III
A HOPELESS CASE
Alfred Croucher had the refreshing attribute of looking almost as greata ruffian as he really was. His eyes swelled with a vulgar cunning, hismouth was coarse and pitiless; no pedestal of fine raiment could havecorrected so low a cast of countenance, or enabled its possessor to passfor a moment as a gentleman or a decent liver. But he had often looked aworse imitation than on the morning of his triumphant exit from thejail, his bullet head diminished in a borrowed cap, his formidablephysique tempered by a Burberry all too sober for his taste.
Nor was that all the change in Mr. Croucher at this agreeable crisis ofhis career. The bulging eyes were glazed with a wonder which quiteeclipsed the light of triumph; and they were fixed, in unwillingfascination, upon the tall figure to which the borrowed plumes belonged,whom he had never beheld before that hour, but at whose heels he trottedfrom the bowels of the prison to the motor-car flashing in the sunbeyond the precincts.
"'Alf a mo'!" cried Croucher, making a belated stand instead of jumpingin as he was bid. "I didn't rightly catch your name inside, let alonewot you got to do with me an' my affairs. If you come from my s'lic'tor,I should like to know why; if you're on the religious lay, 'ere's your'at an' coat, and I won't trouble you for a lift."
"My name is Dollar," replied the motorist. "My business is neither legalnor religious, and it need not necessarily be medical, though I dohappen to be a doctor. I came at the request of a friend of yours, inthat friend's car, to see if there's nothing we can do to make up to youfor all you've been through."
"A friend of mine!" ejaculated Croucher, with engaging incredulity.
The doctor smiled, but dryly, as he had spoken. "It's one of the manyunknown friends you have gained lately, Mr. Croucher. And I should liketo make one more, if only to the extent of a little spin and somebreakfast at my house. There is more sympathy for you than you seem torealize, and one or two of us are ready to show it in any way you willpermit. But I wouldn't stand here, unless you want a publicdemonstration first."
Mr. Croucher decided to disregard the suspicions that a kindness alwaysexcited in his mind, and took his place in the car without furtherargument or a second look at the handful of the curious alreadycollecting on the pavement. In a moment he was wondering why he had beensuch a fool as to hesitate at all. The car slid out of the shadow of theprison into the sunlight of a bright spring morning, over a sparklingThames, and through the early traffic without let or hitch. And thegentleman in the car knew how to hold his tongue, and to submit himselfto sidelong inspection as a gentleman should. But little had Crouchermade of him by Welbeck Street, except that he looked too knowing to be acrank, and not half soft enough for his notion of the good Samaritan.
Breakfast removed any lingering misgivings, but might have created themin a more sophisticated mind. It was an English breakfast fit for aforeign potentate; there were soles, kidneys, eggs and bacon, hot rolls,and lashings of such coffee as made Mr. Croucher forget a previouscraving for alcohol. He thought it funny that so generous a repastshould be served on a black old table without a cloth, and he did notfancy the leathern chairs with the great big nails, more fit for amuseum than a private gentleman's house. But a subsequent cigar, inwhich the private gentleman did not join him, was up to the visitor'shighest standard, and the subject of a more articulate appreciation thanall that had gone before.
"You shall smoke the box if you care to stay with me," said DoctorDollar, with a warmer smile.
"Stay with you!" exclaimed Croucher, suffering a return of his worstsuspicions. "Why should I stay with you?"
"Because there are worse places, Croucher, and one of them has left youa bit of a wreck."
"A bit of one!" cried the other, in a sudden snarling whine. "They'vejust about done me in, doctor, if you want to know. Two munfs' 'ard,that I was never ordered, on top of one in the condemned cell for whatI never done! That's 'ow they've tret me--somefink crool--wuss than wotyou'd treat a dawg wot give you 'ydrophobia. And wot _'ad_ I done?'Elped meself when the stuff was under my nose, an' me starvin', an' thejooler's winder ready broke for a cove by them as never 'ad histemptitions. I don't say it was right, mind you; but that much I did do,and not what they said I 'ad an' couldn't prove. They couldn't prove it,because I never done it; they couldn't 'ang me, because they didn'tdare; but they made me sweat an' shiver just the same. They took tenyears off of me life; they give me such a time as I shan't forget tillmy dying day. And as if that wasn't thick enough, they give me twomunfs' 'ard on their own--no judge or jury for that little lot--an' turnme out wot _you_ calls a bit of a wreck, but _I_ calls a creepin'corpse!"
