1 files changed, 538 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/11184-0.txt b/11184-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1277a31
--- /dev/null
+++ b/11184-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,538 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11184 ***
+
+CAPTAINS ALL
+
+By W.W. Jacobs
+
+
+
+THE CONSTABLE'S MOVE
+
+[Illustration: "The Constable's Move."]
+
+Mr. Bob Grummit sat in the kitchen with his corduroy-clad legs stretched
+on the fender.  His wife's half-eaten dinner was getting cold on the
+table; Mr. Grummit, who was badly in need of cheering up, emptied her
+half-empty glass of beer and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
+
+"Come away, I tell you," he called.  "D'ye hear?  Come away.  You'll be
+locked up if you don't."
+
+He gave a little laugh at the sarcasm, and sticking his short pipe in his
+mouth lurched slowly to the front-room door and scowled at his wife as
+she lurked at the back of the window watching intently the furniture
+which was being carried in next door.
+
+"Come away or else you'll be locked up," repeated Mr. Grummit.  "You
+mustn't look at policemen's furniture; it's agin the law."
+
+Mrs. Grummit made no reply, but, throwing appearances to the winds,
+stepped to the window until her nose touched, as a walnut sideboard with
+bevelled glass back was tenderly borne inside under the personal
+supervision of Police-Constable Evans.
+
+"They'll be 'aving a pianner next," said the indignant Mr. Grummit,
+peering from the depths of the room.
+
+"They've got one," responded his wife; "there's the end if it stickin' up
+in the van."
+
+Mr. Grummit advanced and regarded the end fixedly.  "Did you throw all
+them tin cans and things into their yard wot I told you to?" he demanded.
+
+"He picked up three of 'em while I was upstairs," replied his wife.  "I
+'eard 'im tell her that they'd come in handy for paint and things."
+
+"That's 'ow coppers get on and buy pianners," said the incensed Mr.
+Grummit, "sneaking other people's property.  I didn't tell you to throw
+good 'uns over, did I?  Wot d'ye mean by it?"
+
+Mrs. Grummit made no reply, but watched with bated breath the triumphal
+entrance of the piano.  The carman set it tenderly on the narrow
+footpath, while P. C. Evans, stooping low, examined it at all points, and
+Mrs. Evans, raising the lid, struck a few careless chords.
+
+"Showing off," explained Mrs. Grummit, with a half turn; "and she's got
+fingers like carrots."
+
+"It's a disgrace to Mulberry Gardens to 'ave a copper come and live in
+it," said the indignant Grummit; "and to come and live next to me!--
+that's what I can't get over.  To come and live next door to a man wot
+has been fined twice, and both times wrong.  Why, for two pins I'd go in
+and smash 'is pianner first and 'im after it.  He won't live 'ere long,
+you take my word for it."
+
+"Why not?" inquired his wife.
+
+"Why?" repeated Mr. Grummit.  "Why?  Why, becos I'll make the place too
+'ot to hold him.  Ain't there enough houses in Tunwich without 'im
+a-coming and living next door to me?"
+
+For a whole week the brain concealed in Mr. Grummit's bullet-shaped head
+worked in vain, and his temper got correspondingly bad.  The day after
+the Evans' arrival he had found his yard littered with tins which he
+recognized as old acquaintances, and since that time they had travelled
+backwards and forwards with monotonous regularity.  They sometimes made
+as many as three journeys a day, and on one occasion the heavens opened
+to drop a battered tin bucket on the back of Mr. Grummit as he was tying
+his bootlace.  Five minutes later he spoke of the outrage to Mr. Evans,
+who had come out to admire the sunset.
+
+"I heard something fall," said the constable, eyeing the pail curiously.
+
+"You threw it," said Mr. Grummit, breathing furiously.
+
+"Me?  Nonsense," said the other, easily.  "I was having tea in the
+parlour with my wife and my mother-in-law, and my brother Joe and his
+young lady."
