McClure's Magazine/Volume 56/Number 4/Bulton's Revenge

by Herman Cyril McNeile

Illustration: For a moment or two there was dead silence. The issue had narrowed down to Bulton and the fair-haired man

 

Bulton's Revenge

The Story of a Woman's Trickery and a Man's Bitter Hate

By Major H. C. McNeile
illustrations by Joseph A. Maturo

THERE were five of us altogether waiting in Mombasa for the boat. She was late—held up with engine trouble or something, and they expected her in next morning. And they weren't certain even then if she'd be able to continue her voyage without a further overhaul. So there was nothing for it but to wait with what patience one could.

It was after dinner, I remember, and hot as blazes. There was Murgatroyd the coffee man, Scott of the Police, and Jack Simpson, a gunner, all sitting in the lounge swearing between drinks. My recollection is that there wasn't much swearing. The fourth man was a tall, rather immaculate-looking fellow with fair hair and a small mustache. His face seemed vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn't put a name to him. He was English, obviously, but he wasn't communicative about himself. His voice when he talked had rather a faint cultivated drawl, but he seemed quite a decent sort. And he was interested in things and native customs. Didn't know the country, it being his first trip down the East Coast, whereas most of us wished we didn't know it quite so well.

It was while Scott was holding forth about juju, that I first noticed the sixth man. He had come in quietly and was now glancing at some old illustrated papers. There was no difficulty about placing him; you meet the type the world over. Hard-bitten, lean, fit as nails they'll do anything from elephant shooting to running a gambling hell. Some are straight, and some are crooked-but it's as well not to trust even the straightest too far.

Scott finished, and the fair-haired man asked him some question. And quite by chance I happened to be looking at the newcomer's face just as he spoke. As I've said, it was an unmistakable sort of voice, and it appeared to give the stranger a nasty shock. The brand he belonged to can school their expressions better than most, but that voice must have just caught him napping for a moment. Remember, the fair-haired man had his back to the stranger, so his face hadn't been seen. It was just the voice and nothing else that did it, and it was all over so quickly that after a moment or two I wondered if it hadn't been my imagination.

With a look of surprised amazement, the newcomer glanced up from his paper and stared at the back of the fair-haired man's head. And then the surprise and the amazement faded, to be replaced by a look of such devilish rage as I have seldom seen on a man's face before or since. For a second his teeth bared in a wolfish snarl: his fist clenched on the table. Then it was over, and and save for me no one had seen it.

SCOTT was holding forth again, and after a while the stranger got up to ring the bell. He wanted a drink and he passed close to Murgatroyd's chair. And as he gave the order to the waiter Murgatroyd looked at him as one does if one's not quite certain if one knows a man.

“Surely——” began Murgatroyd tentatively.

“You're Murgatroyd, aren't you?” said the stranger. “Thought I recognized you as I came in. I'm Bulton. Don't you remember I came back through your place two years ago? You gave me some much-needed grub.”

“Of course, I remember!” cried Murgatroyd heartily. “Come and join us.”

Bulton nodded and drew up a chair, and the conversation became general again. But there was one little thing that aroused my curiosity. There was no trace of recognition on the part of the fair-haired man as far as Bulton was concerned. Quite obviously, he had never met the man before. Then why had that sudden look of diabolical rage crossed Bulton's face? Or had it been a trick of the light? I knew it hadn't, and, as I say, my curiosity was aroused.

It didn't occur to me at the time, though it did later, that it was Bulton who started the topic. Jack Simpson and Scott were talking, it's true, about a native they'd hanged in the back of beyond for a triple murder—but it was Bulton who introduced the wide subject of capital punishment generally. Was it sound, was it a good thing? Above all, did it succeed in its object?

The usual arguments were advanced for and against. It was Scott who was all for its retention, and who argued that the whole idea of punishment was that it should act as a deterrent to others, and not be regarded entirely as a punishment to the culprit. But was death more of a deterrent than, say, imprisonment for life?

Yes, emphatically argued Scott. Men who have received such sentences may say that it is worse than death—but words are easy. Give them the alternative, and see what their answer would be. Every one cling to life when it comes to the point.

But, I objected, principally for argument's sake, when it comes to murder, who thinks of the future? In nine cases out of ten, blind insensate rage has the would-be murderer in its grip. He is out to kill; he is obsessed with the idea. He never even thinks of the punishment that will inevitably be his. So does hanging act as a deterrent? And if it doesn't, isn't it too terrible a punishment?

Scott snorted—but Scott was a policeman. And it was Murgatroyd who drew attention to the mental side of the punishment.

