Among Thieves
She sat very close to him as they went through the streets in the
brougham. She had persuaded him to have still another taste of the
liqueur before they started; the world seemed more dream-like than
ever. When the vehicle drew up, she helped him out into the street. The
air of the misty November morning seemed to add to the fog which was in
his brain. Nothing could have been more gracious or graceful than her
solicitude for his seeming incapacity to take proper care of himself;
no wife could have taken more tender care of a delicate husband. He did
not know what place this was at which they stopped, and she did not
tell him. When presently he found himself seated in an arm-chair, he
had only the vaguest idea of how he had got there, and no knowledge
whatever of the room in which he was. There was a gentleman who
occupied a seat behind a table who he had a dim feeling was observing
him with considerable curiosity. Something was said to him which he did
not catch, possibly because his hearing was unusually dull. The woman
at his side repeated it.
"My dear Jocelyn, this gentleman is asking if you are my husband, if
you are Sir Jocelyn Kingstone."
Sydney said something. He did not know what he said; he never did know;
but it seemed to be regarded as an efficient answer. Shortly something
else was said to him, which the woman again repeated. He had a misty
notion that she was doing a good deal of talking; that notion became
clearer in the days that were to come. She put her hand lightly on his
arm.
"Come, Jocelyn." She led him nearer to the table, placing him on a
chair which was drawn close up to it. "This is what you are to sign.
They have given me the money; here it is."
She held up what, although he did not realise it, was a bundle of
bank-notes.
"Is it all right?"
He did not know why he asked the question, but he asked it. It was the
first thing he had said consciously since he was in the room. He had
had an odd feeling that she wished him to ask the question. She smiled.
"Quite all right. I will count it if you like, but I assure you it's
right. Would you rather I counted it, or would you like to count it
yourself?"
"No; it doesn't matter, so long as it's right."
He was conscious that a piece of paper was on the table in front of
him, and that he had a pen between his fingers, though he was not sure
how either of them had got there. She pointed to the paper with her
finger.
"Sign here. Just put your name--Jocelyn Kingstone. My dear boy, how
your hand does shake!"
He was aware that it shook, but he was not aware of the glance that the
lady exchanged with the gentleman who was on the other side of the
table, to whom, when he had made an end of writing, she handed the
sheet of paper.
"What a scrawl! Jocelyn, your writing's getting worse and worse." Then,
to the elderly gentleman: "I'm afraid my husband's signature is not a
very easy one to read."
The elderly gentleman surveyed the performance through a pair of
gold-rimmed pince-nez smilingly.
"It isn't very legible, is it? Your signature is not very legible, Sir
Jocelyn; it would take an expert to decipher it. Would you mind, Lady
Kingstone, witnessing the fact that it is your husband's signature?"
"Do I mind? Of course I don't." She laughed as if she appreciated the
joke of the suggestion. "There--'Witness, Helena Kingstone,'--I think
you will be able to read that."
"That certainly is legible enough. You write a good bold hand, Lady
Kingstone, the sort of hand I like a woman to write."
When the pair had left the room the elderly gentleman said to a younger
one who was seated at a table to one side:
"That's a sad case, a very sad case indeed. That is quite a charming
woman, and not bad-looking; while he--he's the sort of person who, in a
better ordered state of society, would be consigned to a lethal chamber
at the earliest possible moment. Upon my word, I often wonder what
makes a woman marry such a man. Fancy, at this time of day, drunk."
The younger man seemed to consider before he spoke.
"It struck me that he was something else as well as drunk. He didn't
carry himself like an ordinary drunken man. He seemed to be under the
influence of some drug. She says that he's been ill; he looks it. I
wonder if they've been drugging him to bring him up to concert pitch."
The elder man shook his head. He seemed to be weighing the other's
words.
"It's a sad case, a very sad case, whichever way you look at it. Poor
woman! She may have had her own motives when she promised to love,
honour, and obey him, but it's a long row she has set herself to
plough."
When the pair in question were back in the brougham, and the horse's
head was turned the other way, they had not gone very far before a
distinct change took place in the lady's manner. She was no longer
solicitous; she no longer sat close to her companion's side; indeed,
she seemed disposed to give him as wide a berth as possible, to ignore
him as completely as the exigencies of the situation permitted, and she
never spoke a word. She was, possibly, too engrossed with the
singularity of her proceedings to pay any attention to him. On her lap
was a pile of bank-notes which she was dividing into separate parcels;
these parcels she was bestowing in distinctly surprising portions of
her attire. She slipped one parcel in the top of one stocking, a second
into the top of the other; she took off her shoes, and placed a wad of
notes in each; she turned up the sleeves of her coat--into the lining
about the wrists, in which an aperture seemed to have been purposely
cut, she inserted quite a number. Loosening her bodice, she slipped
several into the band at the top of her skirt. With the residue she
performed quite a surprising feat of legerdemain. She produced a small
bag which was made of what looked like oil-skin, into which she crammed
the notes; raising it to the back of her neck, she gave her shoulders a
sort of hunch, it slipped down the back of her dress; one could see
from the movements she made that she was trying to get it to settle in
its proper place. Then, for the first time, she turned towards Beaton.
Some of her performances had been hardly of the kind which the average
woman would care to essay in front of an entire stranger. She had been
as indifferent to her companion's presence as if he had been a
mechanical figure; and, indeed, when she looked at him, one perceived
that he might just as well have been. He seemed to be as devoid of
intelligence, as incapable of taking active interest in what was going
on about him; it was probable that he had been quite oblivious of what
she had been doing. But this time the spectacle he presented, instead
of amusing her, seemed to fill her with quite different feelings. She
addressed him all at once as if he had been a dog, her voice hard,
cold, strident, even a trifle vulgar:
"Hullo--over there!" He remained still, clearly not realising that he
was being spoken to. She went on in the same tone: "Now then, wake up!
