The Otterbury Incident by C. Day Lewis

Author:C. Day Lewis
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780241320709
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2017-07-05T23:00:00+00:00

Our theory collapses

‘That’s the second time this has happened.’

He looked at us in a dazed sort of way, then put his hand to his face, felt the false beard, unhooked it, stuffed it in his pocket, and shambled away out of the yard.

‘Come on, Butts,’ said Toppy. ‘We needn’t waste any more time here. It’s quite obvious it was an inside job.’

7. The Clue of the Bitten Half-crown

Betimes the next morning, Ted and I set up the Shoe-shine stall again by the traffic-lights in West Street. Charlie Muswell and Nick were to work the Flit gun from the basement of Rose Marshall’s shop. But how different it all was from the high hopes and high spirits of Saturday morning! Even the sky looked different – one of those grey, close, dull summer skies that shuts you in like an enormous dish-cover. I remember I had a strange feeling of gloom: not depression exactly, but a feeling that it was all make-believe, that our theories and detection were just a feeble playing at something which wasn’t a game at all: so why bother to go on with them. Ted hardly spoke a word for some time. He didn’t seem able to keep his mind on the job, even. When at last a man asked to have his shoes cleaned, Ted started off vigorously enough, but then the brush moved slower and slower till it stopped, and Ted was staring at nothing, the brush poised in the air, and I had to take it out of his hand and finish the job.

Well, the morning wore on, and still there was no sign of Johnny Sharp or the Wart. Finally I told Ted he must go and look for them.

‘Tell them their shoes need cleaning?’ he said gloomily. ‘How on earth can I do that?’

‘Brace up! Get them along here on some pretext. Tell Johnny Sharp your sister wants to see him.’

‘But she loathes the sight of him.’

‘He’s far too conceited to realize that. Go on, you’ve got to do something.’

‘I don’t know where they live.’

That was a snag, of course. In real life, the police always know where to lay their hands on a member of the criminal classes whom they want to pull in. It made things seem more futile and make-believe than ever. However, I braced up my morale, and told Ted to try around Skinner’s yard first, as they were so often hanging about there. He went slowly off, as if all the cares of the world were weighing on him. It was terrible to see so bright and resourceful a chap as Ted brought down to this. I felt myself smouldering with rage against whoever it was that had taken the money and left Ted to bear the blame. Things seemed to have reached rock bottom, but worse was to come.

A few minutes after Ted had left, Toppy and Peter Butts rolled up. Toppy was pushing the wooden handcart which E. Sidebotham uses for delivering his papers.

‘We’re just trying an experiment,’ he said in a sinister way, and they disappeared into the alley.

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