THE GREY ROOM
Pat Claremanagh floated in a grey sea, under a grey sky. It seemed to
him that the grey sea and sky were part of some existence after death.
He vaguely remembered that he had died. If it were not for the
constant, heavy pain in his head, he thought that he could recall the
whole incident.
Yes, that was the word--"incident". It hardly mattered now, and wasn't
worth while racking his brain over. That tin hat of his was too
tight--much too tight. But he was too weak to lift his hands and take
it off. Strange, though, that he should be wearing it when he was dead!
He must have been killed in the war. Yet, how long ago the war seemed!
He had thought that a great many things had happened to him after the
war. No doubt they were part of this dream--this long, floating
dream--after death. But they were not grey like the leaden sea and the
sky that hung so low over his head. They were beautiful, colourful
things. Just straining to remember brought rainbow flashes across his
brain. Out of these lights a girl's face looked at him.
"Juliet!" he heard himself mutter, in a thick, tongue-tied voice.
Instantly another face appeared, and blotted out that of the girl.
This one was solid and very real. It bent over him in the greyness: a
man's face, somehow familiar, as if he had known it long ago--long ago
disliked it: a fleshy bulk surrounded with hair. He loathed it for
itself, and hated it for shutting out the vision of Juliet, so he
closed his eyes.
For a moment consciousness died down like a fading flame. Only a vast,
vague greyness was left, and the tight pain of the tin hat. But when a
few moments or a few years had passed, a voice spoke. It beat upon his
dulled intelligence like the strokes of a clock in the dark, telling an
hour. Pat was suddenly keyed up to listening, because it was a woman's
voice, and far down within himself he was aware that a woman's voice--a
certain woman's voice--was what he yearned to hear.
Strange! He was wide awake, and knowledge came to him that he was not
dead, after all, though he might be close to death. But he did not
open his eyes, because he could not bear to see the living mass of
flesh and hair again. He lay quite still. And he listened.
"You are always hanging over him like that whenever I turn my back!"
said the woman.
"Why not? I do no harm," answered a man's voice, with a rather soft,
monotonous foreign accent.
Pat knew that the voice belonged to the face. It also had association
with long past things which were somehow important. A scene began
forming in his tired mind, like bits of an old picture being matched
together. A room with tables, and men drinking and smoking; a cleared
space; a kind of stage; a girl dancing--slim, lovely, light as a fawn;
long red hair waving back and forth--Lyda!--that was her name.
Lyda--something. He was at one of the tables, very young, only a boy.
And the hairy man sat with him, talking, praising the girl. Markoff!
He stopped, remembering, and listened again.
"You'd do harm if you dared to," the woman said. "You'd like to kill
him."
"I tink it will be better for us all if he die," said the man. "Much
better! Much safer. But no violence. Let him go--fade away. I
tought it would soon be finished wiz him. Zen he open his eyes and
look at me. You hear him speak--some word."
"Yes, I heard him," the woman answered. "It's the first time he's made
a sound--_since_, except a sort of groaning. I'm jolly glad. _We_
don't want him to drop off the hooks. Not _much_!"
"You are ver' foolish, Madam. He can give your 'usband and ze ozzers
away. It is only me who 'ave nozzing to fear. He do not see me zere.
Yet I am witness agains' any ones who treat me wrong."
"Pooh!" said the woman. "You're always harping on your power to hurt
us. It's nil. The hunt's out for you, Mr. Markoff or Halbin, or
whatever you like to be. If we're keeping you for our own sakes
because you haven't paid up, anyhow it's your game to lie low. You
daren't show your nose outside this door. But for heaven's sake, let's
stop arguing. I'm for nothing in that part of the business."
"You 'ave all got some plan you try to work behin' my back," growled
the man. "I tell you enough times, ze money will come!"
"When it comes, you'll get the pearls: if it comes in time. That's the
rub!"
The word "pearls" was like a key. It unlocked the door of Pat's
memory, and impressions flowed in. But they were confused, without
beginning or end; and he lay motionless, hoping for more clues. He was
conscious that the woman leaned over him. She brought with her a heavy
oriental perfume, and he felt a waft of warm breath on his face.
"Are you awake?" she asked, speaking slowly. "Do you know what
happened to hurt you--eh?"
Pat did not show by the quiver of an eyelid that he had heard.
"Wen 'e come back to himself, bineby, 'e will remember everything
per'aps, an' zen w'ere will you all be?" the man wanted to know.
"He never will remember, unless there's someone to give him the tip.
People _don't_ remember with concussion," the woman said.
So that was what he had--_concussion_ of the brain! Pat wondered how
he had got it. One of the impressions filtering back was of hitting a
man, and hearing him squeal. What had followed was a blank, like
everything since. Maybe some other man had hit him--from behind.
The woman moved away, and cautiously Pat opened his eyes. The greyness
was still there, but it was more definite, more commonplace, as if
belonging to earth and things of everyday life. He thought that he
must be lying on his back in a bed, looking straight up at a low grey
ceiling. There were grey walls, too, but he could not turn his head to
see more, as his neck was stiff and painful. The light was so dim that
he imagined it must be drawing toward dusk in a room with small windows
partly covered with curtains.
More talking went on at a distance, between the man and woman.
Sometimes it sounded so far off that Pat wondered if there was an
adjoining room with an open door. Presently, when all had been silent
for so long that he had almost dozed off, there was a sudden explosion
of voices. The listener fancied that there were two new ones, both
voices of men, and one he recognized, though irritatingly he could not
attach the right name label.
He kept his eyes closed, because he was sure that the latecomers would
look at him, and his caution was rewarded. Someone turned on a light.
The two new voices mumbled in sick-bed whispers across his pillow. He
caught a word here and there: again "the pearls," "Markoff," and "the
Duchess." The last gave him an odd thrill. _Juliet_! She had been
angry. How was she feeling now? Was she seeking for him? Or did she
give him credit for running off with the pearls--or Lyda? or--both
together?
The thought that this might be so--probably was so--made him long to
spring up and fight his way to his wife, somehow. And perhaps he could
not have resisted attempting to move had not a sudden noise snapped the
thread of his thought.
A quarrel had broken out over something between the men. All three
voices rose sharply. The woman intervened, and was rebuked. Then came
a squall of rage, instantly stifled. The woman screamed, and drew in
her breath with a gasp. All was still again.
"Hark!" whispered someone.
The light went out.
In place of the greyness, blackness fell.
Pat could hear the pounding of his own heart, and another sound almost
hidden by the noise in his breast.
He thought that stairs were squeaking under a stealthy foot.