A Gun for Sale

  'That lot wouldn't have killed you. They haven't the nerve to kill. It takes a man to kill.'

  'Well, your friend Cholmondeley came pretty near it. He nearly throttled me when he guessed I was in with you.'

  'In with me?'

  'To rind the man you're after.'

  'The double-crossing bastard.' He brooded over his pistol, but his thoughts always disturbingly came back from hate to this dark safe corner; he wasn't used to that. He said,'You've got sense all right. I like you.'

  'Thanks for the compliment.'

  'It's no compliment. You don't have to tell me. I've got something I'd like to trust you with, but I can't.'

  'What's the dark secret?'

  'It's not a secret. It's a cat I left back in my lodgings in London when they chased me out. You'd have looked after it.'

  'You disappoint me, Mr Raven. I thought it was going to be a few murders at least.' She exclaimed with sudden seriousness, 'I've got it. The place where Davis works.'

  'Davis?'

  'The man you call Cholmondeley. I'm sure of it. Midland Steel. In a street near the Metropole. A big palace of a place.'

  I've got to get out of here,' Raven said, beating the automatic on the freezing ground.

  'Can't you go to the police?'

  'Me?' Raven said. 'Me go to the police?' He laughed. 'That'd be fine, wouldn't it? Hold out my hands for the cuffs...'

  'I'll think of a way,' Anne said. When her voice ceased it was as if she had gone. He said sharply, 'Are you there?'

  'Of course I'm here,' she said. 'What's worrying you?'

  'It feels odd not to be alone.' The sour incredulity surged back. He struck a couple of matches and held them to his face, close to his disfigured mouth. 'Look,' he said, 'take a long look.' The small flames burnt steadily down. 'You aren't going to help me, are you? Me?'

  'You are all right,' she said. The flames touched his skin, but he held the two matches rigidly up and they burnt out against his fingers; the pain was like joy. But he rejected it; it had come too late; he sat in the dark feeling tears like heavy weights behind his eyes, but he couldn't weep. He had never known the particular trick that opened the right ducts at the right time. He crept a little way out of his corner towards her, feeling his way along the floor with the automatic. He said, 'Are you cold?'

  'I've been in warmer places,' Anne said.

  There were only his own sacks left. He pushed them over to her. 'Wrap 'em round,' he said.

  'Have you got enough?'

  'Of course I have. I can look after myself,' he said sharply, as if he hated her. His hands were so cold that he would have found it hard to use the automatic. 'I've got to get out of here.'

  'We'll think of a way. Better have a sleep.'

  'I can't sleep,' he said, 'I've been dreaming bad dreams lately.'

  'We might tell each other stories? It's about the children's hour.'

  'I don't know any stories.'

  'Well, I'll tell you one. What kind? A funny one?'

  'They never seem funny to me.'

  'The three bears might be suitable.'

  'I don't want anything financial. I don't want to hear anything about money.'

  She could just see him now that he had come closer, a dark hunched shape that couldn't understand a word she was saying. She mocked him gently, secure in the knowledge that he would never realize she was mocking him. She said:' I'll tell you about the fox and the cat. Well, this cat met a fox in a forest, and she'd always heard the fox cracked up for being wise. So she passed him the time of day politely and asked how he was getting along. But the fox was proud. He said, "How dare you ask me how I get along, you hungry mouse-hunter? What do you know about the world?"

  "Well, I do know one thing," the cat said. "What's that?" said the fox. "How to get away from the dogs," the cat said. "When they chase me, I jump into a tree." Then the fox went all high and mighty and said, "You've only one trick and I've a hundred. I've got a sack full of tricks. Come along with me and I'll show you." Just then a hunter ran quietly up with four hounds. The cat sprang into the tree and cried, "Open your sack, Mr Fox, open your sack." But the dogs held him with their teeth. So the cat laughed at him saying, "Mr Know-all, if you'd had just this one trick in your sack, you'd be safe up the tree with me now.'" Anne stopped. She whispered to the dark shape beside her, 'Are you asleep?'

  'No,' Raven said, 'I'm not asleep.'

  'It's your turn now.'

  'I don't know any stories,' Raven said, sullenly, miserably.

