“Nor I. There's a boat to the Argentine tomorrow. You're in luck;
they've made an arrest. It's in the paper.”
“What?”
The cigarette end dropped, the thin pyjama'd figure writhed up and stood
clutching at the bedrail.
“What?”
The disturbing thought flitted through Keith's brain: 'I was a fool. He
takes it queerly; what now?'
Laurence passed his hand over his forehead, and sat down on the bed.
“I hadn't thought of that,” he said; “It does me!”
Keith stared. In his relief that the arrested man was not Laurence, this
had not occurred to him. What folly!
“Why?” he said quickly; “an innocent man's in no danger. They always
get the wrong man first. It's a piece of luck, that's all. It gives us
time.”
How often had he not seen that expression on Larry's face, wistful,
questioning, as if trying to see the thing with his--Keith's-eyes,
trying to submit to better judgment? And he said, almost gently--
“Now, look here, Larry; this is too serious to trifle with. Don't worry
about that. Leave it to me. Just get ready to be off'. I'll take your
berth and make arrangements. Here's some money for kit. I can come round
between five and six, and let you know. Pull yourself together, man.
As soon as the girl's joined you out there, you'd better get across to
Chile, the further the better. You must simply lose yourself: I must
go now, if I'm to get to the Bank before I go down to the courts.” And
looking very steadily at his brother, he added:
“Come! You've got to think of me in this matter as well as of yourself.
No playing fast and loose with the arrangements. Understand?”
But still Larry gazed up at him with that wistful questioning, and not
till he had repeated, “Understand?” did he receive “Yes” for answer.
Driving away, he thought: 'Queer fellow! I don't know him, shall
never know him!' and at once began to concentrate on the practical
arrangements. At his bank he drew out L400; but waiting for the notes
to be counted he suffered qualms. A clumsy way of doing things! If
there had been more time! The thought: 'Accessory after the fact!' now
infected everything. Notes were traceable. No other way of getting him
away at once, though. One must take lesser risks to avoid greater. From
the bank he drove to the office of the steamship line. He had told
Larry he would book his passage. But that would not do! He must only ask
anonymously if there were accommodation. Having discovered that there
were vacant berths, he drove on to the Law Courts. If he could have
taken a morning off, he would have gone down to the police court and
seen them charge this man. But even that was not too safe, with a face
so well known as his. What would come of this arrest? Nothing, surely!
The police always took somebody up, to keep the public quiet. Then,
suddenly, he had again the feeling that it was all a nightmare; Larry
had never done it; the police had got the right man! But instantly the
memory of the girl's awe-stricken face, her figure huddling on the sofa,
her words “I see him always falling!” came back. God! What a business!
He felt he had never been more clear-headed and forcible than that
morning in court. When he came out for lunch he bought the most
sensational of the evening papers. But it was yet too early for news,
and he had to go back into court no whit wiser concerning the arrest.
When at last he threw off wig and gown, and had got through a conference
and other necessary work, he went out to Chancery Lane, buying a paper
on the way. Then he hailed a cab, and drove once more to Fitzroy Street.
V
Laurence had remained sitting on his bed for many minutes. An innocent
man in no danger! Keith had said it--the celebrated lawyer! Could
he rely on that? Go out 8,000 miles, he and the girl, and leave a
fellow-creature perhaps in mortal peril for an act committed by himself?
In the past night he had touched bottom, as he thought: become ready to
face anything. When Keith came in he would without murmur have accepted
the advice: “Give yourself up!” He was prepared to pitch away the end of
his life as he pitched from him the fag-ends of his cigarettes. And the
long sigh he had heaved, hearing of reprieve, had been only half relief.
Then, with incredible swiftness there had rushed through him a feeling
of unutterable joy and hope. Clean away--into a new country, a new life!
The girl and he! Out there he wouldn't care, would rejoice even to have
squashed the life out of such a noisome beetle of a man. Out there!
