THE WORLD WAR COLLECTION OF H. C. MCNEILE (SAPPER). Sapper
him with that bottle,' grunted Congleton, 'so hard that he broke it. And it serves the damned fool right. We'd better cart him over to my place, Anstruther.'
"So we carried him over the road and dumped him in a chair, and half an hour later he opened his eyes. He stared round dazedly: then he put his hand to his head and groaned. 'What happened?' he muttered at length.
"'What would have happened if we hadn't come on the scene is that you'd have been strangled,' said Congleton curtly. 'He laid you out with a bottle of whisky, and it took both of us to get him off your throat. What on earth did you do?'
"'I suppose I was a bit of a fool,' said Rogerson sheepishly. 'But I was hard at work on accounts, and they drive me mad at the best of times, when that infernal record started. So I went across to his bungalow, and there he was with that cursed machine in front of him, babbling to himself. And I dunno what it was, but I suddenly saw red and shot it up.'
"'Well, it's mighty lucky for you that we were here or it's the last thing you would have shot up,' said Congleton tersely. 'It was a darned rotten thing to do, Rogerson. You're away tomorrow, and it's the only thing the poor devil's got left in the world.'
"'I'll send him one up from Rangoon,' muttered the other a bit shamefacedly. 'Great Scott! my head feels as if it had been hit by a pile-driver.'
"And the following day he and I left, without seeing Jones again. True to his word, he bought a gramophone and sent it upcountry, and with that the whole episode gradually faded from my mind." Tim Anstruther beckoned to a waiter. "Repeat the dose, Palmer," he said.
"About a year later," he continued, after he had lit his pipe. "I ran into Congleton in London. He was back, I discovered, for good, and finding London a far better place than an up-country station on the Irrawady. And while we were celebrating his return I asked him casually whether the man called Jones had drunk himself to death yet. To my surprise he looked quite serious.
"'Do you know, Anstruther,' he said, 'that if anything would convert me to the belief that the age of miracles is not past that case would. You will hardly believe it, but from that night he cut off drinking completely.'
"'Then it looks as if Rogerson did him a good turn,' I remarked.
"'It's the most amazing thing I have ever run across,' he continued. 'After you'd gone that morning I went over to see him. I found him lying on his bed staring at the ceiling, and holding in his hand the pieces of the broken record.
"Has Rogerson gone?" he said to me quietly.
"Yes," I answered. "He asked me to tell you that he was very sorry about it, and he's sending you up a new machine from Rangoon."
"Is he, indeed," he said, still in the same quiet voice. "Congleton, would you mind taking away the whisky you'll find in that cupboard. I shall never drink again, so it is useless to me. And I shall find it easier to start with if it's not there."
"Of course, I will," I told him. "I'll send my boy over for it."
"Thank you." he remarked. "And now don't let me keep you."
"I hung about a bit awkwardly, but as he took no further notice of me, I left him. Naturally I paid not the slightest attention to his remark about cutting the drink out, and in fact I forgot to send my boy to get it. But that evening when I got back from work I found eight bottles on my table: the reformation had started. And he was stone cold sober when the thing that worried me took place. Four days after you left I was passing his bungalow when once again I heard six shots in quick succession. I dashed up the veranda steps to find him sitting at the table with a smashed-up gramophone in front of him. He was white and shaking, which was only to be expected in someone who had knocked drink off completely, but, as I said before, he was sober."
"What's the great idea?" I asked.
"That gramophone has just arrived from Rangoon," he remarked.
"What an utterly childish thing to do," I said. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself." And then, Anstruther, he gave me a look which still haunts me. I would not have believed it possible that so much concentrated hatred could be seen in a man's eyes. "One day, Congleton," he said, "I shall do that to Rogerson himself." And I believe he means it.' Anstruther paused to relight his pipe. 'There was no doubt about it,' he continued, 'old Congleton was quite worried. Rogerson, it appeared, had been transferred elsewhere: Jones had vanished suddenly one morning and had not returned.'
"'He's probably gone back to the drink by now,' I said to Congleton, but he shook his head. 'Amazing though it may seem,' he remarked, 'I believe that his hatred of Rogerson is a bigger driving force than his craving for drink. And he realises that only by keeping off liquor will he be able to gratify that hatred. Sooner or later, Anstruther, you'll open your morning paper to find that Rogerson has been killed.'
"The years passed: the War came and somewhat naturally I'd completely forgotten the whole thing. Poor old Congleton was killed at Loos: Rogerson had wangled a staff job of sorts, and the man who called himself Jones had never been seen again. I was convinced, and so was Rogerson, whom I ran into once in France, that he had died of drink years ago: it seemed impossible to us that a man who had been so far gone could possibly recover. I did mention to him what Congleton had told me, but he merely roared with laughter.
"Drunken ravings, my dear boy!" he said. "And after what you've told me, all I regret is that I wasted my money buying the gramophone."
"And that was my opinion until one morning seven years later. I was having breakfast in the Carlton Hotel in Jo'burg, when a paragraph in the paper caught my eye. Here it is: read it for yourself." He handed me a cutting from his pocketbook: it ran as follows:
"The mysterious disappearance of Mr. Cyril Rogerson six months ago has at last been cleared up, in circumstances which leave no doubt that the unfortunate gentleman was brutally murdered. Our readers will doubtless remember the main facts of the case. Mr. Rogerson, of the well-known firm of Peat & Rogerson, left Johannesburg on a lengthy business tour through the Northern Transvaal and Rhodesia. Communications were received from him from various places, the last coming from Bulawayo about a month after he had started. From then on nothing further has been heard of him. At first no anxiety was felt: it was thought that he was starting on his return journey and was therefore bringing his reports with him instead of mailing them. But when a fortnight elapsed without any word from him, Mr. Peat informed the police who at once instituted inquiries, without any result. The reason for their failure is unfortunately now only too clear.
"A native who was trekking in the sparsely populated district south of Bulawayo was attracted by something unusual in a small gully a little distance from the path. He found to his horror that it was the skeleton of a man, and at once informed the authorities. A very brief examination showed that the dead man was Mr. Rogerson, who had been the victim of a singularly brutal crime. The actual reconstruction is difficult, as the skull had been picked clean by the vultures. But six bullets were discovered embedded in it, proving almost certainly that the murderer had continued to fire after his victim was dead. Robbery was not the motive, since the dead man's money was intact, but there was one peculiar feature which it is thought may provide a clue. By the side of the skeleton were placed the pieces of a broken gramophone record."
In silence I handed the cutting back to Tim. "What happened?" I asked.
"Nothing," he answered. "I told the authorities what I've told you, and they were very polite and thanked me. But I couldn't describe the man called Jones—for all I knew he might have grown a beard. And the crime was six months' old: he might be anywhere in the world."
"You think it was him?"
"Who else could it have been? Surely the gramophone record proves that. No, Bill: Congleton was right. His hatred of Rogerson was greater than his craving for drink. Year after year he had carried round that broken record, waiting and biding his time. And then at last he got his opportunity. How he did it we shall never know, but that Rogerson was killed by the man who called himself Jones is to my mind as certain as that night follows day. Rum, isn't it—the different things that different men require as a driving force in life, and the objects they put them to? For a man to cure himself of drink in order to become