The letter through which the blow fell was not voluminous. It was
written on cheap paper in a disguised hand, and the contents covered
only half a page. Loder read it slowly, mentally articulating every
word; then he laid it down, and as he did so he caught Eve's eyes raised
in concern. Again he saw something of his own feelings reflected in her
face, and the shock braced him; he picked up the letter, tearing it into
strips.
“I must go out,” he said, slowly. “I must go now--at once.” His voice
was hard.
Eve's surprised, concerned eyes still searched his. “Now--at once?” she
repeated. “Now--without breakfast?”
“I'm not hungry.” He rose from his seat, and, carrying the slips of
paper across the room, dropped them into the fire. He did it, not so
much from caution, as from an imperative wish to do something, to move,
if only across the room.
Eve's glance followed him. “Is it bad news?” she asked, anxiously. It
was unlike her to be insistent, but she was moved to the impulse by the
peculiarity of the moment.
“No,” he said shortly. “It's--business. This was written yesterday; I
should have got it last night.”
Her eyes widened. “But nobody does business at eight in the morning--”
she began, in astonishment; then she suddenly broke off.
Without apology or farewell, Loder had left the fireplace and walked out
of the room.
He passed through the hall hurriedly, picking up a hat as he went; and,
reaching the pavement outside, he went straight forward until Grosvenor
Square was left behind; then he ran. At the risk of reputation, at
the loss of dignity, he ran until he saw a cab. Hailing it, he sprang
inside, and, as the cabman whipped up and the horse responded to the
call, he realized for the first time the full significance of what had
occurred.
Realization, like the need for action, came to him slowly, but when it
came it was with terrible lucidity. He did not swear as he leaned back
in his seat, mechanically watching the stream of men on their way to
business, the belated cars of green produce blocking the way between
the Strand and Covent Garden. He had no use for oaths; his feelings
lay deeper than mere words. But his mouth was sternly set and his eyes
looked cold.
Outside the Law Courts he dismissed his cab and walked forward to
Clifford's Inn. As he passed through the familiar entrance a chill fell
on him. In the clear, early light it seemed more than ever a place of
dead hopes, dead enterprises, dead ambitions. In the onward march of
life it had been forgotten. The very air had a breath of unfulfilment.
He crossed the court rapidly, but his mouth set itself afresh as he
passed through the door-way of his own house and crossed the bare hall.
As he mounted the well-known stairs, he received his first indication of
life in the appearance of a cat from the second-floor rooms. At sight of
him, the animal came forward, rubbed demonstratively against his legs,
and with affectionate persistence followed him up-stairs.
Outside his door he paused. On the ground stood the usual morning can of
milk--evidence that Chilcote was not yet awake or that, like himself, he
had no appetite for breakfast. He smiled ironically as the idea struck
him, but it was a smile that stiffened rather than relaxed his lips.
Then he drew out the duplicate key he always carried, and, inserting it
quietly, opened the door. A close, unpleasant smell greeted him as he
entered the small passage that divided the bed and sitting rooms--a
smell of whiskey mingling with the odor of stale smoke. With a quick
gesture he pushed open the bedroom door; then on the threshold he
paused, a look of contempt and repulsion passing over his face.
In his first glance he scarcely grasped the details of the scene,
for the half-drawn curtains kept the light dim, but as his eyes grew
accustomed to the obscurity he gathered their significance.
The room had a sleepless, jaded air--the room that under his own
occupation had shown a rigid, almost monastic severity. The plain
dressing-table was littered with cigarette ends and marked with black
and tawny patches where the tobacco had been left to burn itself out. On
one corner of the table a carafe of water and a whiskey-decanter rested
one against the other, as if for support, and at the other end an
overturned tumbler lay in a pool of liquid. The whole effect was sickly
and nauseating. His glance turned involuntarily to the bed, and there
halted.
On the hard, narrow mattress, from which the sheets and blankets had
fallen in a disordered heap, lay Chilcote. He was fully dressed in a
shabby tweed suit of Loder's; his collar was open, his lip and chin
unshaven; one hand was limply grasping the pillow, while the other hung
out over the side of the bed. His face, pale, almost earthy in hue,
might have been a mask, save for the slight convulsive spasms that
crossed it from time to time, and corresponded with the faint, shivering
starts that passed at intervals over his whole body. To complete his
repellent appearance, a lock of hair had fallen loose and lay black and
damp across his forehead.