  'No stories like that? You haven't been brought up properly.'

  'I'm educated all right,' he protested, 'but I've got things on my mind. Plenty of them.'

  'Cheer up. There's someone who's got more.'

  'Who's that?'

  'The fellow who began all this, who killed the old man, you know who I mean. Davis's friend.'

  'What do you say?' he said furiously. 'Davis's friend?' He held his anger in. 'It's not the killing I mind; it's the double-crossing.'

  'Well, of course,' Anne said cheerily, making conversation under the pile of sacks, 'I don't mind a little thing like killing myself.'

  He looked up and tried to see her through the dark, hunting a hope. 'You don't mind that?'

  'But there are killings and killings,' Anne said. 'If I had the man here who killed—what was the old man's name?'

  'I don't remember.'

  'Nor do I. We couldn't pronounce it anyway.'

  'Go on. If he was here...'

  'Why, I'd let you shoot him without raising a ringer. And I'd say "Well done" to you afterwards.' She warmed to the subject. 'You remember what I told you, that they can't invent gas masks for babies to wear? That's the kind of thing he'll have on his mind. The mothers alive in their masks watching the babies cough up their insides.'

  He said stubbornly, 'The poor ones'll be lucky. And what do I care about the rich? This isn't a world I'd bring children into.' She could just see his tense crouching figure. 'It's just their selfishness,' he said. 'They have a good time and what do they mind if someone's born ugly? Three minutes in bed or against a wall, and then a lifetime for the one that's born. Mother love,' he began to laugh, seeing quite clearly the kitchen table, the carving knife on the linoleum, the blood all over his mother's dress. He explained, 'You see I'm educated. In one of His Majesty's own homes. They call them that—homes. What do you think a home means?' But he didn't allow her time to speak. 'You are wrong. You think it means a husband in work, a nice gas cooker and a double-bed, carpet slippers and cradles and the rest. That's not a home. A home's solitary confinement for a kid that's caught talking in the chapel and the birch for almost anything you do. Bread and water. A sergeant knocking you around if you try to lark a bit. That's a home.'

  'Well, he was trying to alter all that, wasn't he? He was poor like we are.'

  'Who are you talking about?'

  'Old what's-his-name. Didn't you read about him in the papers? How he cut down all the army expenses to help clear the slums? There were photographs of him opening new flats, talking to the children. He wasn't one of the rich. He wouldn't have gone to war. That's why they shot him. You bet there are fellows making money now out of him being dead. And he'd done it all himself too, the obituaries said. His father was a thief and his mother committed—'

  'Suicide?' Raven whispered. 'Did you read how she...'

  'She drowned herself.'

  'The things you read,' Raven said. 'It's enough to make a fellow think.'

  'Well, I'd say the fellow who killed old what's-his-name had something to think about.'

  'Maybe,' Raven said, 'he didn't know all the papers know. The men who paid him, they knew. Perhaps if we knew all there was to know, the kind of breaks the fellow had had, we'd, see his point of view.'

  'It'd take a lot of talking to make me see that. Anyway we'd better sleep now.'

  'I've got to think,' Raven said.

  'You'll think better after you've had a nap.'

  But it
was far too cold for him to sleep; he had no sacks to cover himself with, and his black tight overcoat was worn almost as thin as cotton. Under the door came a draught which might have travelled down the frosty rails from Scotland, a north-east wind, bringing icy fogs from the sea. He thought to himself: I didn't mean the old man any harm, there was nothing personal... 'I'd let you shoot him, and afterwards I'd say, "Well done".' He had a momentary crazy impulse to get up and go through the door with his automatic in his hand and let them shoot. 'Mr Know-all,' she could say then, 'if you'd only had this one trick in your sack, the dogs wouldn't...' But then it seemed to him that this knowledge he had gained of the old man was only one more count against Chol-mon-deley. Chol-mon-deley had known all this. There'd be one more bullet in his belly for this, and one more for Cholmondeley's master. But how was he to find the other man? He had only the memory of a photograph to guide him, a photograph which the old Minister had somehow connected with the letter of introduction Raven had borne, a young scarred boy's face which was probably an old man's now.

  Anne said, 'Are you asleep?'