“Surely the actual physical act of killing a man by hanging him is the least important side of the question. The awful thing to my mind would be the three weeks of waiting. Knowing that every time the sun rose, death came one day nearer. The mental side of the punishment is the worse by far. And that can be no deterrent to others, because no one can realize what it means until they are in that position themselves.”

Then the fair-haired man ranged himself on Scott's side in no halting language.

“Rank sentimentality,” he remarked. “There are crimes of violence and assault which I would punish by torture rather than by mere hanging. Brutal, unprovoked murders—and attempts at murder, for which no mercy should be shown in this world, or the next. Why, I know a case——” He broke off suddenly.

“Go on,” said Bulton quietly, and he was staring at the fair-haired man.

“It's a case of the most brutal assault on a woman,” said the fair-haired man. “The cowardly swine tried to throttle her—left her for dead and bolted. In wish, in desire, in every way save the actual deed he did murder her. It was only a fluke that she didn't die. And when she recovered consciousness she was so distraught that she couldn't give any clear description of her assailant.”

“But was there no motive?” asked Simpson.

The fair-haired man shrugged his shoulders.

“We could never find one. She had on her pearls at the time, so it was possibly robbery——”

“And possibly not,” said Bulton. “Motives are difficult things to arrive at sometimes. Strangely enough, I too know of a very similar case to the one you have mentioned. It was told me by a—by a man I met a year ago. And he was the principal actor in the drama. He nearly throttled a woman to death, but in his case one thing was a little different. In his case it wasn't that she couldn't give any clear description of her assailant, but that she wouldn't. A change of a solitary letter which makes a considerable difference. In fact, it lifts the story from what you, sir, so aptly describe as a brutal and motiveless assault into the plane of psychology. Would you care to hear about it?”

He glanced around the group and Scott nodded.

“Fire right ahead,” he said. “And the calling is on me this time. Waiter—repeat the dose all around.”

“I guess the name of the man who told me doesn't signify,” began Bulton. “He was dying of fever when I ran across him, and I stayed with him till he pegged out. I mention that fact because he rambled a bit in his delirium, though he was perfectly lucid most of the time. But when a man rambles you either get gibberish, or very intimate truth. I got the latter, and it kind of made me see the characters of his story in a way I wouldn't have been able to do otherwise. He made 'em live, in a way no mere tale of words and deeds can ever do; got inside 'em and took me with him. And as I say his name doesn't signify, but I'll call him Jack for the sake of clearness.

“BEFORE the war he'd been training to become an electrical engineer. Not a particularly bright sort of fellow, I should imagine, but at the same time no fool. Rather a shy gauche boy, and, like so many shy people, he had wonderful ideals. He never expressed them; kept them locked up in his heart. Particularly the ones about women. I guess you'd never believe the extraordinary hallucinations that boy had about the other sex though wild horses wouldn't have made him confess it. To him, they were just something apart—something sacred and holy for a man to guard and cherish and work for. Funny, of course—and dangerous. For when a fellow like that gets his awakening it hits him harder than it would you or me.

“However, that comes a bit later. At the age of twenty-four this boy fell in love. He fell in love as a fellow of that description might be expected to fall in love—madly, desperately, unreasonably. He'd been straight himself all his life, and he set the girl up on a pedestal about twice the height of Nelson in Trafalgar Square. And the higher he set her up and the more desperately he became in love, the more unconquerable did his shyness become. He'd met her first at a dance—by the way, we might as well call her Ruth—and he'd asked her for two. Incredible to relate, she gave them to him and because he didn't dance badly she'd managed a third.

“From that moment it became hopeless. Ruth filled his life to the exclusion of everything else, and even interfered considerably with his work. Not that she knew it, of course; to her, he was just one of the numerous young men who came and went about the house, and who was incidentally rather duller than most. But though perhaps he didn't talk as much as the others, he saw a good deal more. And the first thing he noticed was the extraordinary position occupied in the household by Ruth's younger sister Polly.”

Was it my imagination, or did the fair-haired man give the faintest perceptible start?

“Father, mother, Ruth—to say nothing of the servants—rotated around Polly. Her slightest whim was their law; she was fussed over, petted and flattered till it almost amazed him. True, she had been delicate when young; true she was one of the loveliest girls he had ever seen in his life—lovelier by far than Ruth, even he admitted that—but was that any good and sufficient reason for such extreme adulation? Especially since the net result was that it had turned the girl into a being so supremely selfish as to render her hardly human.

