Sinister Street Volume Ii Part 93

"I think the walk has done you good."

"Yes," Barnes doubtfully admitted. "I don't think it has done me much harm."

They had lunch at Romano's, where Barnes drank a good deal of Chianti and became full of confidence in his future.

"That's where it is, Fane. A fellow like you is lucky. But that's no reason why I shouldn't be lucky in my turn. My life has been a failure so far. Yes, I'm not going to attempt to deny it. There are lots of things in my life that might have been different. You'll understand when I say different I mean pleasanter for everybody all round, myself included. But that's all finished. With this fruit-farm--well, of course it's no good grumbling and running down good things--those apples we saw were big enough to make anybody's fortune. Cawdas.h.i.t, Fane, I can see myself sitting under one of those apple-trees and counting the b.l.o.o.d.y fruit falling down at my feet and me popping them into baskets and selling them--where was it he said we sold them?" Barnes poured out more Chianti. "Really, it seems a sin on a fine day like this to be hanging about in London. Well, I've had some sprees in old London, and that's a fact; so I'm not going to start running it down now. If I hadn't lost that watch-bracelet, I wouldn't give a d.a.m.n for anybody. Good old London," he went on meditatively. "Yes, I've had some times--good times and bad times--and here I am."

He gradually became incoherent, and Michael thought it would be as well to escort him back to Leppard Street and impress on him once again that he must remove all his things immediately.

"You'll have to be quick with your packing-up. You ought to sail next week. I shall go and see about your pa.s.sage to-morrow."

They drove back to Leppard Street in a taxi, and as they got out Barnes said emphatically:

"You know what it is, Fane? Cawdas.h.i.t! I feel like a marquis when I'm out with you, and it I hadn't have lost that watch-bracelet I'd feel like the b.l.o.o.d.y German Emperor. That's me. All up in the air one minute, and yet worry myself barmy over a little thing like a watch the next."

"Hullo!" he exclaimed, looking up the road as their taxi drove off.

"Somebody else is playing at being a millionaire."

Another taxi was driving into Leppard Street.

Michael had already opened the front door, and he told Barnes not to hang about on the steps. Barnes turned reluctantly from his inspection of the new taxi's approach. It pulled up at Number One, and three men jumped out.

"That's your man," Michael heard one of them say, and in another moment he heard, "Henry Meats ... I hold a warrant ... murder of Cissie ...

anything you say ... used against you," all in the mumbo-jumbo of a nightmare.

Michael came down the steps again very quickly; and Barnes, now handcuffed, turned to him despairingly.

"Tell 'em my name isn't Meats, Fane. Tell 'em they've made a mistake.

Oh, my G.o.d, I never done it! I never done it!"

The two men were pushing him, dead white, crumpled, sobbing, into the taxi; he seemed very small beside the big men with their square shoulders and bristly mustaches. Michael heard him still moaning as the taxi jangled and whirred abruptly forward. The third man watched it disappear between the two walls; then he strolled up the steps to enter the house. Mrs. Cleghorne was already in the hall, and over the bal.u.s.ters of each landing faces could be seen peering down. As if the word were uttered by the house itself, "murder" floated in a whisper upon the air. The faces shifted; doors opened and shut far above; footsteps hurried to and fro; and still of all these sounds "murder" was the most audible.

"This is the gentleman who rents the rooms," Mrs. Cleghorne was saying.

"But I've not been near them till yesterday evening for six months,"

Michael hurriedly explained.

"That's quite right," Mrs. Cleghorne echoed.

"Well, I'm afraid we must go through them," said the officer.

"Oh, of course."

"Let me see, is this your address?"

"Well, no--Cheyne Walk--173."

"We might want to have a little talk with you about this here Meats."

Michael was enraged with himself for not a.s.severating "Barnes! Barnes!

Barnes!" as he had been begged to do. He despised himself for not trying to save that white crumpled thing huddled between those big men with their bristly mustaches; yet all the while he felt violently afraid that the police officer would think him involved in these disgraceful rooms, that he would suppose the pictures and the tawdry furniture belonged to him, that he would imagine the petticoats and underlinen strewn about the floor had something to do with him.

"If you want me," he found himself saying, "you have my address."

Quickly he hurried away from Leppard Street, and traveled in a trance of shame to Hardingham. Alan was just going in to bat, when Michael walked across from the Hall to the cricket-field.