Under a new sun, where blood ran quicker than in this foggy land, and
people took justice into their own hands. For it had been justice on
that brute even though he had not meant to kill him. And then to hear of
this arrest! They would be charging the man to-day. He could go and see
the poor creature accused of the murder he himself had committed! And he
laughed. Go and see how likely it was that they might hang a fellow-man
in place of himself? He dressed, but too shaky to shave himself, went
out to a barber's shop. While there he read the news which Keith had
seen. In this paper the name of the arrested man was given: “John Evan,
no address.” To be brought up on the charge at Bow Street. Yes! He must
go. Once, twice, three times he walked past the entrance of the court
before at last he entered and screwed himself away among the tag and
bobtail.
The court was crowded; and from the murmurs round he could tell that it
was his particular case which had brought so many there. In a dazed way
he watched charge after charge disposed of with lightning quickness. But
were they never going to reach his business? And then suddenly he saw
the little scarecrow man of last night advancing to the dock between
two policemen, more ragged and miserable than ever by light of day, like
some shaggy, wan, grey animal, surrounded by sleek hounds.
A sort of satisfied purr was rising all round; and with horror Laurence
perceived that this--this was the man accused of what he himself had
done--this queer, battered unfortunate to whom he had shown a passing
friendliness. Then all feeling merged in the appalling interest of
listening. The evidence was very short. Testimony of the hotel-keeper
where Walenn had been staying, the identification of his body, and of a
snake-shaped ring he had been wearing at dinner that evening. Testimony
of a pawnbroker, that this same ring was pawned with him the first thing
yesterday morning by the prisoner. Testimony of a policeman that he had
noticed the man Evan several times in Glove Lane, and twice moved him on
from sleeping under that arch. Testimony of another policeman that,
when arrested at midnight, Evan had said: “Yes; I took the ring off
his finger. I found him there dead .... I know I oughtn't to have done
it.... I'm an educated man; it was stupid to pawn the ring. I found him
with his pockets turned inside out.”
Fascinating and terrible to sit staring at the man in whose place he
should have been; to wonder when those small bright-grey bloodshot eyes
would spy him out, and how he would meet that glance. Like a baited
raccoon the little man stood, screwed back into a corner, mournful,
cynical, fierce, with his ridged, obtuse yellow face, and his stubbly
grey beard and hair, and his eyes wandering now and again amongst the
crowd. But with all his might Laurence kept his face unmoved. Then came
the word “Remanded”; and, more like a baited beast than ever, the man
was led away.
Laurence sat on, a cold perspiration thick on his forehead. Someone
else, then, had come on the body and turned the pockets inside out
before John Evan took the ring. A man such as Walenn would not be out
at night without money. Besides, if Evan had found money on the body he
would never have run the risk of taking that ring. Yes, someone else had
come on the body first. It was for that one to come forward, and prove
that the ring was still on the dead man's finger when he left him, and
thus clear Evan. He clung to that thought; it seemed to make him less
responsible for the little man's position; to remove him and his own
deed one step further back. If they found the person who had taken the
money, it would prove Evan's innocence. He came out of the court in a
sort of trance. And a craving to get drunk attacked him. One could not
go on like this without the relief of some oblivion. If he could only
get drunk, keep drunk till this business was decided and he knew whether
he must give himself up or no. He had now no fear at all of people
suspecting him; only fear of himself--fear that he might go and give
himself up. Now he could see the girl; the danger from that was as
nothing compared with the danger from his own conscience. He had
promised Keith not to see her. Keith had been decent and loyal to
him--good old Keith! But he would never understand that this girl was
now all he cared about in life; that he would rather be cut off from
life itself than be cut off from her. Instead of becoming less and less,
she was becoming more and more to him--experience strange and thrilling!
Out of deep misery she had grown happy--through him; out of a sordid,
shifting life recovered coherence and bloom, through devotion to him
him, of all people in the world! It was a miracle. She demanded nothing
of him, adored him, as no other woman ever had--it was this which had
anchored his drifting barque; this--and her truthful mild intelligence,
and that burning warmth of a woman, who, long treated by men as but a
sack of sex, now loves at last.
And suddenly, mastering his craving to get drunk, he made towards Soho.
He had been a fool to give those keys to Keith. She must have been
frightened by his visit; and, perhaps, doubly miserable since, knowing
nothing, imagining everything! Keith was sure to have terrified her.
Poor little thing!
