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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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IT was dusk on Christmas Eve when Mr. Barrow Shiftit found himself short-circuited, so to speak, by the estuary and the area of mudflats bordering the same. But this brief arrest of his leisured progress did not distress him, for it was but a short walk over shingly, muddy sand to the long bridge that led into the town, in which Mr. Shiftit proposed to spend, and, if possible, enjoy Christmas. The fact that he was penniless did not seriously worry Mr. Shiftit, for he was a tramp of no mean order, and, further, he was a remarkably talented and resourceful scrounger. Highly unfavorable comment upon his scrounging abilities had been frequently heard on the lips of the quarter-bloke and the mess cooks and other gentlemen of that branch of the service which, during the Great War, Mr. Barrow Shiftit had favored with his personal aid and presence for duration.
It had been said by those who knew him intimately that he would never starve, and that was true. Probably Mr. Shiftit had been very well aware of this when, a few months after his demobilisation and return to his pre-war post of assistant-master at a small private school near London, the owner of the school had brusquely invited him to regard himself as sacked, partly on account of an excess of languor—which had overlapped from army life into civilian—and partly on account of a very noticeable hiatus, or gap, between the amount of certain petty moneys entrusted to his care and the amount which Mr. Shiftit found himself able to return when so called upon.
A man of but modest ambitions, and a growing distaste for labor, in any shape or form, Mr. Shiftit, disdaining such hefty jobs as the Labour Bureau and certain scholastic agencies offered him, had slid easily and even gracefully into the highly undecorative position of tramp at large, and had done pretty well at it for some months past. His wanderings had brought him deviously and without swiftness to a sea port of which the estuary was one of the most notable features, and, in spite of his undeniable skill in the art of what is not infrequently termed 'telling the tale,' he was conscious that, unless he speedily contrived to 'scrounge' certain supplies for the hunger and thirst department, he was fated to experience a somewhat gloomy Christmas. Nevertheless, he was undismayed, and it was with a certain whistled melody upon his lips that he gazed across the estuary.
Mr. Shiftit was not the only whistler there, however. A north-east wind was whistling across the water in a dreary monotone, which would have quenched the spirits of a lesser man than Barrow Shiftit, and, indeed, imparted a certain quality of wistfulness to the whistle of the ex-schoolmaster.
His whistle died out presently, and was succeeded by a few bars of song, as he gazed at a small steam-yacht anchored out in the estuary. A thin, filmy haze of smoke from her stack seemed to indicate that her fires were alight but banked, and Mr. Shiftit was wondering absently who was foolish enough, apparently, to anticipate leaving harbor in such bitter weather. He mused, and as he mused he sang softly a snatch of song. It was from an old favorite—thus:
'I must say I'm fond of high living,
To starve myself I have no need.
My palate is fine,
I'm a rare judge of wine,
And I may say I like a good feed!'
Even as Mr. Shiftit thus harmoniously expressed himself, a boat containing several mariners pushed off from the yacht and rowed towards a landing stage near the bridge.
Mr. Shiftit unobtrusively moved on towards that landing stage, for seafarers were notoriously generous givers —and it was the season of good will. He wished them a Merry Christmas as they came ashore, and they reciprocated his good wishes merely.
Undeterred, Barrow politely requested the loan of a shilling, volunteering a few harrowing untruths which seemed to him to fit the occasion. He accepted the gift of twopence in lieu of the loan.
From their rather noisy conversation, Mr. Shiftit gathered that they did not expect their 'owner' or the skipper aboard until the following morning, Christmas Day, or even possibly Boxing Day, and they purposed, therefore, going into the town and spending the night ashore in a highly riotous manner. Deeply interested, Mr. Shiftit watched them disappear in the gathering shadows, and then turned to renew his survey of the yacht.
'There she rides,' he said rather vaguely, 'and not a soul aboard her—nor likely to be to-night, nor early to-morrow. She is about to start upon a cruise. Therefore she is full of provisions. That is as sure as Euclid. Yes, Euclid.'
He produced a wildish Woodbine from his clothes, lit it, and proceeded with his 'Euclid.'