“As her absolute right she accepted every sacrifice they made for her; she sulked for days if her smallest caprices were not instantly obeyed—sulked, that is, provided none of the men she kept dangling after her were about the place. She wasn't such a fool as to sulk then. The best of everything was hers by Divine ordinance, and if other people went without—what on earth did it matter to her? And, amazing as it seemed, the most devoted slave of all, the one who appeared blindest to her faults, was her sister Ruth.

Illustration: It seemed to him that this was no woman—but something loathsome and unclean. All his old hatred of her came surging back, and his hands were on her throat before he realized it

“It puzzled Jack considerably. To him, there was absolutely no comparison between the two girls. Polly was the prettier, though Ruth was lovely enough for any man—but there it ended. To Jack, the elder sister was so immeasurably the better girl of the two that he marveled that the men who thronged the house didn't see it, also. The family's adoration he accepted as one of those peculiar and inexplicable things which just happen and must be left at that; but that outsiders should do the same defeated him. And the only person in the household who spotted his feelings was Polly herself.

“She hated him for it with a bitter, deadly hatred. She knew that he was the only man who saw through her; she found, moreover, though only she knows how hard she tried, that he was the only man who saw her frequently, whom she couldn't make fall in love with her. She even went so far as to kiss him once at a dance—to kiss him on the lips, unasked. And she felt him stiffen and recoil. She never forgave that, and she used to go out of her way to sneer at him and make him feel awkward. She left no stone unturned to get him to cease coming to the house, but for one of the few times in her life she failed. You see, he thought that Ruth was beginning to like him—and he was a sticker even if he was shy.”

Bulton finished his drink and lit a cigarette.

“I expect you wonder when I'm coming to the point,” he went on after a moment. “But I'm trying to condense it as much as I can. To understand that fellow's story, I guess you've got to get the mentality of those two girls placed in your minds. You've got to see 'em as he made me see em when the fever was on him, and he was back living it all over again.

“Anyway, I'll get on with it. The unbelievable thing, as far as Jack was concerned, happened one night about three months before he was to pass his final examinations. He didn't know how it happened—it just did, as such things have happened before. He found, of a sudden, that Ruth was in his arms, that he was kissing her, that—wonder upon wonder!—she was kissing him. He felt the glory of her lips on his, the yielding of the whole of her young body against his own. He heard her whisper, 'My dear, I love you,' and it seemed to him at that moment that life could hold no more. Of course, they would get married.

“FATHER and mother jibbed a bit at first, though since it wasn't Polly it didn't matter quite so much. Nothing would have induced them to allow Polly to marry an obscure electrical engineer. For that matter, nothing would have induced Polly to have contemplated such a ridiculous course of procedure for an instant. But Ruth was different. Ruth—well, after all, Ruth was another proposition. The poor darling couldn't expect to have very many chances, overshadowed as she was by Polly. Only one thing did her father insist on. Jack must go away, free from all distraction, until he had passed his final exams. It was only three months, and Jack who was no fool, as I have said, agreed with the wisdom of the course.

“So he went away and he worked as he'd never worked before. He buried himself in the country, and he slaved for fifteen hours a day. By a supreme effort of will he banished all thoughts of the girl from his mind—at least almost all thoughts. Just occasionally he'd sit and dream of the years to come—the wonderful, wonderful years. And then he'd go back to volts and amperes and things and cover more paper with uninteresting figures. He passed all right—passed with flying colors, and then he went to see Ruth.”

Bulton paused, and there was a strange look in his eyes.

“It was her father who told him what had happened—told this idealistic boy the incredible thing. And he was a stern man, the father: a bit of a Puritan, for all his stupidity over Polly.

“'I didn't tell you before your exam,' he said to Jack. 'It wouldn't have been fair to put you off. But Ruth is no longer a daughter of mine. I have disowned her.'

“Jack sat there in the study, and he was swallowing hard.

“'What do you mean?' he stammered at length.

“And then it came out. Of all people in the world—a roller-skating rink instructor! At least she might have chosen a gentleman. Jack knew the fellow, had seen him in a red uniform, giving lessons once or twice when he had skated there. Good-looking in a flashy way.

“'But when were they married?' he blurted out.

“The elder man's voice was terrible as he answered.

“'They are not married,' was all he said.

Once again Bulton paused, and I glanced at the fair-haired man. He was staring at Bulton with a sort of savage intensity.

“It mightn't have hit some fellows quite so hard,” went on Bulton after a while. 'But you've got to remember what manner of boy Jack was. When he lived it over again in his delirium, when his mind was back in the days that followed, I got to see into his soul. It killed him mentally and morally as surely as a revolver bullet can kill physically. From being an idealistic boy, he turned into a bitter man, cursing women and all their ways. He felt that he'd staked his all and lost, and deliberately he set out to get his own back on the whole sex.

