Old fires and Profitable Ghosts. Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
and I followed, still to the tune of the "Wiener Blut."
But now, at the corner of Charles Street, I blundered against another policeman, who flashed his lantern in my face, stared after Gervase, and asked me what my game was. I demanded innocently enough to be shown the nearest way to Oxford Street, and the fellow, after pausing a moment to chew his suspicions, walked with me slowly to the south-west corner of Berkeley Square, and pointed northwards.
"That's your road," he growled, "straight on. And don't you forget it!"
He stood and watched me on my way. Nor did I dare to turn aside until well clear of the square. At the crossing of Davies and Grosvenor Streets, however, I supposed myself safe, and halted for a moment.
From the shadow of a porch at my elbow a thin voice accosted me.
"Kind gentleman——"
"Heh?" I spun round on her sharply: for it was a woman, stretching out one skinny hand and gathering her rags together with the other.
"Kind gentleman, spare a copper. I've known better days—I have indeed."
"Well," said I, "as it happens, I'm in the same case. And they couldn't be much worse, could they?"
She drew a shuddering breath back through her teeth, but still held out her hand. I felt for my last coin, and her fingers closed on it so sharply that their long nails scraped the back of mine.
"Kind gentleman——"
"Ay, they are kind, are they not?"
She stared at me, and in a nerveless tone let one horrible oath escape her.
"There'll be one less before morning," said I, "if that's any consolation to you. Good night!" Setting off at a shuffling run, I doubled back along Grosvenor Street and Bond Street to the point where I hoped to pick up the trail again. And just there, at the issue of Bruton Street, two constables stood ready for me.
"I thought as much," said the one who set me on my way. "Hi, you! Wait a moment, please;" then to the other, "Best turn his pockets out, Jim."
"If you dare to try——" I began, with my hand in my pocket: the next moment I found myself sprawling face downward on the sharp crust of snow.
"Hullo, constables!" said a voice. "What's the row?" It was Gervase. He had turned leisurely back from the slope of Conduit Street, and came strolling down the road with his hands in his pockets.
"This fellow, Sir—we have reason to think he was followin' you."
"Quite right," Gervase answered cheerfully, "of course he was."
"Oh, if you knew it, Sir——"
"Certainly I knew it. In fact, he was following at my invitation."
"What for did he tell me a lie, then?" grumbled the constable, chapfallen.
I had picked myself up by this time and was wiping my face. "Look here," I put in, "I asked you the way to Oxford Street, that and nothing else." And I went on to summarise my opinion of him.
"Oh! it's you can swear a bit," he growled. "I heard you just now."
"Yes," Gervase interposed suavely, drawing the glove from his right hand and letting flash a diamond finger-ring in the lamp-light. "He is a bit of a beast, policeman, and it's not for the pleasure of it that I want his company."
A sovereign passed from hand to hand. The other constable had discreetly drawn off a pace or two.
"All the same, it's a rum go."
"Yes, isn't it?" Gervase assented in his heartiest tone. "Here is my card, in case you're not satisfied."
"If you're satisfied, Sir——"
"Quite so. Good night!" Gervase thrust both hands into his pockets again and strode off. I followed him, with a heart hotter than ever—followed him like a whipped cur, as they say. Yes, that was just it. He who had already robbed me of everything else had now kicked even the pedestal from under me as a figure of tragedy. Five minutes ago I had been the implacable avenger tracking my unconscious victim across the city. Heaven knows how small an excuse it was for self-respect; but one who has lost character may yet chance to catch a dignity from circumstances; and to tell the truth, for all my desperate earnestness I had allowed my vanity to take some artistic satisfaction in the sinister chase. It had struck me—shall I say?—as an effective ending, nor had I failed to note that the snow lent it a romantic touch.
And behold, the unconscious victim knew all about it, and had politely interfered when a couple of unromantic "Bobbies" threatened the performance by tumbling the stalking avenger into the gutter! They had knocked my tragedy into harlequinade as easily as you might bash in a hat; and my enemy had refined the cruelty of it by coming to the rescue and ironically restarting the poor play on lines of comedy. I saw too late that I ought to have refused his help, to have assaulted the constable and been hauled to the police-station. Not an impressive wind-up, to be sure; but less humiliating than this! Even so, Gervase might have trumped the poor card by following with a gracious offer to bail me out!
As it was, I had put the whip into his hand, and must follow him like a cur. The distance he kept assured me that the similitude had not escaped him. He strode on without deigning a single glance behind, still in cold derision presenting me his broad back and silently challenging me to shoot. And I followed, hating him worse than ever, swearing that the last five minutes should not be forgotten, but charged for royally when the reckoning came to be paid.
I followed thus up Conduit Street, up Regent Street, and across the Circus. The frost had deepened and the mud in the roadway crackled under our feet. At the Circus I began to guess, and when Gervase struck off into Great Portland Street, and thence by half-a-dozen turnings northward by east, I knew to what house he was leading me.
At the entrance of the side street in which it stood he halted and motioned me to come close.
"I forget," he said with a jerk of his thumb, "if you still have the entry. These people are not particular, to be sure."
"I have not," I answered, and felt my cheeks burning. He could not see this, nor could I see the lift of his eyebrows as he answered—
"Ah? I hadn't heard of it. … You'd better step round by the mews, then. You know the window, the one which opens into the passage leading to Pollox Street. Wait there. It may be ten minutes before I can open."
I nodded. The house was a corner one, between the street and a by-lane tenanted mostly by cabmen; and at the back of it ran the mews where they stabled their horses. Half-way down this mews a narrow alley cut across it at right angles: a passage unfrequented by traffic, known only to the stablemen, and in the daytime used only by their children, who played hop-scotch on the flagged pavement, where no one interrupted them. You wondered at its survival—from end to end it must have measured a good fifty yards—in a district where every square foot of ground fetched money; until you learned that the house had belonged, in the 'twenties, to a nobleman who left a name for eccentric profligacy, and who, as owner of the land, could afford to indulge his humours. The estate since his death was in no position to afford money for alterations, and the present tenants of the house found the passage convenient enough.
My footsteps disturbed no one in the sleeping mews; and doubling back noiselessly through the passage, I took up my station beside the one low window which opened upon it from the blank back premises of the house. Even with the glimmer of snow to help me, I had to grope for the window-sill to make sure of my bearings. The minutes crawled by, and the only sound came from a stall where one of the horses had kicked through his thin straw bedding and was shuffling an uneasy hoof upon the cobbles. Then just as I too had begun to shuffle my frozen feet, I heard a scratching sound, the unbolting of a shutter, and Gervase drew up the sash softly.
"Nip inside!" he whispered. "No more noise than you can help. I have sent off the night porter. He tells me the bank is still going in the front of the house—half-a-dozen playing, perhaps."
I