Waterall spoke. ‘What on earth induced you, Benyon, to run the risk of coming to London, where every second man you meet is a New Yorker, I can’t understand. The chances were two to one that you would be recognized. You made a pretty big splash with that little affair of yours five years ago.’
Benyon raised his head. His hands were trembling.
‘I’ll tell you,’ he said with a kind of savage force, which hurt kindly little Mr Birdsey like a blow. ‘It was because I was a dead man, and saw a chance of coming to life for a day; because I was sick of the damned tomb I’ve been living in for five centuries; because I’ve been aching for New York ever since I’ve left it—and here was a chance of being back there for a few hours. I knew there was a risk. I took a chance on it. Well?’
Mr Birdsey’s heart was almost too full for words. He had found him at last, the Super-Fan, the man who would go through fire and water for a sight of a game of baseball. Till that moment he had been regarding himself as the nearest approach to that dizzy eminence. He had braved great perils to see this game. Even in this moment his mind would not wholly detach itself from speculation as to what his wife would say to him when he slunk back into the fold. But what had he risked compared with this man Benyon? Mr Birdsey glowed. He could not restrain his sympathy and admiration. True, the man was a criminal. He had robbed a bank of a hundred thousand dollars. But, after all, what was that? They would probably have wasted the money in foolishness. And, anyway, a bank which couldn’t take care of its money deserved to lose it.
Mr Birdsey felt almost a righteous glow of indignation against the New Asiatic Bank.
He broke the silence which had followed Benyon’s words with a peculiarly immoral remark:
‘Well, it’s lucky it’s only us that’s recognized you,’ he said.
Waterall stared. ‘Are you proposing that we should hush this thing up, Mr Birdsey?’ he said coldly.
‘Oh, well—’
Waterall rose and went to the telephone.
‘What ate you going to do?’
‘Call up Scotland Yard, of course. What did you think?’
Undoubtedly the young man was doing his duty as a citizen, yet it is to be recorded that Mr Birdsey eyed him with unmixed horror.
‘You can’t! You mustn’t!’ he cried.
‘I certainly shall.’
‘But—but—this fellow came all that way to see the ball-game.’
It seemed incredible to Mr Birdsey that this aspect of the affair should not be the one to strike everybody to the exclusion of all other aspects.
‘You can’t give him up. It’s too raw.’
‘He’s a convicted criminal.’
‘He’s a fan. Why, say, he’s the fan.’
Waterall shrugged his shoulders, and walked to the telephone. Benyon spoke.
‘One moment.’
Waterall turned, and found himself looking into the muzzle of a small pistol. He laughed.
‘I expected that. Wave it about all you want’
Benyon rested his shaking hand on the edge of the table.
‘I’ll shoot if you move.’
‘You won’t. You haven’t the nerve. There’s nothing to you. You’re just a cheap crook, and that’s all. You wouldn’t find the nerve to pull that trigger in a million years.’
He took off the receiver.
‘Give me Scotland Yard,’ he said.
He had turned his back to Benyon. Benyon sat motionless. Then, with a thud, the pistol fell to the ground. The next moment Benyon had broken down. His face was buried in his arms, and he was a wreck of a man, sobbing like a hurt child.
Mr Birdsey was profoundly distressed. He sat tingling and helpless. This was a nightmare.
Waterall’s level voice spoke at the telephone.
‘Is this Scotland Yard? I am Waterall, of the New York Chronicle. Is Inspector Jarvis there? Ask him to come to the phone…. Is that you, Jarvis? This is Waterall. I’m speaking from the Savoy, Mr Birdsey’s rooms. Birdsey. Listen, Jarvis. There’s a man here that’s wanted by the American police. Send someone here and get him. Benyon. Robbed the New Asiatic Bank in New York. Yes, you’ve a warrant out for him, five years old…. All right.’
He hung up the receiver. Benyon sprang to his feet. He stood, shaking, a pitiable sight. Mr Birdsey had risen with him. They stood looking at Waterall.
‘You—skunk!’ said Mr Birdsey.
‘I’m an American citizen,’ said Waterall, ‘and I happen to have some idea of a citizen’s duties. What is more, I’m a newspaper man, and I have some idea of my duty to my paper. Call me what you like, you won’t alter that.’
Mr Birdsey snorted.
‘You’re suffering from ingrowing sentimentality, Mr Birdsey. That’s what’s the matter with you. Just because this man has escaped justice for five years, you think he ought to be considered quit of the whole thing.’
‘But—but—’
‘I don’t.’
He took out his cigarette case. He was feeling a great deal more strung-up and nervous than he would have had the others suspect. He had had a moment of very swift thinking before he had decided to treat that ugly little pistol in a spirit of contempt. Its production had given him a decided shock, and now he was suffering from reaction. As a consequence, because his nerves were strained, he lit his cigarette very languidly, very carefully, and with an offensive superiority which was to Mr Birdsey the last straw.
These things are matters of an instant. Only an infinitesimal fraction of time elapsed between the spectacle of Mr Birdsey, indignant but inactive, and Mr Birdsey berserk, seeing red, frankly and undisguisedly running amok. The transformation took place in the space of time required for the lighting of a match.
Even as the match gave out its flame, Mr Birdsey sprang.
Aeons before, when the young blood ran swiftly in his veins and life was all before him, Mr Birdsey had played football. Once a footballer, always a potential footballer, even to the grave. Time had removed the flying tackle as a factor in Mr Birdsey’s life. Wrath brought it back. He dived at young Mr Waterall’s neatly trousered legs as he had dived at other legs, less neatly trousered, thirty years ago. They crashed to the floor together; and with the crash came Mr Birdsey’s shout:
‘Run! Run, you fool! Run!’
And, even as he clung to his man, breathless, bruised, feeling as if all the world had dissolved in one vast explosion of dynamite, the door opened, banged to, and feet fled down the passage.