“Not pretty, I grant you—but when you start monkeying with a man's soul something's going to happen. He had made just one inquiry to substantiate her father's statement, and that was to Polly. And Polly, looking very sweet and lovely, had given a pathetic little smile and nodded.

“'Poor dear Jack!' she had said, in a choking whisper. 'Poor dear boy.'

“That had settled it; there was no more to be said. He chucked everything, and went abroad. And for five years he lived a life of which the less said the better. But in one way it had its effect: up to a point he forgot. Not quite, mark you—but up to a point. And then came the war.

“Now I'm not going to weary you with what he did during that performance, since he did no more and no less than thousands of others. But there came the moment when he stopped one in the shoulder, and so the R. A. M. C. took him into their coils, finally depositing him in a base hospital near Etaples. And there on the first night he saw her—saw the woman he hadn't seen for nine years. For a while he thought it was a fever dream. She had just come on duty, and with a shaded lamp in her hand she was walking slowly between the two ranks of muttering and restless men. And at the foot of his bed she paused and their eyes met. He knew then that it was not dream, but reality.

“'Jack!' he heard her whisper, and she came and laid her hand on his forehead—a hand that was trembling. And with the concentrated bitterness of nine years' hell in his mind. he cursed her savagely and horribly. He said dreadful things to her—wicked inexcusable things and she answered never a word. She just stood there beside his bed looking at him, and in her eyes there was no reproach. Just divine pity and love and a wonderful tenderness. And he, miserable fool that he was, could only see a rink instructor in a red uniform.”

THE sweat was standing out on Bulton's forehead and he drained his whisky at a gulp.

“They came over that night—the Boches. You remember, of course, the big Etaples raid when they got the hospitals. They got the one Jack was in, and when the mess had cleared away he scrambled madly out of bed and through folds of flapping canvas with sick fear in his heart. For the bomb had burst in her end of the marquee, and everything—rink instructor included—was forgotten. He was a boy again, and she was the girl of his dreams. And thank Heaven, he got to her before she died.

“At a glance he saw it was hopeless, but she held out her arms to him. And with a great cry he caught her to his heart.

“'Forgive, my dear,' he 'Forgive those awful things I said. Who am I to judge?'

“'Forgive me, Jack,' she said gravely. 'I realize now, I have realized for many years, that I had no right to sacrifice you.'

“He looked at her wonderingly.

“'What do you mean, Ruth?'

“'Dear lad,' she said, and her voice was growing weaker, 'you don't really think I did it, do you? I hoped you'd come and let me explain. But you didn't and I couldn't find where you'd gone.'

“I think his heart was beating in great sickening thumps just then; I think he stared at her like a man bereft of his senses.

“'What are you saying?' he muttered. 'My darling—speak to me.'

“But the end was very near, and with a sudden passionate madness he strained her to him.

“'Stay with me, darling!' he almost shouted, but with a pitiful little smile she shook her head. And with one last supreme effort she raised herself and kissed him on the lips. Then she died.

“They found him wandering about the sand dunes the next morning partially demented. They thought it was shellshock from the effects of the bomb, and they sent him home. I don't really wonder at their diagnosis, because he was obsessed with one idea, and apparently he often talked aloud about it in his sleep. It was such a strange idea that I'm not surprised they kept him on for far longer than necessary, in a charming country house devoted to nerve cases. He wanted to find a rink instructor in a red uniform—that was all. But quite enough in all conscience for grave men who talked learnedly about mental aberrations and nerve centers and other dull things.

“It was just about Armistice time that they let him go, and in due course he was demobilized. And then systematically he started on his search. He never gave up hope though he pursued false clue after false clue. He advertised for six months continuously in every paper he could think of, without avail. And finally he ran his quarry to ground not half a mile from the rink where he had been instructing. He'd come back there after wandering around the country, and he was doing a clerk's job in some garage.

“At first he was suspicious and uncommunicative—but finally he was persuaded to talk. And with an occasional smirk of self-complacency on his face, he admitted several things. Naturally, no gentleman speaks of such matters, but since it was ancient history now there seemed to be no harm. Though, of course, it must go no further. He remembered the girl well—a nice, little soul, very pretty. Her people left the place, he believed, when she married. But really there had been so many in those days.

“'And her name?' said Jack in a quiet voice.

“'Well, I always used to call her Polly,' answered the rink instructor, twirling his mustache.

“'She had a sister, I believe,' went on Jack.

“'Yes—an elder sister. But no go in her, you can take it from me. That was where the joke lay—Polly using her cloak whenever she came to me.'

“'Thank you,' said Jack heavily, rising to go.

