DUDLEY EXPLAINS.
As the cry of horror escaped the lips of Max, Dudley wheeled quickly
round and met his eyes.
For a moment the two men stood staring at each other without uttering a
word. It seemed to Max that his friend did not recognize him; that he
looked like a hunted man brought to bay by his pursuer, with the furtive
expression in his eyes of a creature trying to devise some means of
escape.
It was the most shocking experience that Max had ever known, and the
blood seemed to freeze in his veins as he stood by the table watching
his friend, trying to conjure back a smile to his own face and look of
welcome into his own eyes.
He found his voice at last.
"Why, Horne," cried he, and he was angry with himself as he noted that
his voice was hoarse and tremulous, and that he could not manage to
bring out his natural tones, "what have you been doing with yourself?
I--I've been backward and forward here all day long, and now I've been
waiting for you ever so long!"
There was a pause. Dudley was still staring at him, but there was
gradually coming over his face a change which showed recognition,
followed by annoyance. He drew himself up, and, after a pause, asked,
stiffly:
"What did you want with me?"
He spoke more naturally than Max had managed to do, and as the latter
replied, he took out his pocket-handkerchief very calmly and began to
wipe the stain off his right hand.
Max shuddered.
"Why, is it such a very unusual thing for me to drop in upon you and to
want to see you?" he asked, with another attempt at his ordinary manner,
which failed almost as completely as the first had done.
There was another short pause. Dudley, without looking again at his
friend, examined his hand, saw that it was now clean, and replaced the
soiled handkerchief in his pocket. He seemed by this time to be
thoroughly at his ease, but Max was not deceived.
"Of course not," said Dudley, quickly. "I only meant
that--considering"--he paused, and seemed to be trying to recollect
something--"considering what took place down at Datton yesterday and how
anxious your father seemed to be rid of me--"
"But what has my father got to do with me, as far as you are concerned,
Dudley, eh?" said Max.
There had come upon him suddenly such a strong impression that his
friend was in some awful difficulty, some scrape so terrible as to make
him lonely beyond the reach of help, that Max, who was a good-hearted
fellow and a stanch friend, spoke with something which might almost be
called tenderness:
"We've always been chums, now, haven't we? And a row between you and
Doreen, or between you and my father, wouldn't make any difference to
me. I--I suppose you don't mean to give me the cold shoulder for the
future, eh?"
Dudley had turned his back upon him, and was standing on the hearth-rug,
looking down at the fire, in an attitude which betrayed to his friend
the uneasiness from which he was suffering. It was an attitude of
constraint, as different as possible from any in which Max had ever seen
him.
Another pause. Dudley seemed unable on this occasion to give a simple
answer to a simple question without taking thought first. At last he
laughed awkwardly and half turned toward Max.
"Why, of course not," said he, but without heartiness. "Of course not.
Though it will be rather awkward, mind, for us to see much of each other
just at first, after my having got kicked out like that, won't it?"
The tone in which Max answered betrayed considerable surprise and
perplexity.
"Kicked out!" he exclaimed. "My father said he hardly got a word out
before you took yourself off in a huff."
Dudley turned round quickly and faced him this time, with a sullen look
of defiance on his dark face.
"Well, the wise man doesn't wait to be kicked out," said he. "He removes
himself upon the slightest hint that such a proceeding on his part would
be well received."
"You were a little too quick on this occasion," replied Max, dryly, "for
my father has got himself into hot water, and mother had a fit of
crying, while Doreen--"
Something made Max hesitate to tell his friend how Doreen had taken his
desertion. Max himself was ready to stand by his friend, whatever
difficulties the latter might be in. But Doreen, his lovely sister, must
have a lover without reproach.
At the mention of the girl's name there came a slight change over
Dudley's face--a change which struck the sensitive Max and touched him
deeply. Dudley took a step in the direction of his bedroom, and pulled
out his watch. As he did so a railroad ticket jerked out of his pocket
with the watch and fell to the ground.
Max saw it fall, but before he could pick it up or draw attention to it
his ideas were diverted by Dudley's next words:
"Well, you 'll excuse me, old chap. I've got to see a friend off by the
midnight train to Liverpool."