Loder stood for a space shocked and spellbound by the sight. Even in
the ghastly disarray, the likeness--the extraordinary, sinister likeness
that had become the pivot upon which he himself revolved--struck him
like a blow. The man who lay there was himself-bound to him by some
subtle, inexplicable tie of similarity. As the idea touched him he
turned aside and stepped quickly to the dressing-table; there, with
unnecessary energy, he flung back the curtains and threw the window
wide; then again he turned towards the bed. He had one dominant
impulse--to waken Chilcote, to be free of the repulsive, inert presence
that chilled him with so personal a horror. Leaning over the bed, he
caught the shoulder nearest to him and shook it. It was not the moment
for niceties, and his gesture was rough.
At his first touch Chilcote made no response--his brain, dulled by
indulgence in his vice, had become a laggard in conveying sensations;
but at last, as the pressure on his shoulder increased, his nervous
system seemed suddenly to jar into consciousness. A long shudder shook
him; he half lifted himself and then dropped back upon the pillow.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, in a trembling breath. “Oh!” The sound seemed drawn
from him by compulsion.
Its uncanny tone chilled Loder anew. “Wake up, man!” he said, suddenly.
“Wake up! It's I--Loder.”
Again the other shuddered; then he turned quickly and nervously.
“Loder?” he said, doubtfully. “Loder?” Then his face changed. “Good
God!” he exclaimed, “what a relief!”
The words were so intense, so spontaneous and unexpected, that Loder
took a step back.
Chilcote laughed discordantly, and lifted a shaky hand to protect his
eyes from the light.
“It's--it's all right, Loder! It's all right! It's only that I--that
I had a beastly dream. But, for Heaven's sake, shut that window!”
He shivered involuntarily and pushed the lock of damp hair from his
forehead with a weak touch of his old irritability.
In silence Loder moved back to the window and shut it. He was affected
more than he would own even to himself by the obvious change in
Chilcote. He had seen him moody, restless, nervously excited; but never
before had he seen him entirely demoralized. With a dull feeling of
impotence and disgust he stood by the closed window, looking unseeingly
at the roofs of the opposite houses.
But Chilcote had followed his movements restlessly; and now, as he
watched him, a flicker of excitement crossed his face. “God! Loder,”
he said, again, “'twas a relief to see you! I dreamed I was in hell--a
horrible hell, worse than the one they preach about.”
He laughed to reassure himself, but his voice shook pitiably.
Loder, who had come to fight, stood silent and inert.
“It was horrible--beastly,” Chilcote went on. “There was no fire and
brimstone, but there was something worse. It was a great ironic scheme
of punishment by which every man was chained to his own vice--by which
the thing he had gone to pieces over, instead of being denied him, was
made compulsory. You can't imagine it.” He shivered nervously and his
voice rose. “Fancy being satiated beyond the limit of satiety, being
driven and dogged by the thing you had run after all your life!”
He paused excitedly, and in the pause Loder found resolution. He shut
his ears to the panic in Chilcote's voice, he closed his consciousness
to the sight of his shaken face. With a surge of determination he
rallied his theories. After all, he had himself and his own interests
to claim his thought. At the moment Chilcote was a wreck, with no desire
towards rehabilitation; but there was no guarantee that in an hour or
two he might not have regained control over himself, and with it the
inclination that had prompted his letter of the day before. No; he had
himself to look to. The survival of the fittest was the true, the only
principle. Chilcote had had intellect, education, opportunity, and
Chilcote had deliberately cast them aside. Fortifying himself in the
knowledge, he turned from the window and moved slowly back to the bed.
“Look here,” he began, “you wrote for me last night--” His voice was
hard; he had come to fight.
Chilcote glanced up quickly. His mouth was drawn and there was anew
anxiety in his eyes. “Loder!” he exclaimed, quickly. “Loder, come here!
Come nearer!”
Reluctantly Loder obeyed. Stepping closer to the side of the bed, he
bent down.
The other put up his hand and caught his arm. His fingers trembled and
jerked. “I say, Loder,” he said, suddenly, “I--I've had such a beastly
night--my nerves, you know--”
With a quick, involuntary disgust Loder drew back. “Don't you think we
might shove that aside?” he asked.
But Chilcote's gaze had wandered from his face and strayed to the
dressing-table; there it moved feverishly from one object to another.
“Loder,” he exclaimed, “do you see--can you see if there's a tube of
tabloids on the mantel-shelf--or on the dressing-table?” He lifted
himself nervously on his elbow and his eyes wandered uneasily about the
room. “I--I had a beastly night; my nerves are horribly jarred; and I
thought--I think--” He stopped.
With his increasing consciousness his nervous collapse became more
marked. At the first moment of waking, the relief of an unexpected
presence had surmounted everything else; but now, as one by one his
faculties stirred, his wretched condition became patent. With a new
sense of perturbation Loder made his next attack.