'Steam yachts are expensive things—owned or run by rich men. Therefore it follows that there will be wine aboard—also cigars. That is logic—certainly it is.' Smiling, he continued with his logic. 'Rich men like good beds. Therefore, one might positively bank on a good night's rest aboard this yacht. That is undoubtedly geometry. Let us sum up. Here before me I have a temporarily unoccupied yacht, containing good food, good wine, good cigars, and at least one good bed. I cannot step aboard the yacht because I am separated from her by a strip of mud and water. But if I had a boat?'
He playfully pretended to notice for the first time the sailors' boat tied up to the landing stage.
'And here is a boat! What, then, is there to prevent me from occupying the yacht for the night? My conscience! But my conscience is not in working order to-night—therefore I have no conscience for the moment. So that there is nothing to prevent me from making the little voyage to the yacht. Nothing whatever. And that is Euclid, logic, geometry, and a stone-cold certainty.'
Smiling at his own quaint humor, he stepped lightly through the rapidly deepening gloom, entered the boat, and cast off. Nobody noticed him. It was very quiet and peaceful on the trim little yacht, and Mr. Shiftit was gratified to discover that he had little difficulty in finding his way about entirely to his own satisfaction.
'The builder of this yacht was really a very enterprising and worthy fellow—very worthy,' he said, as, with the unerring scent of a highly trained bloodhound, he found his way to the store-room, and quietly but firmly forced off the lock with a large iron spike which he found in the engine-room. 'It is really very disgraceful to use force upon this beautifully-fitted lock, which no doubt one of his craftsmen fashioned with loving care and patience. But this is the season of good will, and if he knew, doubtless he would forgive. To know all is to forgive all. Yes. Dear me, what have we here? This is very delightful!'
Carefully screening every possible outlet, Mr. Shiftit had switched on the electric bulb—evidently that worthy shipbuilder had installed a dynamo— and he was now surveying with profound satisfaction the accumulation of stores.
'Game, I perceive! Potted game, by Fortnum and Mason. Pheasant, hare, turkey and many others. Boned duckling also, I see. Very attractive. And what may this be? Ah, yes, boned roast goose! Preserved oysters are here also, and asparagus preserved in glasses. What an excellent idea!'
He was piling things into a big bag with both hands.
'Soups—now; sure the gentleman is fond of good soup? Ah, yes, this is the soup department upon my left! A goodly array. Oxtail, yes—and very nice too!—and celery cream. Yes, lobster purée, as they say in France dear old France that I never want to see again as long as I am spared—mulligatawny, green pea and mushroom soup. How bon—how very bon! We will, I think, make it mushroom soup, with a little drop of the lobster purée, and—um—yes a small glass of celery cream. He 'bagged' a few quarts of the expensively-bottled blends.
'The season of right good cheer!' he said. 'Good King Wenceslas looked out on the Feast of Stephen— On the feast of Barrow, let us say! Come, what is that large, somewhat butt-ended tin which I see? Ah, it is York ham! York ham! Canned York ham! And if I may venture to say so, not the only thing which will be comfortably canned this Christmas Eve. No, indeed!'
Thus pleasantly soliloquising, he circulated about the storeroom. The bag grew very heavy, for Mr. Shiftit loved to go pretty free at Christmas-time. But presently, with the discovery of some tinned Christmas puddings, he shouldered his load, and staggering under its weight, found his way to the cosy little cabin in which he proposed to eat his Christmas dinner.
Then he commenced a search for the wherewithal to moisten and relax the permanently parched throat which was his chiefest affliction. His good-fortune did not desert him.
Mr. Shiftit set out his refreshment selections, solid and liquid, in a highly artistic and soul-satisfying row on the floor of the cabin and admired them. Then he quaffed a brimming goblet of choice Madeira, in order to fortify and invigorate himself for the labor which yet lay before him. He took a cigar from a box he had found, very carefully wrapped against the sea air, and, after a second, yes, and a third long, delightfully satisfying drink, he partly refilled his bag and made his way to the cook's galley.
