At last I had changed my evening-clothes for the garb of a
lorry-driver, a decent, gray tweed suit of cheap material, fairly good
boots, a thick, well-worn overcoat, and a rather greasy, brown
golf-cap, while, in the uncertain light of the candle-end he had lit,
he presented a grotesque figure in my crumpled shirt, with its two
attractive studs, his black tie awry, and his collar limp with the
rain.
“Pull up and look at me, Teddy!” he shouted to my acquaintance, the
driver.
Teddy slowed down, put on the brakes, and came to a standstill on the
brow of a hill. Then, turning to look in, exclaimed:
“By gum! You look a real treat! Going to the theatre--aw!”
Meanwhile, Dick produced from beneath the tarpaulin upon which he had
been sleeping, two bottles of beer, one of which he handed to me.
Then, after taking a swift draught from the other bottle, he handed it
to his mate.
“I wonder if old boss-eye has left one out for us as usual,” remarked
Teddy, wiping the mouth of the bottle and handing it back to his
fellow-driver. Then, turning to me, he said:
“Old boss-eye keeps the Hen and Chickens, five miles before we gets to
Coventry, and on the nights he knows we’re passing he leaves out a
bottle for us underneath a bush. We’ll take a look and see if it’s
there as we pass.”
Dick and I crawled over the cases and resumed our seats, while Teddy
put in the clutch, and we moved off again.
At the Hen and Chickens the men found the beer and drank it between
them. Day was breaking when at last we rumbled through Coventry, and I
confess I had then had sufficient jolting; for, being accustomed to a
well-sprung car, my limbs ached and I felt very tired.
My companions, however, were a humorous pair. During the night Dick
had assumed my crush hat which he wore jauntily as he took the wheel
for a spell. The effect was humorous. But no policeman on the road
noticed it. For several hours I had been planning the best way to
avoid detection. At length I decided to leave the lorry at Birmingham,
have breakfast, and then make further plans.
Therefore, when we arrived just outside the city, I redeemed my
promise of payment. At the end of New Street they drew up for me to
dismount. Swearing secrecy, they bade me farewell, and drove on to
their destination.
And now relating what actually occurred to me, without concealing
anything, I here lay bare the solemn truth--facts which, I venture to
believe, the readers of this strange chronicle will find
astounding--even amazing.
In any case, they shed light on the calamities that can befall any man
who roams the London streets after nightfall, alone.
CHAPTER TWO.
THREADS OF IRON
Bewildered, nerve-wrecked, full of apprehension, I looked around me
that dull, gray morning. The recent events stood out like a horrible
nightmare. At first I wondered if I had not been dreaming. But, alas!
it was only too real.
The truth is, that there was nothing to boast about in the way I had
behaved. I had been an abject, despicable fool, who deserved all the
disastrous consequences of a craven act. And now I was a lorry-driver!
If it were not so tragic it might even be amusing. I was impelled to
laugh at the ludicrousness of the situation. But instead, as I
approached the first policeman, I held my breath. Was he on the
lookout for me?
My first visit was to New Street Station. The London newspapers were
already in, so I bought two and quickly scanned them. There was no
mention of the affair in Bloomsbury. Evidently information regarding
the tragedy had not reached the newspaper offices before they had gone
to press.
At a small coffee-shop behind the station, much used by taxi-drivers,
I ate my humble breakfast, and re-examined the newspapers. Absence of
any hue-and-cry heartened me. Yet was I acting right? Would it not
have been safer to have returned to Sackville Street, changed my
clothes, and obtained a couple of suit-cases? I wondered. I had
changed my identity to that of a working-man, so in future I would be
compelled to keep to that disguise.
When the shops opened I went to several cheap ones and made purchases,
including a ready-made gray suit for Sundays and a new felt hat. These
I had packed together, and, leaving the parcel in the cloak-room at
the station, again sallied forth and bought the cheapest suit-case I
could find. Into it I eventually placed my purchases, together with my
lapis lazuli ring and my gold watch. Such adornments were unsuitable
for a man of the class I had now assumed.
Afterwards I went to the telegraph-office and, in order to allay any
undue suspicion, I wired to Bolland that I had been called to
Birmingham suddenly, that I should be away several days. Another
message I sent to Joan at Cannes, explaining that I was away in the
Midlands. I was often absent on political business, speaking at
meetings on questions arising out of the decisions of the League of
Nations. I thought it a perfectly good explanation of the reason that
I might not be able to write to her.
Just after eleven o’clock I left Birmingham for Euston, where I
arrived at half-past two. My first action was to buy the early edition
of the _Evening News_. And, setting down my suit-case outside the
station, I eagerly looked over its columns.
Yes! It was there!
“Man Murdered in Bloomsbury Square. Escape of the Alleged Assassin,”
greeted my eyes in bold type.
Breathlessly, I read the brief report, which was as follows:
“Just before midnight, a young woman, Hilda Bennett, living in Castle
Street, Pimlico, was found, by a constable on duty, half collapsed, in
Bloomsbury Square, beside the body of a man. She said he was a friend
of hers named Warwick May, a corn merchant, carrying on business at
Highbury. Examination showed that the dead man had been shot in the
jaw, and that the bullet had penetrated the brain.
“The woman’s story is that she was walking alone, when she was
accosted by a youngish, dark-haired man in evening-dress, who claimed
having met her on the previous evening at a night-club. She had no
knowledge of him and told him so, whereupon he became abusive, and her
friend--who had been making a call, and was following to catch her
up--came on the scene. She complained to her man friend and asked his
protection, when, without a word, the unknown young fellow drew a
revolver, and, after knocking him down, knelt upon him, banged his
head several times upon the curb and then deliberately shot him.
