Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/224

My cousin Charles has had spy rash. He lives on the East Coast. He caught it by running against a German. The German had taken a house on the cliff with a pleasant sea view. My cousin, who was taking a walk in the night air to help his digestion, noticed curious little flashes proceeding through the German's best bedroom window. Charles, who says he knows Morse code, mentioned the matter to the police. The police were very polite and thanked him and said that they would see to it. A week or so afterwards they came along and told Charles that he was quite right about the man being a German, but that there was no cause for alarm. The German didn't sleep very well at night through worrying about his German affairs, so he walked about his bedroom. If, as sometimes happened, he forgot to pull down the blind, his passing between the light and the window might give to a civilian unversed in such matters the appearance of signalling. The police assured Charles that this was the correct explanation of the phenomenon and that there couldn't be any mistake as they had it direct from the German himself.

They added that they quite understood people being nervous in wartime; that they were only too glad to be able to reassure them; that the matter had been scarcely any trouble, and that the weather was very cold. Charles, who is a suspicious person, wasn't over-satisfied with what the police told him. He didn't doubt their bona fides, but thought that they might conceivably have been misled by the German. He sacrificed several nights' rest watching the German's best bedroom window. He noticed that the German couldn't sleep most nights, and that he generally forgot to pull down the blind. He wrote to the M.P. for the district about it in case he should care to mention the matter to the House of Commons. The M.P. wrote back and thanked Charles. He said that, if the police had been informed, there was no need for alarm. He added that he could quite understand people getting nervous in wartime, that it had been no trouble, and that the weather in town was wretched.

After the Zeppelin raid the German gave up the house as the neighbourhood was none too safe. He forgot to pay his rent and forgot to take away a few little things, including a complete set of wireless. The landlord told Charles, and Charles was very cross with the German, the police and the M.P. He seemed to think that the safety of the country was being neglected and determined to take the question up himself.

He became most suspicious. He had a terrible down on pigeons. Since his cook forgot to ventilate a pie containing dead pigeons, he has never been fond of them. Now he never meets a pigeon without wanting to do it an injury. I think that he was justified in shooting at a prize carrier pigeon belonging to a local farmer. It's very difficult to detect the nationality of a pigeon on the wing, and Charles himself didn't expect to hit it first time. He wasn't so vexed at having to pay damages as at being fined for not having a gun licence.

It was silly of him to wring the neck of old Martha's favourite hen. Even a cursory inspection would have convinced him that it wasn't a pigeon. After all, old Martha has just as much right to carry a pet fowl about under her cloak as other ladies to carry pet dogs. The death of Jenkins' parrot was never brought home to Charles, and in any case no jury acquainted with the bird would have awarded damages. If Jenkins had any liking for the animal he shouldn't have let it wander about at night unaccompanied. Luckily the post office employee whom Charles clodded down from the top of a telegraph pole got well again, so that didn't cost very much. If Charles had discovered sooner that the foreigner lodging two doors away was a Swede, he wouldn't have spent three consecutive nights on the wet grass and caught pneumonia. I am glad that I dissuaded him from throwing the little elderly man off the railway bridge on to the line. It was stupid of the man to loiter on the bridge, but I still shudder when I think of the thud he would have made when he arrived.

The unpleasant-looking man who spent two hours on the cliff doing nothing but look suspicious ought to send Charles's wife a box of chocolates or something. But for her presence of mind his life would have been brought to an abrupt conclusion. Charles marked him down at once. Owing to his previous mistakes he thought that it would be better to have a second opinion before making away with the man. That's why he came and dug me out. I was reading a rather interesting book at the time, but as he was loading-up both his revolvers and seemed to think that the matter was urgent I went to have a look at the fellow. He was such an ill-favoured individual that I decided not to interfere. I wasn't going to be jealous because Charles got all the credit. On my way back to my book I met Charles's wife. She wanted to know where Charles was, and I told her that he was on the cliff shooting a man. I warned her to keep out of the danger zone in case the man was a spy, as Charles suspected. He might have had bombs and things about him which would go off with the shooting.

She asked what would happen if the man turned out not to be a spy. I told her that if the jury viewed the corpse the verdict would possibly be "justifiable homicide"; probably, "murder." As she wanted to know how the latter verdict would affect Charles, I didn't feel that I ought to conceal from her that only the Court of Criminal Appeal and the Home Secretary would stand between him and the hangman. She didn't seem to have much confidence in either the Court of Criminal Appeal or the Home Secretary and decided to go and look for Charles. I advised her not to mix herself up in the affair; but women are obstinate creatures.

When she arrived Charles was just training his arsenal on to the man, and she had no difficulty in locating him. She at once identified the fellow as a harmless local parson and a great friend of her father. Charles believed her at the time, though she didn't offer to introduce them. I asked her why she didn't make him a dean or a bishop while she was about it. She said she would have done so only Charles is so suspicious that he might have insisted on the man showing his legs. This affair so disheartened Charles that he has declined the local Mayor's request that he should join the Special Constabulary.