“Chilcote--” he began, sternly.
But again Chilcote caught his arm, plucking at the coat-sleeve. “Where
is it?” he said. “Where is the tube of tabloids--the sedative? I'm--I'm
obliged to take something when my nerves go wrong--” In his weakness and
nervous tremor he forgot that Loder was the sharer of his secret. Even
in his extremity his fear of detection clung to him limply--the lies
that had become second nature slipped from him without effort. Then
suddenly a fresh panic seized him; his fingers tightened spasmodically,
his eyes ceased to rove about the room and settled on his companion's
face. “Can you see it, Loder?” he cried. “I can't--the light's in my
eyes. Can you see it? Can you see the tube?” He lifted himself higher,
an agony of apprehension in his face.
Loder pushed him back upon the pillow. He was striving hard to keep his
own mind cool, to steer his own course straight through the chaos that
confronted him. “Chilcote,” he began once more, “you sent for me last
night, and I came the first thing this morning to tell you--” But there
he stopped.
With an excitement that lent him strength, Chilcote pushed aside his
hands. “God!” he said, suddenly, “suppose 'twas lost--suppose 'twas
gone!” The imaginary possibility gripped him. He sat up, his face livid,
drops of perspiration showing on his forehead, his whole shattered
system trembling before his thought.
At the sight, Loder set his lips. “The tube is on the mantel-shelf,” he
said, in a cold, abrupt voice.
A groan of relief fell from Chilcote and the muscles of his face
relaxed. For a moment he lay back with closed eyes; then the desire
that tortured him stirred afresh. He lifted his eyelids and looked at
his companion. “Hand it to me,” he said, quickly. “Give it to me. Give
it to me, Loder. Quick as you can! There's a glass on the table and
some whiskey and water. The tabloids dissolve, you know--” In his new
excitement he held out his hand.
But Loder stayed motionless. He had come to fight, to demand, to
plead--if need be--for the one hour for which he had lived; the hour
that was to satisfy all labor, all endeavor, all ambition. With dogged
persistence he made one more essay.
“Chilcote, you wrote last night to recall me--” Once again he paused,
checked by a new interruption. Sitting up again, Chilcote struck out
suddenly with his left hand in a rush of his old irritability.
“Damn you!” he cried, suddenly, “what are you talking about? Look at
me! Get me the stuff. I tell you it's imperative.” In his excitement his
breath failed and he coughed. At the effort his whole frame was shaken.
Loder walked to the dressing-table, then back to the bed. A deep
agitation was at work in his mind.
Again Chilcote's lips parted. “Loder,” he said, faintly--“Loder, I
must--I must have it. It's imperative.” Once more he attempted to lift
himself, but the effort was futile.
Again Loder turned away.
“Loder--for God's sake--”
With a fierce gesture the other turned on him. “Good heavens! man--”
he began. Then unaccountably his voice changed. The suggestion that had
been hovering in his mind took sudden and definite shape. “All right!”
he said, in a lower voice. “All right! Stay as you are.”
He crossed to where the empty tumbler stood and hastily mixed the
whiskey and water; then crossing to the mantel-piece where lay the small
glass tube containing the tightly packed tabloids, he paused and glanced
once more towards the bed. “How many?” he said, laconically.
Chilcote lifted his head. His face was pitiably drawn, but the feverish
brightness in his eyes had increased. “Five,” he said, sharply. “Five.
Do you hear, Loder?”
“Five?” Involuntarily Loder lowered the hand that held the tube.
From previous confidences of Chilcote's he knew the amount of morphia
contained in each tabloid, and realized that five tabloids, if not
an absolutely dangerous, was at least an excessive dose, even for one
accustomed to the drug. For a moment his resolution failed; then the
dominant-note of his nature--the unconscious, fundamental egotism on
which his character was based--asserted itself beyond denial. It might
be reprehensible, it might even be criminal to accede to such a request,
made by a man in such a condition of body and mind; yet the laws of the
universe demanded self-assertion--prompted every human mind to desire,
to grasp, and to hold. With a perception swifter than any he had
experienced, he realized the certain respite to be gained by yielding to
his impulse. He looked at Chilcote with his haggard, anxious expression,
his eager, restless eyes; and a vision of himself followed sharp upon
his glance. A vision of the untiring labor of the past ten days, of the
slowly kindling ambition, of the supremacy all but gained. Then, as the
picture completed itself, he lifted his hand with an abrupt movement and
dropped the five tabloids one after another into the glass.