As he spoke Dudley turned, with his hand on the door, to cast a glance
at Max. He seemed to be asking himself what he should tell the other.
And then he took a step toward his friend and began an explanation,
which, as his shrewd eyes told him, Max required.
"The fact is that I got into the way of a beastly accident at Charing
Cross just now. Woman run over--badly hurt. Got myself covered with
blood. Ugh!"
Max was convinced that the shudder was genuine, although he had
doubts--of which he was ashamed--about the tale itself.
And how did that explain the proposed journey?
Dudley went on:
"I've only just got time to change my clothes and make myself decent.
See you in a day or two. Sorry I can't stay and have a pipe with you and
one of our 'hard-times' suppers."
He was on the point of disappearing into the inner room, when Max
stopped him.
"Oh, but you can," said he. "I have something particular to say to you,
and I can wait till you come back, if it's two o'clock, and I can bring
in the supper myself."
Dudley frowned impatiently, and again he cast at Max the horrible,
furtive look which had been his first greeting.
"That's impossible," said he, quickly. "I may have to go on to Liverpool
myself. Good-night."
And he shut himself into the bedroom.
Max felt cold all over. After a few minutes' hesitation, he went out of
the chambers, down the stairs and out of the house.
At the door a cab was waiting. The driver spoke to him the moment he
stepped out on the pavement. Evidently he took him for Dudley, his late
fare.
"The lady's got out an' gone off, sir. I hollered after her, but she
wouldn't wait. Oh, beg pardon, sir," and the man touched his hat,
perceiving his mistake; "I took you for the gentleman I brought here
with the lady."
"Oh, he'll be down in a minute or two," answered Max.
And then he thought he would wait and see what new developments the
disappearance of the lady would lead to. He was getting sick with alarm
about his friend. These instances of the blood-stained clothes, the
possible journey to Liverpool, and the flight of the mysterious lady,
were so suspicious, taken in conjunction with each other, that Max found
it impossible to rest until he knew more. He walked a little way along
the pavement, and then returned slowly in the middle of the road. He had
done this for the third time when Dudley dashed out of the house with
rapid steps, and had reached the step of the hansom before he discovered
that the vehicle was empty.
An exclamation of dismay escaped his lips, and to the cabman's statement
of the lady's disappearance he replied by asking sharply in which
direction she had gone. On receiving the information he wanted, he gave
the man his fare, and walked rapidly away in the direction the cabman
had indicated.
Max followed.
Every moment increased his belief that some appalling circumstance had
occurred by which Dudley's mind had for the time lost its balance. Every
word, look and movement on the part of his friend betrayed the fact. Now
he was evidently setting off in feverish haste in pursuit of this woman
whom he had left in the cab; and Max, who believed that his friend was
on the brink of an attack of the insanity which old Mr. Wedmore feared,
resolved to dog his footsteps, and not to let his friend go out of his
sight until the latter got safely back to his chambers.
Dudley went at a great pace into Holborn, and then he stopped. The
traffic had dwindled down to an occasional hansom and to a thin line of
foot-passengers on the pavements. He looked to right, to left, and then
he turned suddenly and came face to face with Max.
"Hello!" cried he. "Where are you going to? Where are you putting up?"
"At the Arundel," answered Max, taken aback, and stammering a little.
Dudley had recovered his usual tones.
"Come to my club," said he. "We can get some supper there and have that
pipe."
"But how about Liverpool and the friend you had to see off?" asked Max.
Dudley hesitated ever so slightly.
"Oh, he's given me the slip," he answered, in a tone which sounded
careless enough. "Gone off without waiting for me. So my conscience is
free on his score."
Max said nothing for a moment. Then he thought himself justified in
setting a trap for his friend.
"Who is he?" asked he. "Anybody I know?"
"No," replied Dudley. "A man I met in the country, who showed me a good
deal of kindness. From Yorkshire. Man named Browning. Very good fellow,
but erratic. Said he'd wait for me in the cab, and disappeared before I
could come down. Had an idea I should make him lose his train, I
suppose. Well, never mind him. Come along."
Max went with him in silence. Dudley had not only got back his usual
spirits, but seemed to be in a mood of loquacity and liveliness unusual
with him. When they got to the club, he ordered oysters and a bottle of
champagne, and drank much more freely than was his custom.