+
+"Any more of 'em?" demanded the hapless Mr. Grummit, aghast at this list
+of witnesses for an alibi.
+
+"It ain't a bad pail, if you look at it properly," said the constable.
+"I should keep it if I was you; unless the owner offers a reward for it.
+It'll hold enough water for your wants."
+
+Mr. Grummit flung indoors and, after wasting some time concocting
+impossible measures of retaliation with his sympathetic partner, went off
+to discuss affairs with his intimates at the _Bricklayers' Arms_.  The
+company, although unanimously agreeing that Mr. Evans ought to be boiled,
+were miserably deficient in ideas as to the means by which such a
+desirable end was to be attained.
+
+"Make 'im a laughing-stock, that's the best thing," said an elderly
+labourer.  "The police don't like being laughed at."
+
+"'Ow?" demanded Mr. Grummit, with some asperity.
+
+"There's plenty o' ways," said the old man.
+
+"I should find 'em out fast enough if I 'ad a bucket dropped on my back,
+I know."
+
+Mr. Grummit made a retort the feebleness of which was somewhat balanced
+by its ferocity, and subsided into glum silence.  His back still ached,
+but, despite that aid to intellectual effort, the only ways he could
+imagine of making the constable look foolish contained an almost certain
+risk of hard labour for himself.
+
+He pondered the question for a week, and meanwhile the tins--to the
+secret disappointment of Mr. Evans--remained untouched in his yard.  For
+the whole of the time he went about looking, as Mrs. Grummit expressed
+it, as though his dinner had disagreed with him.
+
+"I've been talking to old Bill Smith," he said, suddenly, as he came in
+one night.
+
+Mrs. Grummit looked up, and noticed with wifely pleasure that he was
+looking almost cheerful.
+
+"He's given me a tip," said Mr. Grummit, with a faint smile; "a copper
+mustn't come into a free-born Englishman's 'ouse unless he's invited."
+
+"Wot of it?" inquired his wife.  "You wasn't think of asking him in, was
+you?"
+
+Mr. Grummit regarded her almost play-fully.  "If a copper comes in
+without being told to," he continued, "he gets into trouble for it.  Now
+d'ye see?"
+
+"But he won't come," said the puzzled Mrs. Grummit.
+
+Mr. Grummit winked.  "Yes 'e will if you scream loud enough," he
+retorted.  "Where's the copper-stick?"
+
+"Have you gone mad?" demanded his wife, "or do you think I 'ave?"
+
+"You go up into the bedroom," said Mr. Grummit, emphasizing his remarks
+with his forefinger.  "I come up and beat the bed black and blue with the
+copper-stick; you scream for mercy and call out 'Help!' 'Murder!' and
+things like that.  Don't call out 'Police!' cos Bill ain't sure about
+that part.  Evans comes bursting in to save your life--I'll leave the
+door on the latch--and there you are.  He's sure to get into trouble for
+it.  Bill said so.  He's made a study o' that sort o' thing."
+
+Mrs. Grummit pondered this simple plan so long that her husband began to
+lose patience.  At last, against her better sense, she rose and fetched
+the weapon in question.
+
+"And you be careful what you're hitting," she said, as they went upstairs
+to bed.  "We'd better have 'igh words first, I s'pose?"
+
+"You pitch into me with your tongue," said Mr. Grummit, amiably.
+
+Mrs. Grummit, first listening to make sure that the constable and his
+wife were in the bedroom the other side of the flimsy wall, complied, and
+in a voice that rose gradually to a piercing falsetto told Mr. Grummit
+things that had been rankling in her mind for some months.  She raked up
+misdemeanours that he had long since forgotten, and, not content with
+that, had a fling at the entire Grummit family, beginning with her
+mother-in-law and ending with Mr. Grummit's youngest sister.  The hand
+that held the copper-stick itched.
+
+"Any more to say?" demanded Mr. Grummit advancing upon her.
