The Crime and the Criminal Part 41

It seemed that when the 8.40 train from Brighton had arrived at Victoria--the 8.40? Why, that was the train in which I had travelled with Tommy! My stars and bars!--it was discovered that the window in one of the carriages was shivered to atoms, that the carriage was marked with blood, and that it bore signs of having been the scene of a recent struggle.

Jerusalem! what was coming next? I had to put down the paper and take another drink of tea.

Nothing came next except what they called a "presumption," and if ever there was a piece of real presumption it was that same.

The presumption, according to the papers, was that the railway carriage had been the scene of a hideous tragedy--of a frightful murder, of one of those recurrent crimes, which force us, from time to time, to recognise the dangers which, in England, at any rate, are a.s.sociated with railway travelling. The ident.i.ty of one of the _dramatis personae_--as poor, dear Daniel used to say. "I'm a-quoting"--was unfortunately, but too evident. There was the woman who had been found lying among the laurels--I wonder if they were laurels?--with her face turned towards the skies. As a matter of fact, she had lain face downwards. It was owing to that I had not seen her face. She was a silent but an eloquent witness--that was touching. The public demanded the prompt production of at least another of the _dramatis personae_--"still a-quoting"--of the man--it would not, perhaps, display too much rashness to hazard the prediction that it would prove to be a man--who had hurled her there.

If that did not point to Tommy, I should like to know to whom it pointed.

I began to wonder. What had Tommy done when I had made my exit? Had he done nothing but twiddle his thumbs and stare? It would be characteristic of him if he had. He never did do the right thing at the right time if there was a wrong thing which could be done. The window might have been smashed by the banging of the door. I dare say that there had been signs of a struggle. I could not make out about the blood, but, perhaps, in the midst of his muddle, Tommy's nose had started bleeding. That was just the sort of thing his nose would do. It was quite conceivable, to one who knew him, that Tommy had toddled home without saying a word to any one about the lady who had tumbled out upon the line. If so----

If so, and I kept in the background, it was equally conceivable that, as a glorious climax to the muddle, because of that woman who had been found upon the line, Tommy might find himself in a very awkward fix.

I had to take another drink of tea.

I found what might turn out to be the top brick of the building while I was in the very act of drinking. Tommy himself might think that I was dead. I might have died. From a mere consideration of the odds point of view, I ought to have died. The miracle was that I wasn't dead. Tommy knew nothing about the woman who had been thrown on the top of me. He might think--he was capable of thinking anything, but in the present instance it was natural that he should think--that the body which had been found was mine.

If he did think so?

But he had seen me the night before. The fact rather supported my theories than otherwise. He had glared at me as if I had been a ghost.

The sight of me had struck him senseless. According to the cabman, he was drunk. Knowing what he knew, or what he thought he knew, he might very well suppose that I was a creature born of his delirium.

It appeared to me that my cue, for the present, at any rate, was to keep sitting on the fence. I might still be even with Tommy, and that without having to move a finger of either hand. As for my friend, the gentleman--we should see.

Oddly enough, I came across Mr. Reginald Townsend that very afternoon.

I had been shopping--shopping was about all there was for me to do; after Strikehigh City I found life pretty dull West Kensington way, but then I had expected it to be dull. As I was strolling homewards, who should I see but Mr. Reginald Townsend. He was a sight for sore eyes--at least, he was a sight for mine. I like to see a man that is a man--handsome, well set up, and dressed as only the thoroughbred man knows how to dress. I am not so particular about a man's morals as about his manners, and his manners were all they ought to be. From his bearing, as he stood there, in front of me, you would have thought I was the very person he had wanted to see and had expected to see. I don't believe that he had supposed that I was within a hundred miles of him. I should not have been surprised to learn that, until my actual presence recalled it to him, he had entirely forgotten my existence.

He was the sort of creature one finds amusing.

After poor, dear Daniel one liked to feel that one was connected with such a picture of a man. One liked to feel that he was doing credit to one's good taste as he was walking by one's side.

