Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell (read novel full TXT) 📖

long were you living at that place?’

 

`Why did you move?’

 

`Did you owe any rent when you left?’

 

`What was your previous address?’

 

`How old are you? When was your last birthday?’

 

`What is your Trade, Calling, Employment, or Occupation?’

 

`Are you Married or single or a Widower or what?’

 

`How many children have you? How many boys? How many girls? Do they

go to work? What do they earn?’

 

`What kind of a house do you live in? How many rooms are there?’

 

`How much rent do you owe?’

 

`Who was your last employer? What was the foreman’s name? How long

did you work there? What kind of work did you do? Why did you

leave?’

 

`What have you been doing for the last five years? What kind of work,

how many hours a day? What wages did you get?’

 

`Give the full names and addresses of all the different employers you

have worked for during the last five years, and the reasons why you

left them?’

 

`Give the names of all the foremen you have worked under during the

last five years?’

 

`Does your wife earn anything? How much?’

 

`Do you get any money from any Club or Society, or from any Charity,

or from any other source?’

 

`Have you ever received Poor Relief?’

 

`Have you ever worked for a Distress Committee before?’

 

`Have you ever done any other kinds of work than those you have

mentioned? Do you think you would be fit for any other kind’

 

`Have you any references?’ and so on and so forth.

 

When the criminal had answered all the questions, and when his answers

had all been duly written down, he was informed that a member of the

Committee, or an Authorized Officer, or some Other Person, would in

due course visit his home and make inquiries about him, after which

the Authorized Officer or Other Person would make a report to the

Committee, who would consider it at their next meeting.

 

As the interrogation of each criminal occupied about half an hour, to

say nothing of the time he was kept waiting, it will be seen that as a

means of keeping down the number of registered unemployed the idea

worked splendidly.

 

When Rushton introduced this new rule it was carried unanimously, Dr

Weakling being the only dissentient, but of course he - as Brother

Grinder remarked - was always opposed to any sensible proposal. There

was one consolation, however, Grinder added, they was not likely to be

pestered with ‘im much longer; the first of November was coming and if

he - Grinder - knowed anything of working men they was sure to give

Weakling the dirty kick out directly they got the chance.

 

A few days afterwards the result of the municipal election justified

Brother Grinder’s prognostications, for the working men voters of Dr

Weakling’s ward did give him the dirty kick out: but Rushton, Didlum,

Grinder and several other members of the band were triumphantly

returned with increased majorities.

 

Mr Dauber, of Dauber and Botchit, had already been elected a Guardian

of the Poor.

 

During all this time Hunter, who looked more worried and miserable as

the dreary weeks went by, was occupied every day in supervising what

work was being done and in running about seeking for more. Nearly

every night he remained at the office until a late hour, poring over

specifications and making out estimates. The police had become so

accustomed to seeing the light in the office that as a rule they took

no notice of it, but one Thursday night - exactly one week after the

scene between Owen and Rushton about the boy - the constable on the

beat observed the light there much later than usual. At first he paid

no particular attention to the fact, but when night merged into

morning and the light still remained, his curiosity was aroused.

 

He knocked at the door, but no one came in answer, and no sound

disturbed the deathlike stillness that reigned within. The door was

locked, but he was not able to tell whether it had been closed from

the inside or outside, because it had a spring latch. The office

window was low down, but it was not possible to see in because the

back of the glass had been painted.

 

The constable thought that the most probable explanation of the

mystery was that whoever had been there earlier in the evening had

forgotten to turn out the light when they went away; it was not likely

that thieves or anyone who had no business to be there would advertise

their presence by lighting the gas.

 

He made a note of the incident in his pocketbook and was about to

resume his beat when he was joined by his inspector. The latter

agreed that the conclusion arrived at by the constable was probably

the right one and they were about to pass on when the inspector

noticed a small speck of light shining through the lower part of the

painted window, where a small piece of the paint had either been

scratched or had shelled off the glass. He knelt down and found that

it was possible to get a view of the interior of the office, and as he

peered through he gave a low exclamation. When he made way for his

subordinate to look in his turn, the constable was with some

difficulty able to distinguish the figure of a man lying prone upon

the floor.

 

It was an easy task for the burly policeman to force open the office

door: a single push of his shoulder wrenched it from its fastenings

and as it flew back the socket of the lock fell with a splash into a

great pool of blood that had accumulated against the threshold,

flowing from the place where Hunter was lying on his back, his arms

extended and his head nearly severed from his body. On the floor,

close to his right hand, was an open razor. An overturned chair lay

on the floor by the side of the table where he usually worked, the

table itself being littered with papers and drenched with blood.

 

Within the next few days Crass resumed the role he had played when

Hunter was ill during the summer, taking charge of the work and

generally doing his best to fill the dead man’s place, although - as

he confided to certain of his cronies in the bar of the Cricketers -

he had no intention of allowing Rushton to do the same as Hunter had

done. One of his first jobs - on the morning after the discovery of

the body - was to go with Mr Rushton to look over a house where some

work was to be done for which an estimate had to be given. It was

this estimate that Hunter had been trying to make out the previous

evening in the office, for they found that the papers on his table

were covered with figures and writing relating to this work. These

papers justified the subsequent verdict of the Coroner’s jury that

Hunter committed suicide in a fit of temporary insanity, for they were

covered with a lot of meaningless scribbling, the words wrongly spelt

and having no intelligible connection with each other. There was one

sum that he had evidently tried repeatedly to do correctly, but which

came wrong in a different way every time. The fact that he had the

razor in his possession seemed to point to his having premeditated the

act, but this was accounted for at the inquest by the evidence of the

last person who saw him alive, a hairdresser, who stated that Hunter

had left the razor with him to be sharpened a few days previously and

that he had called for it on the evening of the tragedy. He had

ground this razor for Mr Hunter several times before.

 

Crass took charge of all the arrangements for the funeral. He bought

a new second-hand pair of black trousers at a castoff clothing shop

in honour of the occasion, and discarded his own low-crowned silk hat -

which was getting rather shabby - in favour of Hunter’s tall one,

which he found in the office and annexed without hesitation or

scruple. It was rather large for him, but he put some folded strips

of paper inside the leather lining. Crass was a proud man as he

walked in Hunter’s place at the head of the procession, trying to look

solemn, but with a half-smile on his fat, pasty face, destitute of

colour except one spot on his chin near his underlip, where there was

a small patch of inflammation about the size of a threepenny piece.

This spot had been there for a very long time. At first - as well as

he could remember - it was only a small pimple, but it had grown

larger, with something the appearance of scurvy. Crass attributed its

continuation to the cold having `got into it last winter’. It was

rather strange, too, because he generally took care of himself when it

was cold: he always wore the warm wrap that had formerly belonged to

the old lady who died of cancer. However, Crass did not worry much

about this little sore place; he just put a little zinc ointment on it

occasionally and had no doubt that it would get well in time.