Stella came from her big basket chair to greet him, and for a while he sat with her in the b.u.t.tercups, watching Alan at the wicket. Nothing had ever seemed so easy as the bowling of the opposite side on this fine June evening, and Michael tried to banish the thought of Barnes in the s.p.a.ciousness of these level fields. Stella was evidently being very careful not to convey the impression that she had lately won a victory over him. It was really ridiculous, Michael thought, as he plucked idly the b.u.t.tercups and made desultory observations to Stella about the merit of a stroke by Alan, it was more than ridiculous, it was deliberate folly to enmesh himself with such horrors as he had beheld at Leppard Street. There were doubtless very unpleasant events continually happening in this world, but willfully to drag one's self into misery on account of them was merely to show an incapacity to appreciate the more fortunate surroundings of one's allotted niche. The avoidance of even the sight of evil was as justifiable as the avoidance of evil itself, and the moral economy of the world might suffer a dangerous displacement, if everyone were to involve themselves in such events as those in which himself had lately been involved. Duty was owing all the time to people nearer at hand than Barnes. No doubt the world would be better for being rid of him; diseases of the body must be fought, and the corruption of human society must be cleansed. Any pity for Barnes was a base sentimentalism; it was merely a reaction of personal discomfort at having seen an unpleasant operation. The sentimentalism of that cry "Don't hurt him!" was really contemptible, and since it seemed that he was likely to be too weak to bear the sight of the cleansing knife, he must in future avoid the occasion of its use. Otherwise his intellectual outlook was going to be sapped, and he would find himself in the ranks of the faddists.

"I think I shall stay down here the rest of the summer, if I may," he said to Stella.

"My dear, of course you can. We'll have a wonderful time. Hullo, Alan is retiring."

Alan came up and sat beside them in the b.u.t.tercups.

"I thought I saw you just as I was going in," he said. "Anything going on in town?"

"No, nothing much," said Michael. "I saw a man arrested for murder this afternoon."

"Did you really? How beastly! Our team's just beginning to get into shape. I say, Stella. That youth working on old Rundle's farm is going to be pret-ty good. Did you see him lift their fast bowlers twice running over the pond?"

Michael strolled away to take a solitary walk. It seemed incredible now to think that he had brought Lily down here, that he had wandered with her over this field. What an infringement it must have seemed to Stella and Alan of their already immemorial peace. They had really been very good about his invasion. And here was the wood where he and Stella had fought. Michael sat down in the glade and listened to the busy flutterings of the birds. Why had Stella objected to his marriage with Lily? All the superficial answers were ready at once; but was not her real objection only another facet of the diamond of selfishness?

Selfishness was a diamond. Precious, hard, and very often beautiful--when seen by itself.

Michael spent a week at Hardingham, during which he managed to put out of his mind the thought of Barnes in prison awaiting his trial. Then one day the butler informed him of a person wishing to speak to him. In the library he found the detective who had asked for his address at Leppard Street.

"Sorry to have to trouble you, sir, but there was one or two little questions we wanted to ask."

Michael feared he would have to appear at the trial, and asked at once if that was going to be necessary.

"Oh, no, I don't think so. We've got it all marked out fair and square against Mr. Meats. He doesn't stand a chance of getting off. How did you come to be mixed up with him?"

Michael explained the circ.u.mstances which had led up to his knowing Meats.

"I see; and you just wanted to give him a bit of a helping hand. Oh, well, the feeling does you credit, I'm bound to say; but another time, sir, I should make a few inquiries first. We should probably have had him before, if he hadn't been helped by you. Of course, I quite understand you knew nothing about this murder, but anyone can often do a lot of harm by helping undeserving people. We mightn't have nabbed him even now, if some woman hadn't brought us a nice little bit of evidence, and I found some more things myself after a search. Oh, yes, he doesn't stand an earthly. We knew for a moral cert who did it, straightaway; but the police don't get a fair chance in England. We let all these blooming Radicals interfere too much. That's my opinion. Anyone would think the police was a lot of criminals by the way some people talk about them."

"Is anybody defending him?" Michael asked.

"Oh, he'll be awarded a counsel," said the detective indignantly. "For which you and me has to pay. That's a nice thing, isn't it? But he doesn't stand an earthly."

"Where will he be hanged?"

"Pentonville."

Michael thought how Mrs. Murdoch in Neptune Crescent would shudder some Tuesday morning in the near future.

"I'm sorry you should have had to come all this way to find me," Michael said. He hated himself for being polite to the inspector, but he could not help it. He rang the bell.

"Oh, Dawkins, will you give Inspector--what is your name, by the bye?"