And the animated remains wiped a forehead wet already with the throes ofdeglutition, and eyes that were not wet at all, before applying aflickering light to his neglected Upmann.
"What you say is perfectly fair," observed the doctor, in a sadlyunimpassioned tone; "but it is also fair to remember that others havebeen saying it for you for some time past, and that you are free thismorning as the result. I confess I feared they might keep you longer;but I evidently had not your grasp of the niceties of your actualoffense. As to your mental and bodily sufferings, I can see some of theeffects for myself, and those at least I could undo. That was the ideain meeting you, and perhaps I ought to say at once that it was not myidea. It was that of the unknown friend of whom I have already spoken;but I am prepared to carry it out. I run a kind of nursing home, here inmy house, and there's a bed ready for you if you care to occupy it."
"A nursing 'ome!" said Croucher, shrinking from a vision of lint andligatures. "There's nuffunk so much the matter with me that I want to gointo an 'ome."
"Nothing that rest could not cure--rest and diet--I agree," said thedoctor, with an eye on the empty dishes.
"But won't it cost a lot?" inquired Croucher, thinking of the kidneysespecially. "I'm stony-broke, you see," he explained with increasedbitterness.
"Our friend insists on paying the bill," said the doctor, grimly.
"And who is our wonderful friend, doctor, when 'e or she's at 'ome?"
Doctor Dollar laughed as he pushed back his chair. "That's the one thingyou mustn't ask me; but come up and see the room before you make up yourmind against it."
It was at the top and back of the house, less lofty than those intowhich the Home Secretary had peeped on a previous occasion, butsimilarly appointed, and more attractive in the morning light and thatof a fire already crackling in the grate. By the fireside stood a whitewicker chair and a glass table strewn with the newest and lightest ofmonthly and weekly literature; ash-trays and match-boxes were incomfortable evidence; a bed of vestal purity was turned down inreadiness, and a suit of gay pajamas airing with a bathgown on a set ofbright brass pipes.
"The bathroom is next door," explained the doctor; "you would have itpractically to yourself, but your room would be your castle."
And he pointed out an efficient bolt upon the door.
"You wouldn't lock me in on the other side?" suggested Crouchersuspiciously.
"Certainly not; you may have the key; but I should expect you to keep toyour own floor, and, of course, to the house. You would not be aprisoner in any sense; but if you went out, Croucher, I'm afraid youwould have to stay out. Otherwise my treatment would not have a fairchance; what you require, in the first instance, is absolute rest and nomore truck with the outside world than you had where you have been."
"An' good 'olesome grub?" suggested Croucher with another slant of hisgoggle eyes.
"And plenty of square meals. Perhaps not so square as this morning's,because you won't have any exercise; but that sort of thing."
"A little drop of anythin' to drink, doctor?"
"With your meals, and in moderation, by all means; but don't ask me fornightcaps, and don't try to smuggle anything in."
"I wouldn't do such a thing!" exclaimed Croucher, with virtuousdecision. "Doctor, I'm your man, and ready to turn in as soon as everyou like."
And a shabby waistcoat hu
ng unbuttoned at the swoop of a horned thumb.
"One moment," said the doctor. "If you are really coming to me, andcoming to stay, I am to telephone to my tailor, who will take somelittle time getting here."
"Your tailor!" cried Croucher. "Where the dooce does _'e_ come in?"
"You may well ask!" replied Dollar with involuntary candor. "That friendin need, who was the first to assert your innocence, and to whom you owemore than you will ever know, is anxious to give you a fresh start inlife, and an entire new outfit in which to make it."
"Well! I call that 'andsome," declared Alfred Croucher, for once withoutreserve. "I won't arst 'oo it is no more, but I shall live in 'opes o'findin' out an' sayin' thanky like a man. Not but wot it's right," headded after all, "for them as is rich to 'old out an 'elpin' 'and tothem as is pore and 'ave been tret like I've been, through no fault o'their own. But it ain't everybody as sees it like that, an' it makesyou think better o' the world when you strike them as does."