No man can hope to attain the slightest success in trampdom without the ability to cook, and it goes without saying that Mr. Shiftit was a very fine cook indeed. In any case, no very high level of culinary talent was required, for the materials at Mr. Shiftit's disposal were mainly of the tinned or glassed variety. Be that as it may, it is certain that when, after a rather protracted séance in the cook's galley, Mr. Shiftit sat down to an extraordinarily liberal array of foods, he was justified in the playful statement which served him as grace:
'It may have cost me nearly two hours' work,' he said. 'But the end justifieth'—he had a slight difficulty with 'justifieth'—'the means.'
He glanced round the cosy cabin, and satisfied himself that no gleam of light was visible from outside. Then he smiled comfortably at his reflection in the mirror.
'This is better than doing a guard on a wintry night, lonely though many would call it!' he said.
A sudden access of extreme energy seized upon him. He took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves and attacked. It was a notable peculiarity about Mr. Shiftit that his appetite was always fair—very fair indeed. There are plenty of men so lacking in vigor and stamina that even the least excess in the matter of alcoholic moisture causes them to lose their appetites and to turn mutely away from food with wan, uninterested smiles of weary protest. But it was otherwise with Mr. Shiftit. He splashed through the soups—mushroom, celery and the lobster purée—like a many-mouthed dredging machine.
'The beauty of being alone is that one can behave like a rational human being,' he said to himself, filling his glass again.
An idea came to him, and he rose, removed a round mirror from its fastenings by sheer force, and propped it on the table facing him. He refilled his glass and took wine with his reflection.
'A merry Christmas, my friend!' he said, laughing and nodding to the thin-faced but jovial-seeming gentleman in the mirror, and embarked enthusiastically upon the second course.
Several kinds of fish were swiftly 'worked back'—to use a slight vulgarity which Mr. Shiftit, commenting on the meal, permitted himself.
He opened champagne when he was halfway through a study in mixed game which had occurred to him—the said study consisting of a heated-up mixture of the contents of a series of tins, labelled, 'Pheasant,' 'Pigeon,' 'Hare,' 'Grouse,' 'Wild Duck,' smothered with tinned mushrooms, gently stewed with butter, the whole enriched with half a bottle of vintage port. He ate it with red-currant jelly. He tried preserved truffles with it, but after a largish mouthful of the truffle preserve, which he ejected with the annoyed comment, 'Wretched non sense!' he confined himself to the jelly.
An hour passed, at the end of which time Mr. Shiftit took a cigar from the box, lit it, and leaned back in his chair, toying with his wine-glass. After a moment he rose, sat down again rather suddenly, and then, staring fixedly at the mirror, spoke.
'Gentlemen,' he said—he pronounced it 'Jem'—'I have gra' pleasr—pro'sin' th' health of th' Lays—O wom'n innow ouse of ease—hic! —uncerran, coy 'n harraplease—as gra' poet Wilm S—hic—speare says in his gra' masser-piece "Gray's Elegy." Jem! Issa source of gra' grief to me tha' owin' to unf'seen circumstans no Lays 'r presen' share our revels—thish evening.'
Here Mr. Shiftit ceased abruptly to address the little company of 'jolly good fellows' he seemed to see in the glass, and slowly turned to stare at the cabin door behind him. A strange fancy had interrupted the flow of his thoughts. He could have sworn that someone had spoken. He had heard a voice seeming to be at his very ear—a clear, cold, sharp voice which had uttered these words.
'Don't move! Keep your hands still—d'you hear?' It sounded exactly as though some one in the cabin had spoken.
Mr. Barrow Shiftit turned and perceived that his idea was quite correct. A woman stood just inside the door. She had a revolver in her hands, and it appeared to be gaping inquiringly at Mr. Shiftit's face. There was no doubt about it. For a brief instant he fancied there were several ladies armed with a battery of revolvers there; but, as the shock sobered him, he realised that there was but one.
'I arrest you, Mr. Gordon, on charges of forgery, and of misappropriating the funds of certain clients!' and this lady briskly stepped forward. 'Turn your back to me, and keep your hands up!'
He turned, struggling hard to clear his head. The cold, passionless kiss of the muzzle of the revolver upon the back of his neck accelerated the clearance rather surprisingly. He felt hands—like spirit hands—running over his clothes. They patted him, smoothed him; but they also apprised their owner that Mr. Shiftit bore no lethal weapons of any description upon his person.