“The woman’s story is apparently corroborated by the fact that a
constable on duty in the vicinity noticed a young man, in black
overcoat and opera-hat, running as for the train; but, not having
heard the shot, and being in ignorance of what had occurred, he did
not stop him. The police have the fugitive’s description, which has
been widely circulated.”
Then followed a somewhat minute description of me, even to the
chrysoprase studs, which were, happily, now in the possession of the
cheery Dick at Wolverhampton.
Would my friends of the previous night see that description and read
of the two distinctive studs? If so, what could be more likely than,
in the circumstance of what they would regard as deliberate murder,
that they should impart their experience to the police? The thought of
it was most disconcerting.
As I put the paper into the pocket of my driving-coat, and took up my
cheap suit-case, I encountered the policeman on patrol in the yard of
the Euston Hotel. At once I felt convinced that he regarded me with
suspicious glances.
I had become timid, scenting danger at every turn. Would you not have
done so? My sudden flight after the tragic occurrence, without doubt
had been a fatal mistake. Had I remained and told the truth, that the
man’s death had been in consequence of his own desperate action, I
would most surely have had British justice meted out to me. Even then,
if the woman had told the same tale that she had already done, it was
a most unsavory story, and one that I, surely, had no means of
contradicting.
I felt that I must hide. And I deemed the safest place of concealment
to be in one of the crowded working-class suburbs. Hence, I turned
back into Euston Station and took train over to Waterloo. I had always
understood that Camberwell was a good working-class neighborhood.
Therefore, at Waterloo, I walked along to the London Road where I
bought, at a cheap outfitter’s, a dark-gray overcoat; then I boarded a
motor-bus going to Camberwell Green.
As we were passing along the Camberwell Road, I noticed, on the right,
a drab, depressing street of uniform, unkempt houses, each with its
area and flight of steps to the front door. It was the kind of spot I
was in search of; therefore, I alighted and turned up the
thoroughfare, examining the houses as I went. They were all Victorian,
built after the same plan, none differing from its neighbor save in
its degree of dirt or dinginess. The steps of some were neglected,
others well hearth-stoned by hard-working hands, while on many of the
windows rested the London grime of weeks, with curtains limp and
yellow with fog and damp. It was, I noticed, called Avenue Road, and
it was certainly a very complete specimen of the early jerry-builder’s
art.
In the downstairs front room, on the street level of one of the houses
on the left-hand side of the gloomy, uninviting thoroughfare, a dingy
card announced that “apartments” were to be had. I rang the bell and
waited, even though it went against the grain.
Presently a slatternly slip of a girl about fifteen appeared and, on
inquiry, a stout, full-faced, rather swarthy woman, presumably her
mother, came up behind her.
“Yes, I’ve got a room to let,” she said in a deep bass voice, scanning
me closely, perhaps not without suspicion. “Like to come in and see
it?”
My reply was in the affirmative. And so, depositing my suit-case in
the hall, I followed her up the linoleum-covered stairs to a small,
back room on the first-floor, meagrely-furnished, yet quite clean.
“I’m a journalist,” I said,” and I’ve just come up from Colchester.
Can I also have a room in which to write? I’m usually glued to my
table all day.”
“Of course, you can have the front sitting-room if you like to take
it. We never use it.”
In consequence, I inspected the apartment indicated and after some
conversation, rented the quarters. Depositing my bag in the bedroom,
and, much to the satisfaction of my landlady, Mrs. Bowyer, I paid a
fortnight’s rent in advance, by which I at once earned the distinction
of being “a gentleman.” The name I gave was Edward Paige.
Those dingy, shabby rooms in Camberwell were, indeed, a contrast to my
own cozy chambers in Sackville Street, off Piccadilly, and I remember
how dull and dispirited I felt in the first hours I spent there.
I was asked if I would have a pair of kippers with my tea, and, in
order to keep up the role I had assumed, I accepted, and, indeed, ate
them with a relish. Afterwards, at seven o’clock, I went out in the
darkness into the busy Camberwell Road, where I bought the late
edition of a newspaper, and, taking it back, eagerly read what was
further reported concerning my flight.
Before the fire, I stood beneath the hissing gas-jet reading. And
while I read I held my breath. What I saw was intensely alarming. The
police net was closing about me. It said:
“A motor-driver named Horbin, living in Wolverhampton, this afternoon
made a statement to the police to the effect that while he and a
fellow-driver were on their way with a lorry from London late last
night, they were accosted by a man in evening-dress, closely
resembling the man wanted. He begged them to give him a lift, and they
did so. On the way the stranger bought the clothes and overcoat of his
companion, so that when he left at Birmingham, he was disguised as a
motor-driver. Most diligent inquiries are being made. The police are
of the opinion that the fugitive took train back to London during the
morning.”
I stood dumb. Surely it was fortunate that I had discarded the old
motor-coat for that ordinary overcoat I had bought in the London Road.
Nevertheless, I realized that I should never be able to go forth in
the daylight, lest I might be recognized.
Therefore, I prepared myself to settle down to a dull, uneventful
life, hourly fearing that my somewhat inquisitive landlady might read
in her newspaper the description of me which had been circulated, and
thus identify me with the man of whom the police were in such active
search. What then?
Next morning I received a surprise; for, on being ushered into the
back room for breakfast, I found that I had as fellow-lodger a slim,
good-looking girl, with soft brown eyes and wavy auburn hair. She was
already at table reading the newspaper when Mrs. Bowyer introduced her
as Miss Lisely Hatten.