Every big post office has one. Some have dozens. St. Martin's-le-Grand is a warren, Mount Pleasant a veritable honeycomb-a positive castle of Otranto with, in place of subterraneities, a hidden, circling passage upon every floor.
Here and there the thickly-frosted panes of their bow-shaped windows jut out above sorting-rooms or over a parcel section, high piled with baskets and bags. The staff, in its thousands, laughs. It calls them Pinkerton's Peep-holes. It jeers as it passes underneath. Sometimes, on Saturday nights, when discipline is slack and overseers few, it throws balls of jute at the glass to mark disdain. For the staff is honest, almost to a man. Only, now and then, a thief, standing at the long three-decked tables, glances furtively up at the spy-place as he hesitates to steal. For no man knows who lurks behind the grey dulness of those frosted panes. More often than not they are empty and harmless. Yet sometimes retribution hides there, keen-eyed, alert and swift to strike.
This afternoon—this Christmas Eve—retribution embodied, Arthur Bourne by name, was in the spy-hole that looked down upon a huge gallery of Murcester's second floor. He sat, tilting forward, on a little stool. His eyes were glued to a tiny square where the frosting had been scraped away to let him see, unseen. He had been there for hours. He was cramped and choked with dust. And of his watching no result had come. All the terrible strain, the persistent, ceaseless peering of the tedious afternoon had brought him no nearer to the truth. At last, worn out, his eyes sore beyond endurance, he leaned back and began to rest. But, novice and new broom that he was, his conscience pricked him for this respite. He felt ashamed of his weakness. It was as if he, a sentry, would fall asleep at his post.
A woman—save in the instance of the happy few who need no spur beyond their own ambition—is at the back of all strenuous work. A woman, and the desire to make that woman his, had put Arthur Bourne into the spy-hole where he sat. Till Alice Shield came into his life he had been a sluggard, capable of sudden spurts. From the day that she had promised to marry him he had become a stayer, full of determination to succeed. To escape from the mass, to gain promotion, to make the future sure, he had worked like one possessed. Persistence had won its reward. His superiors had noticed, encouraged, marked him out. A week ago his great opportunity had come.
He had been sitting in the little wire-rimmed cage, where, as the superintendent's devil, he dealt with countless minor cases that, to him, seemed of the greatest force. He was working with all the fierceness of the man who scents success. His whole heart was in his task. It was his offering on the shrine of love. Love, to him, meant duty and service. He gave both with all the soul that was in his nervous, high-strung frame.
Suddenly he felt himself tapped lightly on the shoulder. He started, turned in his chair, looked up. The superintendent was standing over him. Bourne rose to his feet. The superintendent closed the door of the cage.
"I am going upstairs to the chief's room," he said quietly. "I want you to follow me there in ten minutes' time." And without another word he slipped across to the door again, opened it and went out.
Bourne, his heart hammering and his pulses whirling, pulled out his watch. He took it off the chain. He set it on the vast white blotting-pad before him. The hands crawled; each minute was an hour. For he knew by instinct that a crisis in his life had come.
When, at last, the age of waiting was over, he hurried out and up the great staircase beyond. The sound of his footsteps ringing on the stones was music to his thoughts. A refrain jigged in his head to a haunting, popular tune. "My chance has come, my chance has come!" it shouted. And, with his brain still singing it, he came to the fateful door. He knocked, listened, heard a call, went in. The chief, bald, cherub-faced, and shrewd of eye, was sitting at a fronting desk. The superintendent stood at his side. The chief turned to him.
"So this is Mr. Bourne?" he said.
The superintendent nodded. “Yes, sir," he answered. "And I think he is the right man."
The shrewd, green eyes settled on Bourne's face and searched it. Then they wandered about his figure, looked him up and down, through and through and in and out, till Bourne's head was shaking with nervousness and it was all that he could do not to avert his glance. The chief saw his state, smiled and spoke in a jerky, genial voice.
"I see you're nervous, Mr. Bourne. That is a good sign. It shows you're anxious to give satisfaction. Well, you shall have the chance. I'm going to place a great confidence in you. I'm going to ask your help. In a word, I want you to do some watching for us.”
But Arthur Bourne did not quite understand. He looked bewilderedly back, then raised wondering eyes to the superintendent. The chief laughed.
"I see you don't quite get there, Mr. Bourne. Well, I'm not altogether surprised. It is best that you should know exactly how matters stand. But before I begin you must realise that this is a matter for the utmost secrecy—a case in which the slightest indiscretion would spoil everything. Do I make myself quite clear?"