'Sit down at the other end of the table facing the door, and keep your hands in sight,' said the lady.
An increased pressure of the revolver muzzle impelled him forward, and, like a wise man, he did precisely as he was bid.
He found himself facing a woman of perhaps forty, very big, powerful, and with an extremely firm face. She looked like a party of iron determination, and one who would have made a good prison wardress.
Mr. Shiftit sat silent for a moment, struggling desperately against the effects of his assorted Christmas dinner. Presently he spoke.
'You will permit me to—hic—pardon me. My digestion has been seriously deranged by shock. You will allow me to observe that this is all very irregular.'
She smiled a hard smile.
'Are you from Scotland Yard? I was not aware that Scotland Yard employed lady detectives,' said Mr. Shiftit.
'I'm not from the Yard. I work for Nablett and Grimes, Inquiry Agents. We have been retained by a client of yours. Just in time, it seems, doesn't it?'
'But you have no right to arrest me,' protested Mr. Shiftit.
'I haven't arrested you,' said the lady. 'But I've got you, and I'm going to keep you until I can get the regular police to call and collect you. I think our client will be just as satisfied. And I assure you that if you try to escape, I shall wing you. I am due for a decent little reward for this, and I don't intend to lose it.'
She kept the revolver conveniently ready. Mr. Shiftit was momentarily becoming more like himself now. He nodded and smiled.
'You have worked everything out very well indeed. I congratulate you, madam—or shall I say mademoiselle!' She looked suspiciously at him.
'Yes,' he resumed, nodding cheerfully, 'extremely well. You have only made one slight mistake in the whole business.'
'And what's that?' asked the lady detective contemptuously.
'Everything has been beautifully worked out—with the perfect attention to detail which a born organiser invariably brings to bear upon any problem. It is a very smart bit of detective work—very. But for one slight flaw, one little error, I don't think it could be could be improved upon.
'And what might this error be?' she demanded.
'You have arrested the wrong man. I'm not Mr. Gordon. My name is Shiftit.'
She started as though wasped unawares.
'Not Mr. Gordon!'
'By no means! Is this his yacht?'
'It is one he has chartered.'
'And who is Mr. Gordon?' said Mr. Shiftit.
'A thief and a forger! He used to be a stockbroker!' she snapped. 'Who are you!'
'A student of nature, of wild-life, of geology, and road formations, a—yes, a wandering philosopher.'
'Do you mean a tramp?'
'Some people say so,' admitted Mr. Shiftit, gracefully.
'What are you doing here, then?'
'A little seasonable merry-making at the expense, it would seem, of Mr. Gordon,' said Mr. Shiftit.
'You mean you've come aboard the yacht, and broken into his stores!'
'That is a very hard way of looking at it—very hard,' suggested Mr. Shiftit.
'What's your name?'
'Barrow Henry Elstreet Swift Shiftit!' he said, with dignity.
'You look it!' she said sourly. 'I don't think! You're O'Moses Gordon in what you think is a disguise.'
'Nay; not so, madam,' gently disputed Mr. Shiftit, a sudden thought finding its way through the wine-wooliness of his brain. 'Not so; and I can prove it!'
'How?'
'O'Moses Gordon is aboard.'
'Aboard!'
She grabbed her revolver from the table. Mr. Shiftit waved his hand airily.
'Oh, you won't need that!' he said. 'He is asleep in his bunk. Observe!'
He indicated the imposing array of empty bottles. 'I found most of these like this when I came aboard. Gordon had been bracing his nerves up. He evidently over-braced himself, for I discovered him in there in a really disgraceful state of intoxication—er—sleeping it off.'
'In there?' she stared at the closed door behind Mr. Shiftit which he had indicated.
'Yes. It's his sleeping cabin. If you have a pair of handcuffs, you can make sure of him in his sleep.'
She hesitated, then took a photograph from her coat pocket and studied it closely, comparing it with Mr. Shiftit. Presently she nodded. 'Well, you certainly aren't Gordon, anyway! ' she said. 'That 's clear enough!'