"I agree," said the doctor, in a tone entirely lost on his expansivepatient.
"I'm griteful to 'im," that worthy went so far as to assert, "and to youtoo, sir, if it comes to that."
Doctor Dollar took the opportunity of being no less explicit in histurn.
"There's no reason why it should come to that, Croucher, I assure you. Ican not too strongly impress on you that anything I do for you is bybusiness arrangement with the friend who takes this extraordinaryinterest in your career."
In this statement, but especially in its relative clause, there was anote of sheer resentment which recalled other notes and other clauses tothe retentive memory of Mr. Croucher. In a flash the lot had fused inhis suspicious mind, and so visibly that Dollar was relieved to findhimself the object of suspicion.
"You talk as if it went against your grain," said Croucher, with a growland a show of growler's teeth. "I 'ope you don't think I went an' doneit all the time, do yer?"
"I don't follow you, Croucher."
"I mean the big job--the first job--the one I very near swung for!"muttered the fellow, hoarse and hot with evident emotion.
"No; indeed I don't," responded the doctor, in an unexpected voice; andhe sighed, as though to think that his sentiments toward his patientshould have been so misunderstood.
Such at least was the patient's final interpretation of all that wasunsatisfactory in the doctor's manner; and if a doubt still rankled inhis mind, it was but the crumpled petal in what was almost literally abed of roses. Bed and room alike were the most luxurious in which AlfredCroucher had ever lain; after prison they were as the seventh heavenafter the most excruciating circle of Dante's Inferno. He stretched hisgreat limbs in peace ineffable, fell asleep dreaming of the fine flashsuits for which they had been duly measured, and was never decentlyawake until the evening.
A substantial tea, when he did wake up, was the least they could provideafter neglecting to rouse a man for his midday meal; but a distinctgrievance on that score was forgot in the appetite that accrued fordinner, and the infinitely tactful choice of the eventful viands. Steakand onions was the strong act of a romantic drama after the very heartof this transpontine rough. If he had been shown a bill of fare, AlfredCroucher would have chosen steak and onions, with Welsh rarebit tofollow; and Welsh rarebit did follow, as if by magic. There was ratherless to be said for the drink; the patient could have done with a longerand a stronger draught. But it was a drop of good stuff, if Mr. Croucherwas any judge; and he decided not to create a possibly prejudicialimpression by complaints of quality or quantity.
"You done me top-'ole," he murmured, rolling his bulbs of eyes when thedoctor stood over him once more. "Top-'ole, you 'ave, and no error. Inever struck a nicer bit o' fillet. Saucy glass o' wine that, too. Notthat I was ever much 'and at the liquor, but there are times w'en itseems to do yer good."
"You shall continue to take it, medicinally," returned Dollar, gravely;"but don't count on the type of fare you've had to-day. Three meals infuture, but rather lighter ones. The first day was different, I tried toput myself in your place, and am glad I seem to have succeeded on thewhole. But remember you are here to lie low, and that doesn't do onfighting food. Sufficient for the day, Croucher! Here are some flowersfrom the friend who works by stealth, and these are the weeds I promisedyou this morning. You might do worse than judge the givers by theirgifts."
It was perhaps as well that Alfred Croucher did not pause to puzzle outthat saying, for the rare blooms were as pearls before his kindred ofthe sty, but the box of Upmanns as a trough of offal. One was ignitedwithout delay; yet it was hardly a matter of hours before the charteredsluggard was blissfully asleep once more, his door locked and bolted onprinciple, and a red fire dying in the grate.
II
It might have been a falling coal that woke him up. Such was theinnocent Croucher's first impression. But in that case it was nothingless than a shower of coals, a gentle but continuous downpour, and theyfell with a curiously crisp and metallic tinkle. Moreover, the soundwas not from the fire after all, but apparently from the window on theopposite side of the room.
Croucher lay listening until his quickened senses could no longer bedeceived. Somebody was at his window, the dormer window that anybodycould get at over the leads, that ought to have been securely barred butwasn't, as he suddenly remembered with aggrieved dismay. He had himselfconsidered that unprotected window and those conducive leads, in one ofhis last waking moments, as a not impossible solution of the whiskyproblem.