+
+Mrs. Grummit emitted a genuine shriek, and Mr. Grummit, suddenly
+remembering himself, stopped short and attacked the bed with
+extraordinary fury.  The room resounded with the blows, and the efforts
+of Mrs. Grummit were a revelation even to her husband.
+
+[Illustration: "Mr. Grummit, suddenly remembering himself, stopped short
+and attacked the bed with extraordinary fury."]
+
+"I can hear 'im moving," whispered Mr. Grummit, pausing to take breath.
+
+"Mur--der!" wailed his wife.  "Help!  Help!"
+
+Mr. Grummit, changing the stick into his left hand, renewed the attack;
+Mrs. Grummit, whose voice was becoming exhausted, sought a temporary
+relief in moans.
+
+"Is--he----deaf?" panted the wife-beater, "or wot?"
+
+He knocked over a chair, and Mrs. Grummit contrived another frenzied
+scream.  A loud knocking sounded on the wall.
+
+"Hel--lp!" moaned Mrs. Grummit.
+
+"Halloa, there!" came the voice of the constable.  "Why don't you keep
+that baby quiet?  We can't get a wink of sleep."
+
+Mr. Grummit dropped the stick on the bed and turned a dazed face to his
+wife.
+
+"He--he's afraid--to come in," he gasped.  "Keep it up, old gal."
+
+He took up the stick again and Mrs. Grummit did her best, but the heart
+had gone out of the thing, and he was about to give up the task as
+hopeless when the door below was heard to open with a bang.
+
+"Here he is," cried the jubilant Grummit.  "Now!"
+
+His wife responded, and at the same moment the bedroom door was flung
+open, and her brother, who had been hastily fetched by the neighbours on
+the other side, burst into the room and with one hearty blow sent Mr.
+Grummit sprawling.
+
+"Hit my sister, will you?" he roared, as the astounded Mr. Grummit rose.
+"Take that!"
+
+Mr. Grummit took it, and several other favours, while his wife, tugging
+at her brother, endeavoured to explain.  It was not, however, until Mr.
+Grummit claimed the usual sanctuary of the defeated by refusing to rise
+that she could make herself heard.
+
+"Joke?" repeated her brother, incredulously.  "Joke?"
+
+Mrs. Grummit in a husky voice explained.
+
+Her brother passed from incredulity to amazement and from amazement to
+mirth.  He sat down gurgling, and the indignant face of the injured
+Grummit only added to his distress.
+
+"Best joke I ever heard in my life," he said, wiping his eyes.  "Don't
+look at me like that, Bob; I can't bear it."
+
+"Get off 'ome," responded Mr. Grummit, glowering at him.
+
+"There's a crowd outside, and half the doors in the place open," said the
+other.  "Well, it's a good job there's no harm done.  So long."
+
+He passed, beaming, down the stairs, and Mr. Grummit, drawing near the
+window, heard him explaining in a broken voice to the neighbours outside.
+Strong men patted him on the back and urged him gruffly to say what he
+had to say and laugh afterwards.  Mr. Grummit turned from the window, and
+in a slow and stately fashion prepared to retire for the night.  Even the
+sudden and startling disappearance of Mrs. Grummit as she got into bed
+failed to move him.
+
+"The bed's broke, Bob," she said faintly.
+
+"Beds won't last for ever," he said, shortly; "sleep on the floor."
+
+Mrs. Grummit clambered out, and after some trouble secured the bedclothes
+and made up a bed in a corner of the room.  In a short time she was fast
+asleep; but her husband, broad awake, spent the night in devising further
+impracticable schemes for the discomfiture of the foe next door.
+
+He saw Mr. Evans next morning as he passed on his way to work.  The
+constable was at the door smoking in his shirt-sleeves, and Mr. Grummit
+felt instinctively that he was waiting there to see him pass.
+
+"I heard you last night," said the constable, playfully.  "My word!  Good
+gracious!"
+
+"Wot's the matter with you?" demanded Mr. Grummit, stopping short.