She took her revolver in one hand, and a pair of handcuffs in another and rose. 'Lend me a hand, and I'll say no. more about your breaking into the yacht. It's no business of mine whose larder you burgle!' said the lady.
'With pleasure!' responded Mr. Shiftit, with great politeness. He got up and placed his hand on the knob of the sleeping cabin door. 'Are you ready?' he said.
'I am!'—grimly.
Mr. Shiftit opened the door and she stepped in—revolver well to the fore. Mr. Shiftit quickly, closed the door behind her, locked it and swiftly wedged it with all the loose furniture he could find. Then he smiled happily. He nodded to his reflection in the mirror—the only real friend he had in the world—and tapped himself on the temple with the tip of his forefinger.
'This,' he said playfully—'this is where you want it.'
The voice of the lady detective spoke in what she clearly intended for a blood curdling tone. 'If you don't let me out of here I'll shoot my way out!' she bayed.
'That,' said Mr. Shiftit comfortably, 'will be all right!'
It is less easy to shoot one's way out through a locked and wedged door than fiction writers would have one believe. It is an awkward, noisy and smelly business. Long before she could do it, Mr. Shiftit, as he was very well aware, would be far away from the yacht, heavily laden with 'stores.' A thought struck him.
'Listen, dear lady!' he said. 'I presume that you are expecting this O'Moses Gordon to arrive on board to-night? If you are, has it occurred to you that the sound of a bombardment going on aboard his yacht as he approaches would probably scare him from here to the Argentine. Do you think that a man like Gordon, absconding with a client's money, would be foolish enough to step into the middle of such a suspicious clamor! I don't! Do you expect him on board to-night?'
'Any minute!' she muttered, evidently impressed by his logic.
'Well, then, be a good girl, and wait until I have got a big bag packed with odds and ends which Gordon will never need, and, consequently, will never miss. Then I will put it in the boat and at the last minute remove the things I've wedged the door with, and throw you in the key through the window, or, as the mariners call it, skylight, as I leave. How say you, lady!'
It was so obviously the sensible thing to do, if she hoped to arrest Gordon that, sulkily, she agreed.
'Admirable!' said Mr. Shiftit, and, taking a mild half-pint of port to steady his nerves, fell to work. One might have thought that he was provisioning against a long siege from the heavy-handed manner in which he 'packed.' He made a hole in that yacht's stores that was most noticeable. He worked so hard that an occasional mouthful was by no means out of place. So that by the time he was ready he was tolerably well re-illuminated again. The lady preserved a sullen silence, but Mr. Shiftit was a broad-minded man, and, in a way, he sympathised with her. Like many of life's failures, Mr. Shiftit was cursed with the fatal gift—so far as worldly success is concerned—of being able to see a question from the points of view of both parties concerned.
He began to remove the bits of furniture with which he had ingeniously wedged the door. On the point of calling to the sulky lady, he stopped, listened for a moment, then turned swiftly, to behold, in the act of entering the cabin, a gentleman who could only be Mr. O 'Moses Gordon, carrying two heavy handbags. Mr. Gordon was a big, powerful man, with a dark and heavy face. He looked an awkward customer to handle. He gave one the impression of being an educated tough—a bully.
He put down the bags and advanced into the cabin. He was quick, for he realised at a glance what had happened.
'Well, I'm hanged!' he said. The vaguely, worried, hunted expression which he had worn vanished. 'You verminous little locust!'
His heavy face flushed darkly as he took in the really remarkable extent of Mr. Shiftit's devastations. He looked so threatening that Mr. Shiftit was almost alarmed.
'How long have you been aboard this yacht? Who gave you leave to take these things?' he raved. 'Nice state of things. I come down to my yacht and find everything in darkness—no crew, no captain, and only a dirty wharf-rat aboard burrowing his way into the ship's stores—my own private stores—like a maggot in a plum. By —, I'll break your neck! I'll give you in charge! I'll get you five years for this, you scavenger!'
'It is the season of goodwill,' said. Mr. Shiftit, smiling rather vaguely. 'You aren't the sort of g'em to grudge a lil' bit of supper and a lil' drop of wine to annurra g'em on Crimmas Eve!'