"Quite clear, sir," answered Bourne. He was beginning to feel a little more at ease.
The chief nodded. "Very good," he said. "Now listen." He cleared his throat, crossed his legs, then went on.
"There is a thief in the office—a thief of no ordinary kind. He is not merely stealing letters. He is actually taking whole bundles. He is making a special mark of correspondence for Selfhills—Selfhills Stores. And Mr. Selfhill is, to put it mildly, a little cross. Unless the culprit is detected in a week there will be questions in the House. Mr. Selfhill has said so and he is a man of his word. That"—the chief's lips primmed—"would be a slur upon us which I cannot allow."
He paused a moment and looked hard at Bourne.
"Have you good eyes?" he asked quickly.
"Yes, sir," answered Bourne. "My eyesight is excellent."
"I'm glad, very glad. Well then, I'm going to give you a key. That key will admit you to the watching galleries and there you will have to spend your full eight hours a day. You will share the task with Overseer Robertshaw. You know him, of course? "
Bourne positively jumped. He could hardly keep his seat. That he should become the colleague of the schoolfellow who had so outdistanced him made him thrill with pride. Robertshaw had gone over a hundred heads. He was looked upon as the coming man. He was the spoiled darling of fortune. And now . . . Bourne could scarcely control his voice. But he managed to blurt his answer out.
“Yes, sir. I know him quite well. We were at school together. He was a great friend of mine once. That is to say before he was promoted. But since then I've seen very little of him. The overseers don't mix much with the rest of us, sir—even outside the office."
The chief looked at him with a meaning smile.
"That's right,” he said. "Quite right and proper. They couldn't maintain discipline if they did. But perhaps when you've won your promotion you'll be able to renew your friendship on equal terms. In the meantime you may rely upon his help. He knows the galleries from end to end. Mr. Laidlay and he have done this work for years. But Mr. Laidlay is ill. That's why you've got your chance. Make the most of it—and I'll see that your claims are not overlooked."
He turned to the superintendent again.
"Is Mr. Robertshaw at hand?" he asked.
"He should be outside now, sir."
"Then bring him in.”
The superintendent walked to the door and put out his head. "Come in, Mr. Robertshaw," he called. A man who had been waiting in the corridor stepped into the room. The chief got up and stood on the hearth-rug with his back to the fire.
"Good morning," he said. "This is Mr. Bourne. As you know, I've chosen him in Laidlay's place. He tells me you are old schoolfellows. So much the better. You ought to work well together. Take him with you and explain everything he needs to know."
Robertshaw was tall, big-made, handsome, and debonair. He looked, for his position, extraordinarily well turned out. He had private means; he had travelled, had seen cities and men. Intelligence stuck out of him. He was no ordinary clerk. It was easy to understand why he had climbed—and would still climb—fast. As soon as the chief had finished he bowed with a deference not wholly masking pride.
"Very good, sir," he answered. “I will give him all the hints I can. The rest depends upon Mr. Bourne himself." And there was a touch of condescension in his tone. It hinted at a recollection of old-time indolence that made his sensitive schoolfellow wince. When once the lazy horse gallops willingly, he frets at the lightest touch of spur or whip.
The chief walked across to a glass case on the opposite wall. He took out a long, thin, labelled key and handed it to Bourne. "This is for you," he said. "And remember that your future depends upon your eyes."
Then he sat down again and began to fiddle with his pen.
"That is all," he completed. "I have nothing more to say. The rest lies with you—with you and Mr. Robertshaw. Now you can go. Good morning—and good luck!"
Robertshaw bowed and strode to the door. Bourne followed. But suddenly he swung round again.
"If you please, sir," he burst out impulsively, "I should like to thank you for giving me my chance. You may be confident that I shall do my best!"
Then, high of hope and tingling with pride, he followed Robertshaw out of the room. From that hour he all but made the galleries his home.
He worked by shifts with Robertshaw, but that was not enough. He was grim, determined, mulish. He wanted to be at work for all the hours that he did not give to rest. Sleep came to him but little. Yet dreams were with him always. He lived for the moment when, having seen the thief in the act, he should be able to rush to the chief's room and tell him that he had been worthy of his trust. This scene never left him except while he actually watched. Then he was all concentration and eyes.
But, for all that they knew past proof that the culprit must work in the section where they watched, for all that investigation had narrowed the thief's theatre to one small spot, they had seen nothing yet. There was no clue, no suspicious movement, no hint or presage of the man. And now Christmas was upon them; the week was all but up. Even Robertshaw, the familiar of long, stern chases, ever successful in the end, seemed to lose heart at last. Up to then he had been full of hope.
