I ESCAPE FROM THE JEW'S HOUSE.
It was Mr. Rodriguez. He lay face downward and slantwise across the
front of the hearth, with arms spread, fingers hooked, and his neck
protruding from the collar of his dingy dressing-gown like a plucked
fowl's. He had cast a slipper in falling, and the flesh of one heel
showed through its rent stocking. For a moment I supposed him in a
fit; the next, I was recoiling towards the wall, away from a dark
moist line which ran from under his left armpit and along the uneven
boards to the far corner by the window, and there, under a disordered
truckle-bed, spread itself in a pool.
With my eyes glued upon this horrid sight I slowly straightened
myself up--having crouched back until I felt the wall behind me--and
so grew aware of a door beside the chimney-breast, and that it stood
ajar upon the empty landing. The dead man's heels pointed towards
it, his head towards the window at the foot of the bed.
And still my shaken wits could not clutch at the meaning of what I
saw. I only felt that there was something horrible, menacing,
hideously malignant in the figure at my feet: only craved for
strength of will to dash by it, reach the door and fling myself down
the stairs--anywhere--away from it. Had it stirred, I believe it had
then and there destroyed my reason.
But it did not stir. And all the while I knew that the thing lay
with its breast in a bath of blood; that it had been stabbed in the
back and the blood welling down under the clothes had gathered in a
pool, ready to gush and spread on all sides as soon as the body
should be lifted or its attitude interfered with. I cannot tell how
I found time to reason this out; but I did.
I knew, too, that I could not scream aloud if I tried: but I had no
desire to try. _It_ might wake and lift up its head! I felt
backwards with my hand along the wall, groping unconsciously for
something to aid my spring towards the door; but desisted. For the
moment I could not lift a foot.
With that--either this was all a dream or I heard footsteps on the
flat roof outside; very slow, soft footsteps, too, as of somebody
walking on tiptoe. But if on tiptoe, why was he coming _towards_ me?
Yet so it was; my ear told me distinctly.
As his feet crunched the leads close outside the window I caught a
gleam of scarlet; then the frame grew dark between me and the
daylight, and through the pane a man peered cautiously into the room.
It was Archibald Plinlimmon.
He peered in, turning his face sideways for a better view and shading
it, after a moment, with his hand. So shaded, and with the daylight
behind it, his face after that first instant became an inscrutable
blur.
But while he peered speech broke from me--words and a wild laugh.
"Look at it! Look at it!" I cried, and pointed.
He drew back instantly, and was gone.
"Don't leave me! Mr. Plinlimmon--please don't leave me!" I made a
leap for the window--halted helplessly--and fell back again from the
body. I was alone again. But power to move had come back, and I
must use it while it lasted. If I could gain the stairs now . . .
Stealthily, and more stealthily as the fear returned and grew, I
reached the door, pushed it open, and looked out on the landing. But
for a worm-eaten trunk and a line of old suits dangling from pegs
around the wall, it was bare. The little light filtered through a
cracked and discoloured window high up in the slope of the roof.
The stairhead lay a short two yards from me, to be reached by one
bold leap.
This, however, was not what I first saw; nay, how or when I saw it is
a wonder still. For, across the landing, a door faced me; and, as I
pushed mine open, this door had moved--was moving yet, as if to shut.
It did not quite shut. It came to a standstill when almost a foot
ajar. Beyond it I could see yet other suits of clothes hanging: and
among these lurked someone, watching me, perhaps, through the chink
by the hinges. I was sure of it--was almost sure I had seen a hand
on the edge of the door; a hand with a ring on one of its fingers,
and just the edge, and no more, of a black cuff.
For perhaps five seconds I endured it, my hair lifting: then, with
one sharp scream I dashed back into the room and across the corpse;
struggled for a moment with the window-sash; and flinging it up,
dropped out upon the leads.
Out there, in the restorative sunshine, my first thought was to crawl
away as fast and as far as possible; to reach some hiding-place where
I might lie down and pant, unpursued by the horrors of that house.
The roofs on my right were flat; I staggered along them, halting at
every few steps to lean a hand for support against one or other of
the chimney-stacks, now growing warm in the sunshine.
From the far side of one, as I leaned clinging, a man sprang up,
almost at my feet. It was Archie Plinlimmon again. He had been
flattening himself against its shadow; and at first--so white and
fierce was his face--I made sure he meant to hurl me over and on to
the street below.
"What do you want? What have you seen?" Though he spoke fiercely,
his teeth chattered. "Oh--it's you!" he exclaimed, recognising me
through my soot.
"Mr. Plinlimmon--" I began.
"I didn't do it. I didn't--" He broke off. "For Heaven's sake, how
are we to get down out of this?"
"There's no way on the street side," I answered, "unless--"
He took me up short. "The street? We can't go that way--it's as
much as my neck's worth. Yours, too."
"Mr. Trapp's waiting for me," I answered stupidly.
"Who knows who isn't waiting?" he snapped. "We'll have to cut out of
this." He pointed downward on the side away from the street.
"I say, what happened? Who did it, eh?"
"I slipped in the chimney," I answered again. "He wanted his
chimneys swept this morning. We knocked--Mr. Trapp and I--and no one
answered: then we tried the door, and it opened. There was no one
about, and no one in the street but Sergeant Letcher."
He began to shake. "Sergeant Letcher? What do you know about
Sergeant Letcher?"
"Nothing, except that he was in the street--the man the bull chased,
you know."
He was shaking yet. "I ought to kill you," said he. "But I didn't
do it. Look here, show me a way down and I'll let you off.
You're used to this work, ain't you?"
"How did you come up?" I asked, innocently enough.
"By the Lord, if you ask questions, I'll strangle you! You were in
the room with--with _it_! I saw you: I'll swear I saw you. Get me
down out of this, and hide--get on board some ship, and clear.
See? If you breathe a word that you've seen me, I'll cut your heart
out. You understand me?"
I hadn't a doubt then that he was guilty. His fear was too craven.
"There's a warehouse at the end here," said I, and led the way to it.
But when we reached it, its roof rose in a sharp slope from the low
parapet guarding the leads where we stood.
"But I don't see," he objected; "and, anyway, I can't manage that."
I pointed to a louver skylight half-way up the roof. "We can prise
that open, or break it. It's easy enough to reach," I assured him.
He was extraordinarily clumsy on the slates, but obeyed my
instructions like a child. I wrenched at the wooden louvers.
"Got a knife?" I asked.
He produced one--an ugly-looking weapon, but clean. By good luck, we
did not need it; for as he passed it to me, the louver at which I was
tugging broke and came away in my hand. We easily loosened another
and, squeezing through, dropped into the loft upon a sliding pile of
grain.
The loft was dark enough; but a glimmer of light shone through the
chinks of a door at the far end. Unbolting it, we looked down, from
the height of thirty feet or so, into a deserted lane. Or rather _I_
looked down: for while I fumbled with the bolts Master Archie had
banged his head into something hard, and dropped, rubbing the hurt
and cursing.
It proved to be the timber cross-piece of a derrick used for hoisting
sacks of grain into the loft, working on an axle, and now swung
inboard for the night. A double rope ran through the pulley at its
end and had been hitched back over the iron winch which worked it.
We pushed the derrick out over the lane and I manned the winch
handle, while Master Archie caught hold of the hook and pulley at the
end of the double line. Checking the handle with all my strength I
lowered him as noiselessly as I could. As his feet touched the
cobbles below he let go and, without a thought of my safety, made off
down the lane.
I tugged the derrick inboard and recaptured the rope; cogged the
winch, swung out, dropped hand over hand into the lane, and raced up
it with all the terrors of the law at my heels.