The Specimen Case/A Very Black Business
IV
A Very Black Business
Mr. Brown was in the act of looking down the barrel of a revolver when a noise—a call—somewhere in the stairway of his block of flats arrested his hand. There were three reasons why at that supreme moment he was susceptible to so slight an influence; the cry was a curiously melodious one, and the hearer was by nature and profession a musician; it was, as well as a melodious call, a strangely old-world one; and it seemed to speak of coal. Now it was precisely the absence of this commodity that was driving the musician to his rash act. A trivial cause for so tremendous a result, it may be urged, and perhaps it was, but Mr. Brown was of the artistic temperament and therefore quite outside the ordinary standard of reasonable conduct.
In this matter of coal he had really very little to complain of. Warned both by the previous winter's experience and by certain official recommendations, he had gone to his usual coal merchant early in the month of May and ordered the full capacity of his modest cupboard—a single ton. Delivery was faithfully promised for that day week—between nine and ten in the morning—and, rejoicing greatly, Mr. Brown returned with the assurance.
In July Mrs. Brown gave up carpeting the hall with newspapers on wet days in anticipation of the coal-man's arrival.
In August Mr. Brown called on eleven other coal merchants and recklessly ordered a ton of coal from each. Seven declined the business; of the others, one promised delivery that day week at 8.30 in the morning (or, he added, between 8.30 and a quarter to nine, say), another that day twelvemonth, and the remainder at various intervening dates.
Later in the month Brown wrote an unwise letter to each of the dealers, stating that although he had thoughtlessly specified coal when ordering, he was really prepared to accept whatever substitute they were then supplying under that name. It was only his way of reminding them; but as the tone of the communication was light and flippant, each recipient thought that it must convey some hidden insult, and the order was accordingly struck off the books.
In September his original dealer rebuked him for impatience, pointing out that although he had been faithfully promised coal in May, there were many others in the same plight who had been just as faithfully promised for April or even March.
In October Mr. Brown began to contemplate suicide as the simplest way out of it. For over a month the nights had been seasonably cold, and even in the daytime it had now become unpleasantly chilly sitting before an empty grate. To stay in meant being starved to death; to go out (the servant had been dispensed with as a war economy) meant missing the coal when it did arrive. That morning Mrs. Brown had ventured on a well-meant suggestion. Her husband had feigned to accept it in a vein of sustained irony. Ultimately the lady had gone out shopping in tears, and it now seemed to the repentant and unhappy man that the best thing he could do was to go out in smoke.
But in the meanwhile the unusual call had drawn nearer, floor by floor (the Brown flat was on the highest), and a vigorous knock sounded on the door. With an instinctive courtesy, even at that moment, the musician at once went to answer it, absent-mindedly still grasping the weapon in his hand. A sturdy little man in a long blue coat stood outside; skilfully balanced on his shoulder was a weighty sack.
"You required small coal, sir?"
"This way," replied Mr. Brown, somewhat dazed. He did not care whether the coal was small or in half-hundredweight blocks. He led the way and the man followed and shot his burden.
"I'm afraid that it's rather a pull, coming up so far," apologised Brown. "Are there two of you?"
"Oh, that makes no odds," replied the coal-man amiably. "You see, I take a special interest in musicians, and hearing that you were desperate like"
"You knew that I was a musician?"
"Oh, yes; I often hear you playing."
"Really! I had no idea that my violin carried down to the street. And I don't seem to remember your call before."
"I seldom have occasion to call in the street now. Not that I am ashamed of my call—or of my calling. That can never be said of Tom Britton, sir. Even when I happen to meet, as I sometimes do, my duchess"
"Your duchess!"
"Her Grace of Queensberry, I mean, sir; she being so regular at my concerts"
"Concerts! You give concerts? Really. But how . . . where . . . Do you take the Queen's Hall?"
"Queen's Hall? Oh, no; it's just a loft over my coalshed against Clerkenwell—a few chairs, a platform, a cup of coffee, and music of a Thursday evening."
"I see . . . over your coal-shed . . . and the duchess comes regularly on Thursday evenings—early closing, of course. . . . Very natural. . . . Pray, what instrument do you play, Mr. Britton?"
"Indifferently on most, sir. I have a very fine bass viol by Norman, and a Rucker virginal scarcely to be matched in Europe. But for the talent which draws so many of the noble and discriminating to my loft I am indebted to my friends. Mr. Banister takes the first violin, Sir Roger L'Estrange the viol, Mr. Hughes, Mr. Woolaston and Mr. Shuttleworth other instruments of the band, and for the harpsichord I am generally beholden to Dr. Pepusch, while frequently the great Mr. George Handel journeys to Clerkenwell to play my organ."