It was Max, the ne'er-do-weel, the extravagant one, who drank little and
did the listening. Dudley had cast off altogether the gravity and
taciturnity which sometimes got him looked upon as a bit of a prig, and
chatted and told his friend stories, with a tone and manner of
irresponsible gayety which became him ill.
And Max, who was usually the talker, listened as badly as the other told
his stories. For all the time he was weighed down with the fear, so
strong that it seemed to amount to absolute knowledge, of some horrible
danger hanging over his friend.
Abruptly, before he made the expected comment on the last of Dudley's
stories, Max rose from his chair and said he must go home.
"I'll see you as far as your diggings first," said he. "It's not much
out of way, you know."
At these words Dudley's high spirits suddenly left him, and the furtive
look came again into his face.
"Oh," said he, "oh, very well. And on the way I can tell you the whole
story of the accident that I saw at Charing Cross, this evening, just
before I met you."
So they went out together, and Dudley, as he had suggested, gave his
friend a long and extremely circumstantial account of the way in which
the wheel went over the woman, and of the difficulty he and the
policeman had experienced in getting her from between the wheels of the
van by which she had been crushed.
Max heard him in silence, but did not believe a word. Whatever had
reduced Dudley to the plight in which he had returned to his chambers,
Max was convinced that it differed in some important details from the
version of the affair which he chose to give.
"We won't talk any more about it," he went on, without seeming to remark
his friend's silence. "It's a thing I want to forget. It has quite upset
me for a time; you could see that yourself when you met me. I--I don't
know quite what to do to get the thing out of my mind. I think I shall
run down to Datton with you, and see what that will do. What do you
think?"
Now, although he had drunk more wine than usual, Dudley knew perfectly
well what he was saying, and Max stared at him in astonishment.
"What?" he exclaimed. "After what you told me? About my father?"
"Oh, yes, yes. But I can explain everything. I can, and I will,"
returned Dudley, quickly. "I have not been myself lately. I have had
certain business worries. But they are all settled now, and I feel more
like myself than I have done for weeks."
Max stopped short and stared at his friend by the light of a gas-lamp.
"Well, you don't look it," said he, shortly.
Dudley laughed loudly, but rather uneasily.
"Don't you think I could give an explanation which would satisfy your
father, if I wished?" he asked, with a sudden relapse into gravity.
"I'm hanged if I know," retorted Max, energetically. "You haven't given
any explanation which would satisfy _me_."
Dudley stared into his face for a few seconds inquiringly, and then
quietly hooked his arm and led him along the Strand.
"You don't want to be satisfied, old chap," said he, in a low voice.
"You know me."
Again Max was deeply touched. This was a sudden and unexpected peep
under the surface of deception into the real heart of his old chum. He
replied only by a slight twitching of the arm Dudley had taken.
They walked on at a quicker pace, and ran up the stairs to the door of
Dudley's rooms in silence.
Dudley went first into the sitting-room and turned up the gas. It did
not escape Max that he shot a hurried glance around the room, taking in
every corner, as he entered. Talking all the time about the cold and the
fog, Dudley went into the adjoining room, and Max saw him pull aside the
bed-curtains and look behind them.
Then Max, not wishing to play the spy on his friend, turned his back;
and as he did so he caught sight of the railway ticket which had fallen
to the floor from Dudley's pocket before they went out.
Max picked it up, and noted that it was the return half of a first-class
return ticket from Fenchurch Street to Limehouse, and that it was dated
that very day.
He had scarcely noted this, mechanically rather than with any set
purpose, when he was startled to find Dudley at his elbow.
Max turned round quickly, but Dudley's eyes were fixed upon the railway
ticket.
"You dropped this when you--" began Max, handing it to his friend.
It was not until then, when Dudley took the ticket from him and tossed
it into the fireplace with a careless nod, that it flashed into the mind
of Max that the incident had some significance.
What on earth had Dudley been doing at Limehouse? His parents had had
property there, certainly, many years ago. But not a square foot of the
grimy, slimy, auriferous Thames-side land, not a brick or a beam of the
warehouses and sheds which had been theirs in the old days, had
descended to Dudley. Owing to the fraudulent action of Edward Jacobs,
all had had to go.