“'Don't mention it,' remarked the other. 'Those were the days—those were. Nothing doing in this line, believe you me. Will you come and have a drink?'

“NO, he would not have a drink. Nor would he take that smirking little swine and batter in his head as he had once battered in a German's during a trench raid. After all, he was not the principal culprit. That honor lay elsewhere.

“He thought things over quietly and dispassionately—did Jack. There was no particular hurry—now. At times it seemed almost incredible that such a sacrifice could have been accepted, even by a girl like Polly. It was almost too amazing to be conceivable, even taking into consideration the unique position she had occupied in her family. Of course, there were still details to fill in, small points which were obscure. It was just within the bounds of possibility that there might be something he didn't know which would palliate this monstrous thing. So he determined to make quite sure; he determined to give her every chance. He went to see her at the palatial country house where she now lived. By the way, did I mention that her husband was a peer of the realm—an earl, to be exact?”

The fair-haired man drew in his breath with a sharp hiss, and for the first time, I think, the other men realized that more than just a mere story was being unfolded. I know Murgatroyd was fidgeting in his seat and Scott had a worried look on his face.

“He was ushered into the Great Lady's presence by a pompous butler, and she seemed to have a little difficulty in recognizing him, though the knuckles of her hand on the chair gleamed white as she saw him and stark fear showed for a moment in her eyes. At length, however, she was graciously pleased to recall to her aristocratic mind this obscure individual from the past, and all the time he just stood there staring at her, without speaking a word. And after a while she began to tremble, and blotches showed on her cheeks through the make-up. He knew, and she knew that he knew. Moreover, the callow boy had gone; in his place stood a dangerous man.

“'Why do you look at me like that, Jack?' she whispered at length.

“'Because I want to find out if there lives one redeeming feature in your beastly little soul,' he said quietly. 'At present it doesn't look like it, but I will give you every chance. Why did you let Ruth bear the blame for your rotten intrigue with that rink instructor? Why did you always go to his rooms in her cloak? And don't try to lie to me.'

“AT first she tried to bluster, but not for long. She hadn't any excuse—none, save that she was young and stupid. The man had fascinated her, and she had gone to his rooms without thinking of the consequences.

“'In Ruth's cloak,' put in Jack contemptuously.

“Then she'd got engaged—a wonderful match—to her present husband. She'd met him while she was staying at a friend's house. But even while she was engaged she couldn't give up the rink instructor; she still went to his rooms. And one night she was seen—coming away. It was to Ruth she had rushed; it was to Ruth that she poured out the story. And it was Ruth who had suggested the way out. She was very insistent on that point; she seemed to think it was some excuse. And it was helped by the fact that the kind!y persons who carried the story to her father had thought it was Ruth, owing to the cloak. Didn't Jack understand? Couldn't he see the awful predicament? Any breath of scandal and her fiancé might break off the engagement—would break it off! And how could she have known that Jack would take it as he did?

“'Is that all you have to say?' said Jack, as she finished.

“'What are you going to do?' she almost screamed.

“'I'm going to commit every word of it to paper, and send it to your husband,' he replied.

“And then she went mad. She implored, she entreated, she went on her knees to him—until something snapped suddenly in his brain. It seemed to him that this was no woman in front of him—but something loathsome and unclean. All the old hatred he had felt for her as a boy came surging back, and with it the face of Ruth as she died in his arms. And I think he must have had his hands on her throat for a minute before he realized the fact.”

With great deliberation Bulton lit a cigarette, and his glance never wavered from the fair-haired man's face.

“He didn't quite throttle her, though as you said, sir, like the man in your case, in every way save the actual deed he did. They found her just breathing half an hour later, and she was unable to give any description of the man who had done it. Couldn't or wouldn't? I leave you to judge. And is that one of the crimes of violence you would punish by torture rather than by mere hanging?”

For a moment or two there was dead silence; there didn't seem to be anything much to say. For the issue had narrowed down to Bulton and the fair-haired man: we were out of the picture. And it was Scott's quick gasp that made me look up.

The fair-haired man was staring over Bulton's head at a woman who was approaching. She was tall and very beautiful—but her face had no soul in it. It was devoid of expression, like the face of a lovely doll.

“Have you heard anything more about the boat, Henry?” she said languidly, and at the sound of her voice Bulton turned slowly in his chair and looked at her.

Then we knew. Not necessary to watch the sudden ashen cheeks, not necessary to hear the one choked-out word “Jack!” Not necessary even to see three ugly red scars on the white neck—we knew without that. And like a drunken man Henry, Earl of Pyrford, lurched across the room and went out through the open windows into the African night.