But this was different; this was awful; this was a case for alarming thehouse without scruple or delay. It should have been a great moment for abit of an expert, who had once served the humane equivalent of sevenyears for an ambitious burglary of his own; but the defect of characterwhich had spelled failure on that occasion, when an elderly householderhad held him up with an unloaded revolver, rendered Mr. Croucherincapable of appreciating the present situation as it deserved. He wasfar too shaken to think of the former affair, or to feel for a momentlike a 'busman on his proverbial holiday or an actor at the front of thehouse. He did feel bitterly indignant that a patient in a nursing homeshould be exposed to such terrors by night; and he had got as far as hiselbow toward a display of spirit (and incipient virtue) when the catchflew back with as much noise as he might have made himself. Before morecould happen, Mr. Croucher had relapsed upon his pillow with astentorian snore.
Then a sash went up too slowly, limbs crossed the sill and felt thefloor with excessive caution, and for a little lifetime Alfred Crouchersuffered more exquisitely than toward the end in the condemned cell. Themonster was leaning over him, breathing hotly in his face, all buttouching his frozen skin.
"Alfie!" said a blessed voice, as a tiny light struck through thecompressed eyelids. "Alfie, it's me!"
And once more Alfred Croucher was a man and a liar. "Shoddy!" he croakedwith a sepulchral sob. "An' me asleep an' dreamin' like a bloomin'babby! Why, wot the 'ell you doin' 'ere, Shod?"
"Come to see you, old son," said Shoddy. "But it's more like me arskin'what _you're_ up to in a 'ouse like this?"
"'Avin the time o' me life!" whispered the excited patient. "Livin' likea fightin' cock, on the fat o' the teemin' land, at some ruddy oldjosser's expense!"
And he poured into the still adjacent ear the true fairy tale of hisfirst day's freedom, from his introduction to Doctor Dollar in theprecincts of that very jail which was to have been his place ofexecution and obscene sepulcher.
"I know. I seen you come out with him," said Shoddy, "an' drive off inyer car like a hairy lord. I was there with a taxi meself----"
"There to meet me, Shod?"
"That's it. That's 'ow I tracked you to this 'ere 'ouse. The room tookmore findin'; but there's an old pal o' mine a shover in the mews. 'Eshowed me the back o' the 'ouse, an' blowed if I didn't spot yer at yerwinder first go off!"
"That must've been early on, old man? I bin in bed all day. Oh, such abed, Shoddy! I'm goin' to sleep me 'ead into a pulp afore I leave it."
r /> "You ain't," said Shoddy firmly. "You're comin' along o' me, Alfie.That's why I'm 'ere."
"Not me," replied Alfie, with equal firmness. "I know w'en I'm welloff--and it's time I was."
"I'm wiv yer there!" Shoddy nodded in adroit sympathy; he had kept hiselectric lamp burning all the time; and an extra prominence of eye andcheek-bone, a looseness of lip and a flickering glance, were notinarticulate in the chastened countenance of his friend. "It must'vebeen 'ell, Alfie, real, old red-'ot 'ell!"
"And all for wot I never done," he was reminded with some stiffness.
"That's it," the other agreed, with perfunctory promptitude. "But that'sexactly why I'm 'ere, Alfie. You didn't think I done a job like this forthe sake o' tikin' 'old o' yer 'and, didger? It's just because it seemsyou didn't commit yerself, Alfie, that I'd got to see yer by 'ook orcrook before the day was out."
"Where's the fire?" inquired Alfie, idiomatically; but his professionalfriend, like other artists in narration, and all givers of real news,was not going to surrender the bone of the situation until his audiencesat up and begged for it.
Mr. Croucher literally did sit up, while the exasperating Shoddyinterrupted himself to make a stealthy tour of the room, in the courseof which his electric torch illumined the comfortably bolted door, andthe delectable box of Upmanns. To one of these he helped himself withoutpermission, but a brace were in blast before he resumed his position onthe bed.
"The fire?" said he, as though seconds and not minutes had elapsed sincethe cryptic question. "There's no fire anywhere as I know of--notto-night--but there soon may be, that's why I want you out o' this. Ifyou didn't commit yourself, Alfie, don't you see as somebody else must'ave done?"
"Oh, bring it up!" cried Croucher under his breath.