Down the street where he had stolen in the dark with the dead body on
his back, he almost ran for the cover of her house. The door was opened
to him before he knocked, her arms were round his neck, her lips pressed
to his. The fire was out, as if she had been unable to remember to keep
warm. A stool had been drawn to the window, and there she had evidently
been sitting, like a bird in a cage, looking out into the grey street.
Though she had been told that he was not to come, instinct had kept her
there; or the pathetic, aching hope against hope which lovers never part
with.
Now that he was there, her first thoughts were for his comfort. The fire
was lighted. He must eat, drink, smoke. There was never in her doings
any of the “I am doing this for you, but you ought to be doing that for
me” which belongs to so many marriages, and liaisons. She was like a
devoted slave, so in love with the chains that she never knew she wore
them. And to Laurence, who had so little sense of property, this
only served to deepen tenderness, and the hold she had on him. He
had resolved not to tell her of the new danger he ran from his own
conscience. But resolutions with him were but the opposites of what was
sure to come; and at last the words:
“They've arrested someone,” escaped him.
From her face he knew she had grasped the danger at once; had divined
it, perhaps, before he spoke. But she only twined her arms round him and
kissed his lips. And he knew that she was begging him to put his love
for her above his conscience. Who would ever have thought that he
could feel as he did to this girl who had been in the arms of many! The
stained and suffering past of a loved woman awakens in some men only
chivalry; in others, more respectable, it rouses a tigerish itch, a
rancorous jealousy of what in the past was given to others. Sometimes it
will do both. When he had her in his arms he felt no remorse for killing
the coarse, handsome brute who had ruined her. He savagely rejoiced in
it. But when she laid her head in the hollow of his shoulder, turning
to him her white face with the faint colour-staining on the parted lips,
the cheeks, the eyelids; when her dark, wide-apart, brown eyes gazed
up in the happiness of her abandonment--he felt only tenderness and
protection.
He left her at five o'clock, and had not gone two streets' length before
the memory of the little grey vagabond, screwed back in the far corner
of the dock like a baited raccoon, of his dreary, creaking voice, took
possession of him again; and a kind of savagery mounted in his brain
against a world where one could be so tortured without having meant harm
to anyone.
At the door of his lodgings Keith was getting out of a cab. They went in
together, but neither of them sat down; Keith standing with his back to
the carefully shut door, Laurence with his back to the table, as if they
knew there was a tug coming. And Keith said: “There's room on that boat.
Go down and book your berth before they shut. Here's the money!”
“I'm going to stick it, Keith.”
Keith stepped forward, and put a roll of notes on the table.
“Now look here, Larry. I've read the police court proceedings. There's
nothing in that. Out of prison, or in prison for a few weeks, it's
all the same to a night-bird of that sort. Dismiss it from your
mind--there's not nearly enough evidence to convict. This gives you your
chance. Take it like a man, and make a new life for yourself.”
Laurence smiled; but the smile had a touch of madness and a touch of
malice. He took up the notes.
“Clear out, and save the honour of brother Keith. Put them back in your
pocket, Keith, or I'll put them in the fire. Come, take them!” And,
crossing to the fire, he held them to the bars. “Take them, or in they
go!”
Keith took back the notes.
“I've still got some kind of honour, Keith; if I clear out I shall have
none, not the rag of any, left. It may be worth more to me than that--I
can't tell yet--I can't tell.” There was a long silence before Keith
answered. “I tell you you're mistaken; no jury will convict. If they
did, a judge would never hang on it. A ghoul who can rob a dead body
ought to be in prison. What he did is worse than what you did, if you
come to that!” Laurence lifted his face. “Judge not, brother,” he said;
“the heart is a dark well.” Keith's yellowish face grew red and swollen,
as though he were mastering the tickle of a bronchial cough. “What
are you going to do, then? I suppose I may ask you not to be entirely
oblivious of our name; or is such a consideration unworthy of your
honour?” Laurence bent his head. The gesture said more clearly than
words: 'Don't kick a man when he's down!'
“I don't know what I'm going to do--nothing at present. I'm awfully
sorry, Keith; awfully sorry.”
Keith looked at him, and without another word went out.