I. A. R. Wylie

“ Gudgeon drove the old Atlas horse-bus from Camden Town to London Bridge and drove it as well as any man in London for all that he was such a slow-moving, slow-spoken fellow. Later the red hair had become a sandy halo round a shiny, bald head, and the rosy complexion a veined and weather-beaten purple, and the horse-bus a thundering, roaring, bustling motor Juggernaut. ”

“ They just start out blindly and keep on going, as Mr. Gudgeon did. Of course luck was with him. It was a slack time of the day, and the main thoroughfares were fairly clear. When they weren't Mr. Gudgeon swerved into side streets, which, never having seen a bus before, were considerably astonished, and if necessary he turned back on himself, so that the mounted police got hot on several wrong scents and never so much as caught a glimpse of him. And then Gwendoline played up like the great-hearted, gallant creature she was. ”

“ Gudgeon had “made away with himself.” Mrs. Judd said so, and what Mrs. Judd said, went.
As to Elfreda, being so small, she was forgotten almost at once. Mrs. Golightly, who disliked investigations, said that she had gone to relatives, and Rosemary Lane opined that wherever she was, she couldn't be worse off. And the Stout Gentleman, to whom one child was just like another and quite as tiresome, never even missed her.
In any case, no one would have recognized her.
For it is amazing how quickly one begins to grow pink and burst out of one's clothes when one is young and happy. ”

“ On race days you put a shilling on with the drawer at the Crown just to reassure yourself that “'orses were still 'orses”” somewhere in the world, and on Sunday morning, whatever happened, you changed your shirt.
That was life. Everybody's life.
Some men, of course, had wives and children. Or they took to drink. Once Mr. Gudgeon himself had had a love affair, but that had been a long time ago—'way back in the village whence he came and whose name he had almost forgotten. Nothing had come of it. For Mr. Gudgeon, like so many red-headed, freckled-nosed people, was awkward and diffident. ”

“ First and foremost, there is Elfreda, who might be described as “the Woman in the Case”; then there is Mrs. Melrood with her attendant vestal, Sarah; Mrs. Judd of Rosemary Lane; a Policeman; a frightened Bus Conductor; a Stout Gentleman; and, of course, Mr. Gudgeon himself, with whose mysterious and extraordinary fate the story is primarily concerned. Nor must we forget the Twenty Ragamuffins. These may be regarded as a sort of Greek Chorus, though unlike most Greek Choruses their comments will be noted for simplicity and directness. To describe each individually would be tiresome. ”

“ Melrood lived with Sarah, who was very old, and a couple of half-baked, country housemaids at Melrood Court, which was a fine, tumble-down Georgian house standing in a fine, gone-to-seed park—full of deer and sheep and weeds—and, in fact, anything that could and wanted to flourish there. Mrs. Melrood herself was obstinately poor. If she had chosen, she could have sold Melrood for twice its value to any one of a dozen war-time millionaires itching to live somewhere where they didn't belong, and with the proceeds she could have settled down to a luxurious and respectable old age in Kensington. ”

“ Gudgeon's business in life. Life, if you were one of the lucky ones, consisted of doing today what you did yesterday and what you hoped to do tomorrow. Change meant misfortune—illness or losing your job or getting into trouble with the police.
You got up in the morning and washed and ate a rasher of bacon swilled down with a cup of Mrs. Judd's stewed tea. Then you smoked a pipe, and at eight sharp you were at the Crown waiting for Gwendoline. ”

“ Judd the idea that he was going “queer.”
“It weren't natural,” she declared, “calling a bloomin' old bus Gwendoline and pattin' it on its 'ead and talkin' to it as though it were a Christian. I didn't 'old with it, and I told 'im so. Much good that did! When a man goes queer, he's queer, and there ain't no 'elpin' 'im.”
Except that he had grown more silent, a trifle more foolish-looking, as though life were a sort of worsted ball in which he had got himself hopelessly involved, Mrs. Judd had had no reason to complain. He never drank; he paid his way regularly. ”

“ Melrood commented. “You haven't been feeding it properly. You shouldn't run away with other people's children. You don't understand them. Its mother'll be fretting herself to death.”
People were always talking about Elfreda's mother.
“She ain't got no mother,” Mr. Gudgeon blazed up. “No one she's got. Only me. They beat 'er. I sees 'er arms—black and blue they was—and I couldn't stand it—I wouldn't stand it. A man goes on and on—like an old bus 'orse—puttin' up with things, seein' 'em 'appen day in, day out—and then all of a suddint 'e can't stand no more. ”