  'No,' Raven said. 'What's troubling you?'

  'I thought I heard someone moving.'

  He listened. It was only the wind tapping a loose board outside. He said, 'You go to sleep. You needn't be scared. They won't come till it's light enough to see.' He thought: where would those two have met when they were so young? Surely not in the kind of home he'd known, the cold stone stairs, the cracked commanding bell, the tiny punishment cells. Quite suddenly he fell asleep and the old Minister was coming towards him saying, 'Shoot me. Shoot me in the eyes,' and Raven was a child with a catapult in his hands. He wept and wouldn't shoot and the old Minister said, 'Shoot, dear child. We'll go home together. Shoot.'

  Raven woke again as suddenly. In his sleep his hand had gripped the automatic tight. It was pointed at the corner where Anne slept. He gazed with horror into the dark, hearing a whisper like the one he had heard through the door when the secretary tried to call out. He said, 'Are you asleep? What are you saying?'

  Anne said: 'I'm awake.' She said defensively, 'I was just praying.'

  'Do you believe in God?'

  'I don't know,' Anne said. 'Sometimes maybe. It's a habit, praying. It doesn't do any harm. It's like crossing your ringers when you walk under a ladder. We all need any luck that's going.'

  Raven said, 'We did a lot of praying in the home. Twice a day, and before meals too.'

  'It doesn't prove anything.'

  'No, it doesn't prove anything. Only you get sort of mad when everything reminds you of what's over and done with. Sometimes you want to begin fresh, and then someone praying, or a smell, or something you read in the paper, and it's all back again, the places and the people.' He came a little nearer in the cold shed for company; it made you feel more than usually alone to know that they were waiting for you outside, waiting for daylight so that they could take you without any risk of your escaping or of your firing first. He had a good mind to send her out directly it was day and stick where he was and shoot it out with them. But that meant leaving Chol-mon-deley and his employer free; it was just what would please them most. He said, 'I was reading once—I like reading—I'm educated, something about psicko—psicko—'

  'Leave it at that,' Anne said. 'I know what you mean.'

  'It seems your dreams mean things. I don't mean like tea-leaves or cards.'

  'I knew someone once,' Anne said. 'She was so good with the cards it gave you the creeps. She used to have those cards with queer pictures on them. The Hanged Man...'

  'It wasn't like that,' Raven said. 'It was—Oh, I don't know properly. I couldn't understand it all. But it seems if you told your dreams... It was like you carry a load around you; you are born with some of it because of what your father and mother were and their fathers... seems as if it goes right back, like it says in the Bible about the sins being visited. Then when you're a kid the load gets bigger; all the things you need to do and can't; and then all the things you do. They get you either way.' He leant his sad killer's face on his hands. 'It's like confessing to a priest. Only when you've confessed you go and do it all over again. I mean you tell these doctors everything, every dream you have, and afterwards you don't want to do it. But you have to tell them everything.'

  'Even the flying pigs?' Anne said.

  'Everything. And when you've told everything it's gone.'

  'It sounds phoney to me,' Anne said.

  'I don't suppose I've told it right. But it's what I read. I thought that maybe it might be worth a trial.'

  'Life's full of funny things. Me and you being here. You thinking you wanted to kill me. Me thinking we can stop a war. Your psicko isn't any funnier than that.'

  'You see it's getting rid of it all that counts,' Raven said. 'It's not what the doctor does. That's how it seemed to me. Like when I told you about the home, and the bread and water and the prayers, they didn't seem so important afterwards.' He swore softly and obscenely, under his breath. 'I'd always said I wouldn't go soft on a skirt. I always thought my lip'd save me. It's not safe to go soft. It makes you slow. I've seen it happen to other fellows. They've always landed in gaol or got a razor in their guts. Now I've gone soft, as soft as all the rest.'

  'I like you,' Anne said. 'I'm your friend—'

  'I'm not asking anything,' Raven said. 'I'm ugly and I know it. Only one thing. Be different. Don't go to the police. Most skirts do. I've seen it happen. But maybe you aren't a skirt. You're a girl.'

  'I'm someone's girl.'

  'That's all right with me,' he exclaimed with painful pride in the coldness and the dark. 'I'm not asking anything but that, that you don't grass on me.'