+
+The constable stared at him.  "She has been knocking you about," he
+gasped.  "Why, it must ha' been you screaming, then!  I thought it
+sounded loud.  Why don't you go and get a summons and have her locked up?
+I should be pleased to take her."
+
+Mr. Grummit faced him, quivering with passion.  "Wot would it cost if I
+set about you?" he demanded, huskily.
+
+"Two months," said Mr. Evans, smiling serenely; "p'r'aps three."
+
+Mr. Grummit hesitated and his fists clenched nervously.  The constable,
+lounging against his door-post, surveyed him with a dispassionate smile.
+"That would be besides what you'd get from me," he said, softly.
+
+"Come out in the road," said Mr. Grummit, with sudden violence.
+
+"It's agin the rules," said Mr. Evans; "sorry I can't.  Why not go and
+ask your wife's brother to oblige you?"
+
+He went in laughing and closed the door, and Mr. Grummit, after a
+frenzied outburst, proceeded on his way, returning the smiles of such
+acquaintances as he passed with an icy stare or a strongly-worded offer
+to make them laugh the other side of their face.  The rest of the day he
+spent in working so hard that he had no time to reply to the anxious
+inquiries of his fellow-workmen.
+
+He came home at night glum and silent, the hardship of not being able to
+give Mr. Evans his deserts without incurring hard labour having weighed
+on his spirits all day.  To avoid the annoyance of the piano next door,
+which was slowly and reluctantly yielding up "_The Last Rose of Summer_"
+note by note, he went out at the back, and the first thing he saw was Mr.
+Evans mending his path with tins and other bric-a-brac.
+
+"Nothing like it," said the constable, looking up.  "Your missus gave 'em
+to us this morning.  A little gravel on top, and there you are."
+
+He turned whistling to his work again, and the other, after endeavouring
+in vain to frame a suitable reply, took a seat on an inverted wash-tub
+and lit his pipe.  His one hope was that Constable Evans was going to try
+and cultivate a garden.
+
+The hope was realized a few days later, and Mr. Grummit at the back
+window sat gloating over a dozen fine geraniums, some lobelias and
+calceolarias, which decorated the constable's plot of ground.  He could
+not sleep for thinking of them.
+
+He rose early the next morning, and, after remarking to Mrs. Grummit that
+Mr. Evans's flowers looked as though they wanted rain, went off to his
+work.  The cloud which had been on his spirits for some time had lifted,
+and he whistled as he walked.  The sight of flowers in front windows
+added to his good humour.
+
+He was still in good spirits when he left off work that afternoon, but
+some slight hesitation about returning home sent him to the Brick-layers'
+firms instead.  He stayed there until closing time, and then, being still
+disinclined for home, paid a visit to Bill Smith, who lived the other
+side of Tunwich.  By the time he started for home it was nearly midnight.
+
+The outskirts of the town were deserted and the houses in darkness.  The
+clock of Tunwich church struck twelve, and the last stroke was just dying
+away as he turned a corner and ran almost into the arms of the man he had
+been trying to avoid.
+
+"Halloa!" said Constable Evans, sharply.  "Here, I want a word with you."
+
+Mr. Grummit quailed.  "With me, sir?" he said, with involuntary respect.
+
+"What have you been doing to my flowers?" demanded the other, hotly.
+
+"Flowers?" repeated Mr. Grummit, as though the word were new to him.
+"Flowers?  What flowers?"
+
+"You know well enough," retorted the constable.  "You got over my fence
+last night and smashed all my flowers down."
+
+"You be careful wot you're saying," urged Mr. Grummit.  "Why, I love
+flowers.  You don't mean to tell me that all them beautiful flowers wot
+you put in so careful 'as been spoiled?"
+
+"You know all about it," said the constable, choking.  "I shall take out
+a summons against you for it."
+
+"Ho!" said Mr. Grummit.  "And wot time do you say it was when I done it?"