I asked him to come and have a cup of tea. He was delighted, or he professed to be. When I remembered the occasion on which I had first encountered him it seemed to me that, in his heart of hearts--or whatever it was that pa.s.sed for his heart of hearts--he must wish that I was at the bottom of the sea. He could not like being reminded of Three Bridges Junction. But one can never tell. From his manner he might have met me first of all in Queen Victoria's drawing-room, and none but pleasant memories might have been connected with the meeting.

When we got indoors, who should I find in the drawing-room, sitting in solitary state, but Mr. Haines. The look he gave me! And the look he gave my friend, the gentleman! The old nuisance might have been my husband.

Mr. Town send appeared oblivious of there being anything peculiar in the old worry's demeanour, and, fortunately, the old worry did not stay long, considerably to my surprise. I was afraid that he would make a point of outstaying Mr. Townsend. But it was all the other way. After he had tried to freeze us for about five minutes he disappeared.

"It's very odd," said Mr. Townsend, as soon as he was gone, "but I've either seen that gentleman before or somebody very like him. There's something in his face which positively haunts me."

I shook my head.

"Your imagination plays you a trick; it sometimes is like that. Mr.

Haines has only been in England, for the first time in his life, for about a month. He was my late husband's partner. I fancy he is under the impression that I'm a little lonely."

"That is a complaint which may easily be cured."

"The complaint of loneliness?"

"You will be able to make as many friends as you desire."

"It is not so easy for a woman to make friends as you may, perhaps, suppose--that is, of course, friends who are worth the making. You see, I have ambitions."

"Ambitions?"

"Yes, ambitions." He looked as if he would have liked to have asked me what I meant, only he was too civil. "In my position I think I am ent.i.tled to have ambitions."

He still seemed puzzled. It did me good to look at him, to know that he was sitting there, to breathe in, as it were, the aroma of his refinement and his high breeding. I have always hungered for those two things in a man, and I have never had them. I could understand a woman's falling in love with my friend, the gentleman. For the first time in my life the idea of a woman being in love with a man became conceivable.

All too soon--for me--he rose to go.

"You will come again?"

"I shall only be too happy."

"Seriously, I mean it, Mr. Townsend."

"And equally seriously I mean it too. Our acquaintance was made in an informal fashion, but I trust that, in course of time, I may be able to induce you to allow the informality to stand excused."

"It will be your fault if you do not."

When he went an appreciable something seemed to have departed with him, and that although his voice, his presence, seemed still to linger in the air. I found myself touching the cup from which he had been drinking, even the chair on which he had been sitting, with quite a curious sensation.

It was very odd.

I believe that if I had been born with a silver spoon in my mouth, and the right sort of man to whom to attach myself, and to become attached to him, I should have been one of the best women in the world. I agree with Becky Sharp, that for a woman five thousand a year is something; but it is nothing, after all, without a man. Love in a cottage is a lunatic absurdity. Love itself may be all stuff. But there is something which, for all I can tell, may be akin to love. If one never knows it, life can never have its fullest savour. Perhaps, after all, for every square peg there may be a square hole somewhere in the world. If, when it meets it--it might; one can conceive that such meetings are--it cannot claim, and obtain possession, it will be hard upon the peg.

I had half a mind to tell the girl to put the cup which he had used aside and keep it free from the contamination of anybody else's lips until he came again. It would seem so silly. And yet----

Somebody came striding into the room. I turned. It was Jack Haines come back again. I almost dropped the cup, which I was holding, from my hand in my surprise. He was looking as black as black could be and his manners proved to be in full accord with his looks.

"Who is that man?"

"What man? What is the matter with you, Mr. Haines? I thought that you had gone."

"You know what man I mean--he who has just left your house."

"I am at a loss to know how it concerns you. That gentleman is a friend of mine."

"He is a thing of evil."

"Mr. Haines!"

"He is a shedder of innocent blood!"

Jack Haines was becoming really charming. I had always known he could be pleasant. I was only just beginning to realise how pleasant he could be when he tried.

"Mr. Haines, are you stark mad?"

"Woman!"