'You're a liar! I am!' shouted Mr. Gordon.
Mr. Shiftit looked startled. 'You meana say you'd give a g'em in charge on Crimmas Eve—season of ri' goo' swill—towards all men—Crimmas car'ls—bells ring out—ri' goo' swill—I meanasay ri' goo' will!'
'You're tight, you blackguard!' snarled Gordon. 'And I'm going to kick you off the yacht! And if only there was a policeman anywhere near, I'd see you in gaol before I slept to night!
Mr. Shiftit surveyed him gravely. 'You wanna find a policeman—'tective?' he inquired.
Mr. Gordon did not. A detective was quite the last person he wanted, but he did not say so. 'I'd give a fiver to have a detective—or an ordinary policeman would do—to put you where you belong!' He swore heavily. 'As it is I'm going to break every bone in your miserable body, and kick you off the yacht!'
He obviously meant it, and Mr. Shiftit backed again the sleeping cabin door.
'Don't do that!' he said seemingly much less sober that Gordon had believed him. 'Don't do that! If it's a detective you want'—he flung open the door—here's one for you! Help yourself, you bounder.'
He stood aside quickly as the large lady stepped out, her face flushed, her hard eyes like flint, her revolver obviously itching to go off.
'If you move a muscle, Gordon, I'll shoot. You are arrested for forgery. Hold up your hands!'
The big man had no choice. The revolver was not five feet from him and Mr. Shiftit's manoeuvre had spurred the lady's naturally unsweetened temper into something too dangerous to meddle with. Mr. Gordon was a bully, and, like most of his species, he had no real heart, and, moreover, he knew that a revolver in the hands of a woman is at least four times as dangerous as the same weapon in a man's hands. They go off so easily and unexpectedly. With a groan of sheer rage he raised his hands.
Mr. Shiftit appeared to feel that something was due to the lady after the most ungentlemanly manner in which he had locked her in the cabin.
'Permit me, dear lady,' he said politely, took the handcuffs from her, edged round past the snarling Gordon, climbed deftly on the table, and rather skilfully handcuffed him from behind.
'There you are, my dear lady, accept him as a Christmas present from Barrow Shiftit!' he said. 'Er—keep him covered while I urge him into the sleeping cabin. You can lock him in and keep watch over him while I go ashore and send the police to you.'
He bowed, took another modest half pint of port, and hurried away. In his haste his fingers became entangled in some mysterious way with the handle of one of the bags which Gordon had left on the threshold of the cabin. It was very odd. He did not appear to notice until he was at the boat.
'Dear me!' he said. 'It's a bag! Well! well! A present from Santa Claus, no doubt. That's it—Santa Claus—ha, ha! And very nice, too!'
He dropped it in the boat, and so, surrounded with his loot, like Robinson Crusoe returning from the wreck, rowed ashore. Everything was dark, wrapped in mist and silence.
HE had to hunt for quite a long time and travel quite a long way before he found a cab. But he was a persistent man in his way. It was striking ten before he was comfortably settled in, a modest hotel in a quiet part of the town, and had seen what he described as his baggage safely stowed in his bedroom. Then, and not till then, he apprised the police that their presence was urgently required aboard the yacht Happy Days, down in the estuary. He apprised them by telephone— from the nearest call office.
It was in the nature of a disappointment to him that he found only two hundred and fifty pounds in notes in the bag which 'Santa Claus' had sent him. He had expected at least ten thousand! But the suits of clothes he found there also fitted him really very well. He was nearly as tall as Gordon, though thinner. 'On the whole,' he murmured drowsily, as he lowered his weary ear onto the pillow—'on the whole, Barrow, we may say that we are well out. Gordon is not—the man—to carry his—loot—about—with—him. No'—he was dropping off—'and—after all, if—Santa Claus gives—everybody—chug!—two-fifty—this Chrismas—it'll— chug-chug!—cost—him—a pretty—penny—chug-chug-chug!' And for the rest, save for the steady nasal chug-chug! which indicated that Mr. Shiftit was sound asleep, was silence.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.