+
+"Never you mind the time," said the other.
+
+"Cos it's important," said Mr. Grummit.
+
+"My wife's brother--the one you're so fond of--slept in my 'ouse last
+night.  He was ill arf the night, pore chap; but, come to think of it,
+it'll make 'im a good witness for my innocence."
+
+"If I wasn't a policeman," said Mr. Evans, speaking with great
+deliberation, "I'd take hold o' you, Bob Grummit, and I'd give you the
+biggest hiding you've ever had in your life."
+
+"If you wasn't a policeman," said Mr. Grummit, yearningly, "I'd arf
+murder you."
+
+The two men eyed each other wistfully, loth to part.
+
+"If I gave you what you deserve I should get into trouble," said the
+constable.
+
+"If I gave you a quarter of wot you ought to 'ave I should go to quod,"
+sighed Mr. Grummit.
+
+"I wouldn't put you there," said the constable, earnestly; "I swear I
+wouldn't."
+
+"Everything's beautiful and quiet," said Mr. Grummit, trembling with
+eagerness, "and I wouldn't say a word to a soul.  I'll take my solemn
+davit I wouldn't."
+
+"When I think o' my garden--" began the constable.  With a sudden
+movement he knocked off Mr. Grummit's cap, and then, seizing him by the
+coat, began to hustle him along the road.  In the twinkling of an eye
+they had closed.
+
+Tunwich church chimed the half-hour as they finished, and Mr. Grummit,
+forgetting his own injuries, stood smiling at the wreck before him.  The
+constable's helmet had been smashed and trodden on; his uniform was torn
+and covered with blood and dirt, and his good looks marred for a
+fortnight at least.  He stooped with a groan, and, recovering his helmet,
+tried mechanically to punch it into shape.  He stuck the battered relic
+on his head, and Mr. Grummit fell back--awed, despite himself.
+
+"It was a fair fight," he stammered.
+
+The constable waved him away.  "Get out o' my sight before I change my
+mind," he said, fiercely; "and mind, if you say a word about this it'll
+be the worse for you."
+
+"Do you think I've gone mad?" said the other.  He took another look at
+his victim and, turning away, danced fantastically along the road home.
+The constable, making his way to a gas-lamp, began to inspect damages.
+
+They were worse even than he had thought, and, leaning against the
+lamp-post, he sought in vain for an explanation that, in the absence of a
+prisoner, would satisfy the inspector.  A button which was hanging by a
+thread fell tinkling on to the footpath, and he had just picked it up and
+placed it in his pocket when a faint distant outcry broke upon his ear.
+
+He turned and walked as rapidly as his condition would permit in the
+direction of the noise.  It became louder and more imperative, and cries
+of "Police!" became distinctly audible.  He quickened into a run, and
+turning a corner beheld a little knot of people standing at the gate of a
+large house.  Other people only partially clad were hastening to-wards
+them.  The constable arrived out of breath.
+
+"Better late than never," said the owner of the house, sarcastically.
+
+Mr. Evans, breathing painfully, supported himself with his hand on the
+fence.
+
+"They went that way, but I suppose you didn't see them," continued the
+householder.  "Halloa!" he added, as somebody opened the hall door and
+the constable's damaged condition became visible in the gas-light.  "Are
+you hurt?"
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Evans, who was trying hard to think clearly.  To gain
+time he blew a loud call on his whistle.
+
+"The rascals!" continued the other.  "I think I should know the big chap
+with a beard again, but the others were too quick for me."
+
+Mr. Evans blew his whistle again--thoughtfully.  The opportunity seemed
+too good to lose.
+
+"Did they get anything?" he inquired.
+
+"Not a thing," said the owner, triumphantly.  "I was disturbed just in
+time."
+
+The constable gave a slight gulp.  "I saw the three running by the side
+of the road," he said, slowly.  "Their behaviour seemed suspicious, so I
+collared the big one, but they set on me like wild cats.  They had me
+down three times; the last time I laid my head open against the kerb, and
+when I came to my senses again they had gone."
