Alf's Button

by W. A. Darlington

"Lot o' good the police force is when anything does 'appen." Mrs. Rudd returned with freshness and vigor to her original line of argument. "An' a lot o' promotion you'll get, my lad. Why, I'd make a better policeman'n you out o' a turnip-top an' a broom 'andle any day. Why 'ere's Mrs. Green."

The door-latch clicked, and Mrs. Green of the general stores entered. "'Ere, Maria," said Mrs. Rudd, "I was just tellin' young Artie...."

But young Artie had had enough. He tramped heavily out, slammed the post-office door behind him, and retired to his own cottage to brood on the cursed spite which had selected him to minister to times so out of joint.

For ten days or more the whole village had been in a ferment over the strange people and stranger doings at the Manor. The fact that neither the vicar nor his wife, who had been seen to leave the place, could be induced to say a word of what they had seen, only deepened the dark and formless suspicions held in the neighborhood. Jobling had had an increasingly strong idea that the public opinion of him as a smart and ambitious young member of a distinguished body was gradually changing, but his outspoken aunt was the first person to put this new feeling into words and to force the unfortunate policeman to look facts in the face. He was frightened of the unknown murdering heathens who might possibly lurk in ambush for him in the grounds of Denmore Manor, but he was even more frightened of the known and well-tried power of his aunt's tongue. He sat behind the curtains in his cottage and gave himself up to melancholy thought.

Before long he saw Mrs. Green, her chat with the post-mistress concluded, coming up the street. She met with another decrepit old dame, and the two began to discuss some choice piece of scandal with great animation. Mrs. Green closed her peroration by pointing at Jobling's window and shaking her head sorrowfully. The other lady also shook her head and doddered off up the street, where she could be seen a few moments later in deep and direful converse with her dearest friend.

Jobling knew the signs. Unless he did something, and quickly, he was a marked man. But how could he push himself into a house without a pretext? Failing the subtle methods of the detective of fiction, what reason could a large but timid policeman find for penetrating into a nest of probably dangerous criminals without giving them offense?

The problem remained unsolved all day, and troubled him so much that at night he found himself attracted to the place by a sort of morbid fascination. Twice, greatly daring, he walked up and down the strip of road on which the Manor grounds fronted; and then, turning down an unfrequented lane, he reached a corner which was the only spot not actually in the grounds from which the Manor could be seen. He hardly knew why he had come there, as it was a dark, moonless night, and he could not expect to see as far as the house. But when he reached the corner and looked across the fields, the whole building was blazing with lights, standing out pitilessly against the decorous war-time gloom. P.C. Jobling heaved a sigh of relief and went home with his problem solved. He would call on Mr. Wentworth on the morrow and would point out to him politely, but firmly, that he must not show bright lights at night. Not even the most murdering of heathens, or the most heathen of murderers, he felt, could take exception to that.

Next day, however, the prospect looked less bright. He was not quite so sure that his reception would be peaceable. He pictured himself penetrating into the fastnesses of the Manor and never again coming out—never, that is, alive. He decided that he would let his aunt know where he was going; then he could at least be sure that he would not die quite unavenged. Then, on second thoughts, he determined to say nothing about it. If he did, he would be tied down definitely to a venture of which he disliked the idea more and more. He put on his helmet and walked majestically through the village, to restore his self-respect. Unfortunately for his purpose, the first person he met was Master Bobby Myers, who since his exploit of climbing over the Manor wall had regarded himself as no small hero.

"Yah!" said Bobby with derision. "'Oo's afraid of niggers?"