“ He knew her ways—when she liked to be “changed down,” how to coax her up Hill Rise, and when in spite of the garage expert she was feeling below par. Unlike the other drivers he never left her to freeze stiff in the bitter wintry blasts while he warmed himself before the fire at the King's Arms, but covered her radiator with his own blanket. He never ground her gears in rage because some exasperating passenger had made them stop twice in twenty yards, or sent her sliding and curveting in nervous panic on a slippery pavement. ”

“ The Bus-Conductor grew red with anger. He was a very smart Bus-Conductor, who kept his brass buttons shiny and wore his cap over one ear, and he felt that he had been made game of. He rang the bell furiously. “A lot of young scamps. I've 'alf a mind to get the perlice on yer.”
He rang again. Several times. Finally, as he was young and impatient, the cord broke.
The Stout Gentleman said: “Much too fast. What's the matter with the man? It's disgraceful!”
And the Bus-Conductor opened the little glass window over Mr. Gudgeon's head and shouted, “Can't yer hear? Wot do you think you're doing? ”

“ It don't matter about me. They'd 'ave scrapped me any'ow—like they'd scrap 'er—my old Gwendoline. She's rocky in 'er engines, and I'm getting queer-like in the 'ead, and that's the truth.”
“All the best people are queer in the head, Gudgeon. I am, myself.”
“But she's such a little 'un. It's an 'ard, long way to go when you're a little 'un and no one caring.”
“That's true, Gudgeon.”
Mrs. Melrood switched out her torch. “Police after you, I suppose?”
“I make no doubt of it, ma'am.”
“Well, damn the police,” said Mrs. Melrood cheerfully. She bent down and lifted Elfreda in her arms. ”

“ Mr. Gudgeon blinked at the crowd of white, upturned faces. They weren't just “varmints” now. He saw them separately. They were all Elfredas and embryo Mr. Gudgeons—little human beings that were being brought to serve some faceless, senseless tyrant and to be tossed aside when their day was done. They clamored, “Give us a ride, Mister,” as if they were clamoring for the moon. There wasn't a real hope among them.
It was then Mr. Gudgeon went mad. He leaned over Gwendoline's side. “If you want a ride—get in,” he said.
VIII
NOBODY could have blamed the Bus-Conductor. ”

“ Every week 'e'd 'ave 'is shilling on. Not but what 'e was queer about that, too. Win or lose, 'e didn't seem to care. I used to say to 'im, I said: 'It ain't 'uman, Mr. Gudgeon, the way you loses. Why don't you swear or 'it something, like a man?' And he just gaped. 'It's the 'orses I cares about, Mrs. Judd,' 'e said, '—just the 'orses.' I said, 'Well, it ain't 'uman and no good'll come of it, mark my words!'”
Mrs. Piggot wiped a rheumy eye with the corner of her shawl. “And now 'e's gorn, poor fellow.”
II
ELFREDA lived in the top room of the last and most decrepit house in Rosemary Lane. ”

“ VII
“HE'S getting past his work,” thought the Inspector.
“'Ere—?” said Elfreda.
The Inspector went into the “pub” to tell the Bus-Conductor that it was high time 47X was on its way. A Stout Gentleman, with a heavy, gold watch-chain settled himself comfortably in the inside corner away from drafts. Mr. Gudgeon paused on his upward climb. He looked, as the Inspector judged, a little, old man. He hadn't shaved, and there was a sort of baffled, gone-to-seed air about him. No self-respecting bus company could have thought of retaining such a person on their pay-roll. ”

“ Golightly, whose depressions had become positively homicidal in the delay, accused her of having drunk it herself and beat her with the first thing which came handy, which happened to be a broken broomstick. ”

“ So he hung out from the side-rail and blew his whistle, and the policeman on point duty stood out in the middle of the road and held his hand up, and Gwendoline made a sort of skittish side-courtesy and was past him and up the hill opposite before you could count twenty.
It was a great shock to every one. Life is made up of illusions, and the illusions about policemen were shattered hopelessly for everybody on board No. ”