+
+He took off his battered helmet with a flourish and, amid a murmur of
+sympathy, displayed a nasty cut on his head.  A sergeant and a constable,
+both running, appeared round the corner and made towards' them.
+
+"Get back to the station and make your report," said the former, as
+Constable Evans, in a somewhat defiant voice, repeated his story.
+"You've done your best; I can see that."
+
+Mr. Evans, enacting to perfection the part of a wounded hero, limped
+painfully off, praying devoutly as he went that the criminals might make
+good their escape.  If not, he reflected that the word of a policeman was
+at least equal to that of three burglars.
+
+He repeated his story at the station, and, after having his head dressed,
+was sent home and advised to keep himself quiet for a day or two.  He was
+off duty for four days, and, the Tunwich Gazette having devoted a column
+to the affair, headed "A Gallant Constable," modestly secluded himself
+from the public gaze for the whole of that time.
+
+To Mr. Grummit, who had read the article in question until he could have
+repeated it backwards, this modesty was particularly trying.  The
+constable's yard was deserted and the front door ever closed.  Once Mr.
+Grummit even went so far as to tap with his nails on the front parlour
+window, and the only response was the sudden lowering of the blind.  It
+was not until a week afterwards that his eyes were gladdened by a sight
+of the constable sitting in his yard; and fearing that even then he might
+escape him, he ran out on tip-toe and put his face over the fence before
+the latter was aware of his presence.
+
+"Wot about that 'ere burglary?" he demanded in truculent tones.
+
+"Good evening, Grummit," said the constable, with a patronizing air.
+
+"Wot about that burglary?" repeated Mr. Grummit, with a scowl.  "I don't
+believe you ever saw a burglar."
+
+Mr. Evans rose and stretched himself gracefully.  "You'd better run
+indoors, my good man," he said, slowly.
+
+"Telling all them lies about burglars," continued the indignant Mr.
+Grummit, producing his newspaper and waving it.  "Why, I gave you that
+black eye, I smashed your 'elmet, I cut your silly 'ead open, I----"
+
+"You've been drinking," said the other, severely.
+
+"You mean to say I didn't?" demanded Mr. Grummit, ferociously.
+
+Mr. Evans came closer and eyed him steadily.  "I don't know what you're
+talking about," he said, calmly.
+
+Mr. Grummit, about to speak, stopped appalled at such hardihood.
+
+"Of course, if you mean to say that you were one o' them burglars,"
+continued the constable, "why, say it and I'll take you with pleasure.
+Come to think of it, I did seem to remember one o' their voices."
+
+Mr. Grummit, with his eyes fixed on the other's, backed a couple of yards
+and breathed heavily.
+
+"About your height, too, he was," mused the constable.  "I hope for your
+sake you haven't been saying to anybody else what you said to me just
+now."
+
+Mr. Grummit shook his head.  "Not a word," he faltered.
+
+"That's all right, then," said Mr. Evans.  "I shouldn't like to be hard
+on a neighbour; not that we shall be neighbours much longer."
+
+Mr. Grummit, feeling that a reply was expected of him, gave utterance to
+a feeble "Oh!"
+
+"No," said Mr. Evans, looking round disparagingly.  "It ain't good enough
+for us now; I was promoted to sergeant this morning.  A sergeant can't
+live in a common place like this."
+
+Mr. Grummit, a prey to a sickening fear, drew near the fence again.  "A--
+a sergeant?" he stammered.
+
+Mr. Evans smiled and gazed carefully at a distant cloud.  "For my bravery
+with them burglars the other night, Grummit," he said, modestly.  "I
+might have waited years if it hadn't been for them."
+
+He nodded to the frantic Grummit and turned away; Mr. Grummit, without
+any adieu at all, turned and crept back to the house.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Constable's Move, by W.W. Jacobs
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11184 ***