  'I'm not going to the police,' Anne said. 'I promise you I won't I like you as well as any man—except my friend.'

  'I thought as how perhaps I could tell you a thing or two—dreams—just as well as any doctor. You see I know doctors. You can't trust them. I went to one before I came down here. I wanted him to alter this lip. He tried to put me to sleep with gas. He was going to call the police. You can't trust them. But I could trust you.'

  'You can trust me all right,' Anne said. 'I won't go to the police. But you'd better sleep first and tell me your dreams after if you want to. It's a long night.'

  His teeth suddenly chattered uncontrollably with the cold and Anne heard him. She put out a hand and touched his coat. 'You're cold,' she said. 'You've given me all the sacks.'

  'I don't need 'em. I've got a coat.'

  'We're friends, aren't we?' Anne said. 'We are in this together. You take two of these sacks.'

  He said, 'There'll be some more about. I'll look,' and he struck a match and felt his way round the wall. 'Here are two,' he said, sitting down farther away from her, empty-handed, out of reach. He said, 'I can't sleep. Not properly. I had a dream just now. About the old man.'

  'What old man?'

  'The old man that got murdered. I dreamed I was a kid with a catapult and he was saying, "Shoot me through the eyes," and I was crying and he said, "Shoot me through the eyes, dear child."'

  'Search me for a meaning,' Anne said.

  'I just wanted to tell it you.'

  'What did he look like?'

  'Like he did look.' Hastily he added, 'Like I've seen in the photographs.' He brooded over his memories with a low passionate urge towards confession. There had never in his life been anyone he could trust till now. He said, 'You don't mind hearing these things?' and listened with a curious deep happiness to her reply, 'We are friends.' He said, 'This is the best night I've ever had.' But there were things he still couldn't tell her. His happiness was incomplete till she knew everything, till he had shown his trust completely. He didn't want to shock or pain her; he led slowly towards the central revelation. He said, 'I've had other dreams of being a kid. I've dreamed I opened a door, a kitchen door, and there was my mother—she'd cut her throat—she looked ugly—her head nearly off—she sawn at it—with a bread knife—'

 
Anne said, 'That wasn't a dream.'

  'No,' he said, 'you're right, that wasn't a dream.' He waited. He could feel her sympathy move silently towards him in the dark. He said, 'That was ugly, wasn't it? You'd think you couldn't beat that for ugliness, wouldn't you? She hadn't even thought enough of me to lock the door so as I shouldn't see. And after that, there was a Home. You know all about that. You'd say that was ugly too, but it wasn't as ugly as that was. And they educated me too properly so as I could understand the things I read in the papers. Like this psicko business. And write a good hand and speak the King's English. I got beaten a lot at the start, solitary confinement, bread and water, all the rest of the homey stuff. But that didn't go on when they'd educated me. I was too clever for them after that. They could never put a thing on me. They suspected all right, but they never had the proof. Once the chaplain tried to frame me. They were right when they told us the day we left about it was like life. Jim and me and a bunch of soft kids.' He said bitterly, 'This is the first time they've had anything on me and I'm innocent.'

  'You'll get away,' Anne said. 'We'll think up something together.'

  'It sounds good your saying "together" like that, but they've got me this time. I wouldn't mind if I could get that Chol-mon-deley and his boss first.' He said with a kind of nervous pride, 'Would you be surprised if I'd told you I'd killed a man?' It was like the first fence; if he cleared that, he would have confidence... 'Who?'

  'Did you ever hear of Battling Kite?'

  'No.'

  He laughed with a sacred pleasure. 'I'm trusting you with my life now. If you'd told me twenty-four hours ago that I'd trust my life to... but of course I haven't given you any proof. I was doing the races then. Kite had a rival gang. There wasn't anything else to do. He'd tried to bump my boss off on the course. Half of us took a fast car back to town. He thought we were on the train with him. But we were on the platform, see, when the train came in. We got round him directly he got outside the carriage. I cut his throat and the others held him up till we were all through the barrier in a bunch. Then we dropped him by the bookstall and did a bolt.' He said, 'You see it was his lot or our lot. They'd had razors out on the course. It was war.'