Haven't you been ill quite long enough? Try another sort of game. Do
you hear me speak to you?" Apparently he did not. "Don't you, or won't
you? Are you drunk? Now then, this won't do. I'm very much obliged to
you, but I've had quite enough of it."
Leaning towards him, taking him by the shoulder, she began to shake him
with considerable vigour, considering he was a man, and a big one, and
she was a woman. The effect was, in its way--a grim way, ludicrous. His
hat first tilted forward over his nose, then dropped on to the floor;
his head fell forward over his chest. It seemed as if, if she kept on
shaking him, he would come to pieces. Perceiving this, she stopped,
eyeing him more closely, but still with no show of amusement, rather
with contempt and annoyance.
"What's the matter with you? Are you ill, or is it the liqueurs
and--the other things? Anyhow, I've had enough of it; I'm not going to
have you ill in here. The time has come when we must part. Do you hear?
Wake up!"
He did seem to wake up, in a kind of a fashion. He raised his head with
an effort, looking at her with lack-lustre eyes.
"What is it?"
"What is it? It's the key of the street, the same key you had before."
A thought seemed all at once to occur to her. Stooping, she took off
her right shoe, from it the wad of notes; selecting one, she replaced
the others and the shoe.
"When I first made your acquaintance you had nothing, and rather less.
Now, you've had a good night's rest, a bath, and other luxuries; you've
had good food and drink; you are rigged out in decent clothes from head
to foot; you've not done badly; but here's something else, as a sort of
tit-bit."
She held out the note. He not only paid no heed to it, but seemingly he
had no idea of what it was, or of what she was talking. This time she
did seem to be amused; she laughed right out, as if his grotesque
helplessness tickled her.
"Here, you're a pretty sort; I'll put it in your waistcoat pocket
for you. Mind you, it's a ten-pound note--do you hear, it's a
ten-pound note--for goodness sake do look as if you were trying to
understand--and it's in your waistcoat pocket; I've put it there; take
care, and don't you lose it; you'll want it before you're very much
older."
She slipped the note into his waistcoat pocket without his showing the
slightest sign of interest in what she was doing; he seemed to be
mumbling something, for his lips were moving, but it was impossible to
make out what he said.
"Now then, my funny friend, you'd better pull yourself together; we're
going to part--try to look as if you were sober, if you aren't."
She tapped at the window; the carriage stopped; she opened the door and
descended.
"This way, please." Taking him by the arm she drew him towards her, he
yielding with the old, uncomfortable docility. Somehow he joined her on
the pavement. "You've left your hat behind you, you can't go about
London without a hat." Picking it up from the floor of the carriage,
she placed it on his head. "That's not straight; there, that's better.
What a helpless child it is! Sorry I can't stop, but I've another
engagement; pleased to have met you; glad to have been able to do you a
good turn."
She was re-entering the carriage with a smile again upon her face, when
the man who had acted as Beaton's valet came round from the back and
stood beside her; at sight of him her smile vanished. He raised his hat
to Beaton.
"I also am pleased to have met you." He turned to the woman. "I think,
if you don't mind, or even if you do, that we'll keep that engagement
together. After you into the carriage."
Evidently she found the sight of him by no means gratifying.
"What's the meaning of this? What are you doing here? I thought it was
agreed that you should wait for me till I came back."
"I had a sort of idea that I might keep on waiting; it even struck me
as just possible that you might never come back at all. After you into
the carriage."
She hesitated; looked as if she would like to refuse; then, with a
laugh, which was hardly a happy one, she did as he suggested. He
followed her; the door was shut; the carriage drove off. Sydney Beaton
was left standing on the pavement; oblivious of what was taking place,
of where he was; as incapable, just then, of taking care of himself as
any inmate of an asylum. He remained standing where they had left him,
swaying to and fro. The fog had thickened; a drizzling rain had begun
to fall. It was not easy to make out where he was, but he was at the
corner of a street, in what seemed to be an old-world square, which in
that moment was as deserted as if all the houses round about it had
been empty and it was miles away from anywhere.
But presently his solitude was broken; two men came round the corner,
doubtful-looking men, shabby-genteel looking men, in some queer way the
sort of men one would expect to find prowling about in such a place at
such a time. At sight of Beaton they paused; they exchanged glances;
one nudged the other. Then one spoke to him, with what he possibly
meant to be an ingratiating smile.
"Nasty day, captain; looks as if we were going to have a real London
particular." When Sydney seemed to be unconscious even of his presence
his tone became a little insolent. "Waiting for anybody, guv'nor--or
are you just a-taking of the air?"
The other spoke, with a glance at his companion which had in it
something which was evil:
"Can't you see that the gentleman's taking of the air? What he wants is
someone to take it with him; what do you say to our offering the
gentleman our society?"
Sydney remained speechless, motionless, save that he continued swaying
to and fro. They again exchanged glances. The first man said, with
ostentatious impudence:
"I say, old cock, can you tell us how many beans make five?" Sydney was
still silent. The first man went on. "Here, Gus, you take one of the
gentleman's arms and I'll take the other: what he wants is a little
bright, cheerful society, and he'll get it if we take him along with
us."
Each of this most unpromising-looking pair took one of Sydney's arms;
and without his attempting to remonstrate, or to offer the faintest
show of resistence, they led him away.