The Missing Link - Edward Dyson (distant reading txt) 📗

go away for some time. He lingered, watching Mahdi with great curiosity. He came back in the evening, too, and hung about the museum for hours. The Professor observed him with growing resentment. He suspected the intentions of the sandy man, and he was not wrong.

Next day, shortly after the show opened, McKnight came again, with the same notebook and the same suspicious air. He brought five men with him, all solid men in Wildbee, one of them the local constable. This party assembled near the cage of the Missing Link, and listened carefully while the Professor reeled off the familiar story of the taking of Mahdi. They witnessed the stirring and entertaining dinner, and when the Professor had finished, and Mahdi had resumed his conch in the straw, McKnight stepped forward.

"And do you expect us to believe all that rubbish, Professor?" he said.

"I do," said Professor Thunder, with dignity, "but I don't care if you don't."

"Well, we don't, sir, and what's more, we know you to be an impostor--a rank impostor--and as editor of the Wildbee 'Guardian,' it is my duty to expose you and your shameless fraud upon the public of this town and district."

At this the Missing Link came out of his straw, growling, and springing to the perch hung by one hand, with his legs drawn up in a very monkey-like attitude.

"What the deuce do you mean?" thundered the Professor, manfully.

"I mean this," said McKnight, addressing the crowd "you have been victimised. That creature is no monkey. It is a human being of some kind."

Nickie the Kid felt his heart sink, but he made a big bid for popularity. He capered about the cage and thrusting his face through the bars jabbered excitedly.

"You're talking rubbish, man," cried the Professor.

"Am I?" retorted McKnight. "Then perhaps you will have the audacity to tell us you have a monkey that can talk? Last night I crept under your tent at the back there when there were no people in the show, and I heard your absurd Missing Link talking, and what's more, he was teaching a magpie to talk."

The Missing Link here made a fierce jump at Ammonia, who happened to be clinging to the dividing bars, caught him, and clawed viciously. Ammonia clawed back, and they fought a yowling battle that went a long way towards modifying the impression created by McKnight's remarks.

The Professor was consternated for a moment, but the diversion Nickie had created gave him a chance to collect his wits and presently he began to laugh. He laughed uproariously. He clapped the Living Skeleton gaily on the back. "Laugh, you idiot!" he hissed, under his breath. The Living Skeleton laughed, and Madame Marve joined in the seeming merriment. She did not know why, but it seemed advisable.

"Well sir," snorted McKnight, "you've finished that idiotic cackle, perhaps you will explain how a monkey comes to be acquainted with the English language."

"Certainly," said the Professor, cordially, "I might prefer to kick you off the premises, but I will explain. Mahdi!" he called imperiously. "Forward, Sir."

The Missing Link turned from his argument with Ammonia, and lurched to the bars.

"I have not been able to teach my Missing Link to talk, though I've tried hard. He can do almost anything else, but not that. However, I dare say we can get him to address this intelligent audience. Mahdi, you see this nice gentleman here." Professor Thunder pointed to McKnight, "What do you think of him?"

"I think he is an ass!" said the Missing Link, with emphasis.

At this there was a yell of delight from the crowd, and even McKnight and his party were astonished.

"There," cried McKnight, "what did I tell you? What does that prove?"

"You hear, Mahdi?" said the Professor; "the gentleman wants to know what that proves?"

"It proves I know an ass when I see one, answered the Missing Link.

"You daylight robber! You unblushing fraud!" yelled McKnight.

"Stay," cried the Professor, with dignity. "Is it possible, sir, you have never heard of the art of ventriloquism? I am a ventriloquist. The voice you heard was my voice thrown into the mouth of the Missing Link. In this way we are teaching a magpie to speak to the man-monkey as a new feature of my marvellous entertainment. As to your libellous accusations, sir, you will probably hear further on that point from my solicitor, and now good-day."

"Be me sowl, this bates cock-fightin', McKnight," said the constable. "Th' monkey's right, Mack. Sure, it's an ass yiv made iv yersilf this day."

When McKnight and his party had gone, and the museum was empty of patrons, the Professor mopped his brow, and drew a great breath.

"It's lucky we were prepared for that emergency," he said.

"I dunno," said the man-monkey; "why shouldn't a Missing Link talk, anyhow?"

"Look here, Nickie, you're wantin' to be too talented," said the Professor. "Your overweening ambition will ruin everything. Why, bless my soul, you be wanting to shave clean and have a vote presently."


CHAPTER XVIII.

AN ADVENTURE AT 'TWEEN BRIDGES.

"BONY, my friend, I am weary of this," said the Missing Link.

The Living Skeleton, who had been drowsing on his chair, beat the flies off and groaned.

"So'm I." he replied, "but what's a cove t' do?"

"Sneak my key out of the Professor's tent, and let's go and have a drop of something."

"It ain't t' be thought of, Nickie," said Matty Cann, "where'd my livin' be? The Professor ud give me the run, an' there's the missus an' the kids."