"Things are getting serious," he said, on the morning before Christmas, when he came to relieve Bourne at his post. "We must make a great effort. The chief expects it. He will lose confidence if we don't. We must stay up all Christmas Eve. If the thief has not given up stealing, the crowd and bustle will be his great chance. Are you game to make an all-night sitting? Then, even if we fail, the chief will realise that we've done our best."
Bourne, worn-out but steadfast, looked at him with wonder.
"As if you needed to ask!" he cried. "I mean to stick to it to the end—the bitter, bitter end."
Robertshaw looked at him approvingly.
Right," he said. "Then to-night we will watch together and not alone. Perhaps that will bring us better luck. And then, if we both see, you will get half the credit, instead of none at all as would happen if I spotted him alone. But now go home and get some sleep. Heaven knows you look as if you wanted it. And you'll be keener to-night, when you need your eyes."
But Bourne, game to the last, began to deprecate.
"I can keep it up without that," he insisted. There's no need to go home. I can rest here. That's enough for me!"
Robertshaw gave him a swift, stabbing glance. A sudden unreasoning anger seemed to have mastered him. His eyes flamed. He was furious—and looked it. He was not used to opposition and could not stomach it from any one.
"You're a fool," he cried contemptuously, "nothing but a fool. You're not fit for work. Go home and rest at once. You've just got to do what you're told!"
Bourne was too tired to hold out. He was too tired even to apologise. He just gave in and went home.
But, having gone, he could not sleep. His heart was set upon one thing; his brain galloped; his thoughts were feverish and fierce. His whole being had but one thought. He must find the thief—must find him if possible without Robertshaw's aid. So alone could he make sure of promotion and Alice Shield.
At last, sick of lying on his sleepless bed, he got up and went out. His obsession drove him officewards again. He went in, ran up the great staircase to the second floor, entered the tiny, half-hid door of the gallery and hastened to the spy-hole place. That had been at noon. Now it was four, and Robertshaw would not come till six. Sleep, so long elusive, found him, unsought. Sitting on the little stool, leaning sideways against the frosted glass, he slept a full half-hour. He woke with a start, rubbing his heavy eyes. And once more he set them against the tiny square from which the frosting was gone. But he did it without hope. He was tired, tired out.
Below him the bustle and circumstance of Christmas gained and grew. The trollies groaned, the stamping-machines clashed, the letters poured on to the tables from a hundred tipping-bags. Chaos had conquered. Men were helpless before the invading flood of papered things. Overseers shouted, encouraging, bullying, and in despair. All was confusion. It was a thief's high holiday—and hope was born again in Arthur Bourne's heart.
Then, to his sheer devastating amazement, Bourne saw Robertshaw down on the floor below. He, too, then, had found it impossible to stay away. He stood behind a row of sorters, shepherding, spurring them on. He fetched bundles from the troughs behind. He dumped them down before his men, then came back, and, standing behind them, watched.
Bourne gazed at him with open envy in his heart. He was so big, so strong, so debonair. He was so confident, competent, and, alone in the great room, unperturbed. Outside the office it was the same. He had a name for gallantry, for gay living, for taking and enjoying the best life had to give. He had, they said, private money. He need not work at all. Yet there was no one like him on the whole staff. He was safe for further promotion. He was a marked man with the full confidence of his superiors to back him. While Arthur Bourne, insignificant, nothing in particular to look at, the man who had let his chances go by, was going to be thwarted when he had at last honestly set his hand to the plough. A fierce jealousy pricked him. Why should Robertshaw have all and he nothing? Hate—real hate had swift birth in his breast.
Then, suddenly, Bourne started and stumbled, so that his shoulder slipped from the window's wooden frame and pressed to cracking-point against the glass itself.
"Good God!" he cried. "Good God! It's impossible!"
It was impossible—beyond belief. It could not be. His tired eyes had tricked him. That was all. And yet....
But, though he doubted once, the second time he was sure. And the thing happened a third time still.
Bourne staggered backwards, caught at the little stool, sank upon it, clutching its sides. What was he to do? What was he to do? He had seen Robertshaw put three bundles of letters into his pockets in such a way that there was no doubt. And in a flash he understood why Robertshaw had insisted upon his going home.
Standing there, in the spy-hole, no longer looking down, but dropped in shivering helplessness upon the stool, he understood other things, too. He realised the source of Robertshaw's private income, the support of his gallantries, the secret means that sent him abroad, that paid the bills of the tailor in the West End. But, though he was suddenly aware of all these things, he had no answer to his question asked aloud. What was he to do? What was he to do?