"Mr. George Handel? . . . Handel!" Mr. Brown's startled eyes took in anew the sturdy if unaggressive form of his visitor. "Yes . . . yes . . . of course . . . it is very warm carrying up these sacks . . . a glass . . . something cooling?"
The coal-man smilingly declined the offer, and, as if reminded of his duty, made haste to get through the work on hand. In a shorter time than Mr. Brown had ever known any other load of even half the amount handled, the full tale of twenty sacks had been shot in, and the relieved flat-holder saw his "cellar" crammed to its full capacity. He avoided the subject of music, however, nor did the harmonious coal-heaver revert to it.
"It looks good coal," commented Brown, as the last sack was emptied, "though certainly not large."
"Small coal of the best," was the reply. "It may perhaps burn a little sulphurous, but it's none the worse for that, and it comes from a very noted Pit."
"Well, when I have any more I hope that your people will send you with it; for I have never before had it brought up so easily."
"I will mention it to my Firm, sir," said the little man.
"But the Head isn't always in the best of tempers—makes these small attentions difficult sometimes."
It was not until he had gone that Mr. Brown remembered something. In the strangeness of the whole affair he had forgotten to pay the bill; nor, for the matter of that, had the man presented it. The musician hurried to a front window to catch the name on the cart, for he was not even sure to which firm he owed the supply. There a fresh surprise awaited him in that day of wonders. There was no cart in sight. There was no coalman in sight. The stairs were empty. Nothing but the coal itself and the delicious lingering aroma of waxed sacking remained to prove the reality of the visit.
That afternoon Mr. Brown set out to discharge the account. He called first on his regular dealer, and found him involved in a wordy conflict with an acrimonious lady who had been promised some coal in February. It would appear that it had not yet arrived, and she was demanding to be told what she was to do, now that the Government regulated everything.
"Don't ask me," the harassed man was saying as Mr. Brown entered. "I'm not the Government."
"Still, you might as well be," she replied. "They don't seem to do anything but sit about and make promises."
"What else are they to do," he retorted furiously, "with people like you about?"
"I should think they might try managing coal depots," was her parting shot. "Looks as though they are cut out for it."
"And what can I do for you, sir?" demanded the manager of Mr. Brown, with passionate intentness.
"Some coal was left at my place this morning. I don't know if it came from you"
"You have the delivery-note, I suppose?"
"Curiously enough, one does not seem to have been left, and I"
"Well, it's none of ours, for I have your order down for next week. Thursday morning, early. You have probably been imposed on by someone."
"I don't quite see how that can be. The man—a little, cheerful fellow, who made nothing of the stairs"
"Not one of our men," said the manager decisively. "Good-day."
Mr. Brown left the office and tried the next most likely place, and then the next. But nowhere was he successful. No sooner did he essay to describe his obliging visitor than he was cut short by the positive assurance that there was no such man in their employ.
At last only one office remained—the least promising. He went on to it only as a matter of form, and began the now familiar tale:
"Some coal was delivered"
"Yes?" prompted the young man in attendance, for the words had been cut off by a gasp.
"That . . . you have a picture over there," stammered Mr. Brown in a shaking voice, and pointing. "Might I look at it?"
"Certainly," assented the clerk agreeably. "Rum old thing, isn't it?" And he lifted the counter-flap for Mr. Brown to pass within.
It was a print of a stout, little, pleasant-faced man in a blue smock-frock, displaying in his hand a coal-measure, as though to assert that he was by no means ashamed of his calling. Beneath were the words: "Thomas Britton (A.D. 1654-1714). The Musical Coal Man. From the painting in the National Portrait Gallery."
"Governor brought it round one day and stuck it up there," volunteered the youth. "Sort of patron saint of the business, as you might say."
"Who is—was he, do you know?"
"Well, I looked him up at the time, or I shouldn't. Yes; quite a character in his time. A coal-dealer in a small way—delivered the stuff himself. And yet that man, sir, was one of the foremost musicians of his day. Gave concerts that attracted all the toffs out of the West End to his coal-hole somewhere. Absolutely hand-in-glove with the élite in a manner of speaking, and yet going round with his coal all the time."
"It was true then," murmured Mr. Brown.
"Oh, quite true, I assure you. And that wasn't all. He went in for chemistry and astrology, and things that weren't much understood then, and, in fact, got the name for having dealings with the devil! Of course, that's all my eye."
"Quite," assented Mr. Brown feebly. "Good-morning."
"Oh, you're very welcome," said the clerk hospitably.
Ravenscourt Park, 1918.