"No fear, he can't pick up Living Skeletons at every Street corner. Living Skeletons are rarer than you think. Why, a man of your physique could get a Living Skeleton billet almost anywhere. What you want is a little more impudence and self-respect Matty. An artist like you ought to be able to make his own terms, and not be tied up like a calculating dog or a two-headed calf."

"D'yeh think so?" said Matty, eagerly.

"Of course I do. Now, you just pinch the key of my cage. We'll trot out and have a drink. No one will be a penny the wiser."

It was early in the afternoon of a midsummer day. Professor Thunder's Museum of Marvels was on show at 'Tween Bridges. The show was open for any casual sixpence but business in agricultural centres is dead at this hour, and the Professor and his wile slept in the tent of the Egyptian Mystic, and Miss Letitia, who was doorkeeper at the outer tent, overcome by the heat and burden of the day dreamed of that splendid time when she was to be acclaimed queen of the bare-back riders of all nations and generations.

Nickie thirst had been nagging at him for two hours past. He always contended that the Missing Link's skin was provocative of a great drought. He pleaded with Matty, the bone man, appealing artfully to his professional pride, for Bonypart loved to feel in exalted moments that his position as the living skeleton was not insignificant after all.

"We can slip on overcoats, trot over to the Bridge Inn, have a drink, and return before the Professor wakes." whispered Nickie.

"I couldn't trust meself near th' counter-lunch. Nickie. I couldn't," Mat replied.

But in the end the Missing Link had his way. Bonypart pulled on trousers and coat over his tawdry tights, Nickie turned back the ingenious head-piece and mask of Mahdi, the man-monkey, so that it hung between his shoulders, donned an overcoat and a pair of the Professor's knee boots, and the two slipped under the tent, and made for Peter's Bridge Inn, on the outskirts of a dusty township.

An hour later the Missing Link and the Living Skeleton were sitting under the pile bridge a mile above the township, with a bottle of whisky between them. Bonypart was eating bread and cheese with an avidity which demonstrated the abandonment of all professional instincts. Nicholas Crips was drinking whisky slightly diluted with creek water. His drinking cup was a rusty sardine tin.

Two hours later the Living Skeleton and Mahdi, the man-monkey, snored side by side in the shade of the bridge, the creek rippled at their feet, the sun blazed on the bushland on the left and right, and the whisky bottle stood between them.

Meanwhile, Professor Thunder's Museum of Marvels was decorated with a placard, reading:

"Closed on account of illness in the family."

Professor Thunder himself was racing about the township and through the surrounding scrub, seeking his missing exhibits, fearing the worst, and promising himself the satisfaction of a terrible vengeance when he laid hands on the recreant pair. He knew that Nickie had gone off in his skin as the Missing Link, and realised the danger of a possible exposure. To communicate his loss to the people of 'Tween Bridge would practically mean giving the game away. At the inn he had been given a description of the two strangers who had refreshed themselves with three long beers, and then bought a bottle of whisky and certain edibles, and taken the road to One Tree Hill. Thunder recognised the description, and his language shocked Peters, the publican, who had once been a sinner and the champion bullock driver of the Western District.

"Bread and cheese!" groaned the Professor, as he thrashed about in the scrub. "That Living Skeleton 'll be as fat as a pig."

At about ten o'clock that night Dan Reynolds, riding from One Tree Hill to 'Tween Bridges, and thinking of Annie, the Cockie's daughter, whom he had left at the slip-rails, was amazed at a terrible apparition that arose before him on the moon-lit road. It was a strange, shaggy creature, half monkey half-man, covered from the top of his head to the knees in thick, crisp, tufted hair.

Dan's horse snorted and, came back on his haunches, remaining so for an appreciable space of time, sitting up, glaring at the curious monster with dilated eyes and inflated nostrils, and Dan clung to the nag's neck and glared too, even more astonished than his horse.

Never had Dan Reynolds beheld such an animal, never had he heard of its like, the horror of it out did all the fabled bunyips and Tantanoola tigers he had ever dreamed of. It was loathsome in its ugliness, capering there in the dust, brandishing a whisky bottle in the air, and uttering quaint, half-human yells and strangest feature of all, Reynolds noticed that it wore high, piratical hoots, coming well above the knee.

Dan uttered a yell of mortal fear, Dan's horse gave a snort of terror, and bounding forward bolted at top speed down the track, rattled over the bridge, and dashed into Peter's yard, tearing down a gate and upsetting a water-butt in his rash flight, and Dan clung to his neck all the way, to be brushed off when the terrified steed climbed into the stable over half the door.

The racket brought rush of men from Peter's bar. They gathered Dan Reynolds out of the garbage, and carried him into the kitchen. After a long beer Dan was able to describe the bunyip he had seen in the moonlight on the One Tree Road.

Costello said it was a true jim-jam; he knew the breed well. He asked to be put on to the brand of whisky Reynolds had been drinking.

"Jim-jam, be jiggered!" cried Reynolds. "By ripes, I ought t' kno a jim-jam when I see one, I've met plenty.