How long he stood there, fighting with himself, he could never know. But suddenly a sense of time and place came back to him with a shock that was fierce and physical in force. And the question that he had asked was answered. A door at the far end of the gallery had opened and shut. Footsteps were padding softly on the felt. An electric button clicked. Then another. And, stepping back from the rounded platform, he saw, plain and clear, a man coming down the gallery's narrow floor.
It was Robertshaw—Robertshaw the thief-—who, thinking that he had the gallery to himself, was come there to open the stolen letters, to take out and secrete their valuables, in comfortable leisure, undisturbed.
At the sight of him—of this man who had been his schoolfellow—with whom he had played games and endured floggings, Bourne's sense of duty died into nothingness. Alice Shield was forgotten; his palaces of hope crumbled and were gone. Career or no career, the sporting instinct conquered. He must give Robertshaw a loophole, a chance to put the letters back. He could not send this man—who had been his friend—to degradation and to jail.
So he stepped forward and waited. Robertshaw, as he came, was switching on the lights. Bourne, far down the gallery, was in darkness still. Click followed click, for Robertshaw walked fast. Then a light flashed out above Bourne's head. Robertshaw stopped dead. Bourne moved towards him with uncertain steps. Within a few feet he, too, paused. There, in the narrow fairway, the men looked at each other, each seeking to read the other's eyes. And, down in the office below, the stamping-machines clashed accompani-ment to their fear, while across the wood-block floors the trollies creaked their vile, discordant obligato to the horror above.
Bourne licked his lips and twisted his tongue to the words that his lips refused. All he wanted to say trembled there. It was only the beginning that was past compassing. He was tongue-tied and without power of speech.
Robertshaw, glaring into his face, read all that was not there, misread everything that the eyes were trying to convey. Where pity was he saw only accusation, the promise of prison, the end of a career. A blind panic enwrapped him. He saw scarlet. All his control was gone.
"Oh, you hound! you hound!" he cried.
And he came at Bourne, murderously, with uplifted hand. Bourne, who saw death in his eyes, turned and ran—ran for his life.
Round the four sides of the great building they went, Bourne always a little ahead, gaining sometimes, sometimes losing, battered and bruised where, as he stumbled and turned, he met the rough, harsh, concrete walls. Once he felt Robertshaw's breath hot upon his neck, and a finger touch his collar's top. With a burst he managed to get clear. Once, weakened and slow, he saved himself by slipping into a watching-window's bay, while Robertshaw shot vainly past. But he began to grow faint. The chase could only have one end. He began to despair. He had a mind to let it finish, so that the end should come soon. Yet he struggled on.
Then, though his body was worn out, his brain quickened. And a way of escape flashed upon him as he ran. If he was to live his pursuer must die.
Twenty yards ahead was a trap, through which a ladder passed, the way to the galleries on the floors below. Bourne made a final spurt. And, running, he touched off switch and switch. His outstretched, groping hands caught at the ladder. He pulled himself to its inner side. He held, he jumped, he swung. His feet found rungs below. About him a black gulf yawned.
Hard after him Robertshaw lumbered. But it was the end. He trod on space. The gulf received him. His cry clamoured to the roof. And, as he fell, a draught of displaced air came up to his quarry, and with it dust, and after that a thud, as his heavy body met the basement flooring ninety feet below....
Bourne clambered off the ladder into the gallery again. Light-headed, hardly conscious, he staggered along, switching on lights as he went. He came to the door, turned the spring-handle and went out. Then he shut the door and looked about him, fuddled and dazed. The landing was going round and round. The balustrade, that railed it, dipped and dived. But he struggled along the corridor to the chief's room. He had forgotten everything except that he had succeeded in the job which had been given him to do.
He did not knock and he took the handle in both hands. As the door opened, he all but fell into the whizzing room. At the sight of him lurching forward the chief looked up aghast.
"What has happened?" he cried, and sprang from his chair.
Bourne clutched at the top of the fronting desk. And he began to laugh like a lunatic, swaying from side to side. Then he found voice.
"If you please, sir," he brought out, “if you please, sir, I've come to wish you a happy Christmas and I've caught the thief. He's got three bundles of letters in his pocket now."
The chief took a step forward.
"Who is it? Where is he?" he thundered. "Is this a hoax or what?"
Bourne made one more despairing clutch for the table. He missed it—and he had no longer power to stand.
"It's Robertshaw—in the basement—at the bottom of the trap!" he managed somehow to gasp out.
Then he went down with a thud. His last conscious sensation was triumph—triumph for some reason which he could not remember or understand.