"Well, if you didn't stiffen that copper on the night o' the sufferygitedisturbance--an' we know you didn't--then somebody else did!"
"You don't mean to tell me you know who did?"
There had been a tense though tiny pause; there was another while Shoddychanged the torch to his right hand, and blew a cloud over the head ofhis now recumbent companion.
"I know what everybody says, Alfie."
"More than their prayers, I'll bet, like they did before. Wot do theysay?"
"One o' the sufferygites----"
"Corpsed the copper?"
"That's it, old man."
"And I never thought of it!"
"It bears some thinkin' about, don't it?" said Shoddy. "Why, you'retrem'lin' like a blessed leaf!"
"I should think I was trem'lin'! So would you if you'd been through wotI been ... Shod!"
"Yuss, Alfie?"
"I see the 'ole blessed thing!"
"I thought you would."
"It was 'er wot broke the jooler's winder for me!"
"That's wot they say."
"They? Who?"
"Lots o' people. I 'eard it down some mews: some o' the pipers 'ave'inted at it. Topham's in fair 'ot water all round; they say 'e's 'ushedit up because she's in serciety."
"Wot's 'er nime, Shod?"
"Lidy Moyle--Lidy Vera Moyle, I think it is. And 'ere's another thing, athing that I was forgettin'."
"Out with it."
"I see 'er come 'ere this afternoon, whilst I was watchin' the 'ouse incase you come out."
"My Gawd, Shoddy! Let me sit up. I can't breathe lyin' down."
"She 'ad some flowers wiv 'er," said Shoddy, pursuing his reminiscences."Looks as though she's got a friend in the 'ome."
"I'm the friend," said Mr. Croucher grimly. "Take and run yer light overthat wash-stand; the guv'nor brought 'em up 'isself wiv these 'eresmokes."
"Roses, in the month o' March!" murmured Shoddy, as a bowl of beautiesfilled the disk of light; "'ot'ouse flowers for little Alfie! Why, thegirl's fair struck on you, cully!"
"I'll strike 'er!" said Alfie, through teeth that chattered withemotion. "I very near 'anged for the little biter, and don't you forgetit!"
"Not me," said Shoddy, steering for the bed with his headlights ofwhite-hot filament and red-hot cigar. "That's wot brought me 'erethrough thick and thin."
"So she's the great unknown!" said Croucher more than once, but nottwice in the same tone. "So it was 'er, was it?" he inquired as often,until Shoddy insisted on a hearing.
"Don't I keep tellin' yer?" said Shoddy. "That's wot brings me, at thegaudiest risks you ever see--only to 'ear you gas! Can't you listen fora change? There's a big thing on if you've guts enough for the job."
It was a simple thing, however, like most big things; the projector hadit at his finger-ends; and in a very few minutes Mr. Croucher wasconsidering a complete, crude, and yet eminently practical proposition.
"There's money in it," he was forced to admit, "if there ain't the bigmoney you flatter yerself. But I believe she thinks o' givin' me a startin life any'ow."
"This'd be a start an' a finish, Alfie! Besides, it'd be your revenge;don't you forget wot you've been through," urged the other.
"Catch me!" said Croucher, eagerly. "But--don'cher see? I been throughso much that I was lookin' forward to dossin' down 'ere a bit. I ain'tthe man I was. It's wot I need. Where's the fire, as I said afore? Thegal won't run away."
"That's just wot she will, Alfie; goin' abroad any day--an' might getmarried any day, a piece like 'er. Then you might find it more of a job.There's another 'old we've got, an' might lose any old day."
The other hold appealed with peculiar power to the character andtemperament of Alfred Croucher, and not less strongly to a certainsagacity which added more to his equipment. But he had never been quiteso comfortable in his life; comfort had never been so decidedly his due;and the substance of present luxury (with a fresh start in the nearfuture) was not lightly to be exchanged for a gold-mine, with all agold-mine's gambling chances, including the proverbial optimism ofprospectors.
The discussion ended in a compromise and the withdrawal of Shoddy by thecatlike ways and means of his arrival. But he did not depart withoutpointing, through the open window and a forest of chimney-stacks, to alighted but uncurtained square on a lower level. And thither, at certainappointed hours, the patient might have been caught peeping, or even inthe act of rude and furtive signals, for several days to come.
Handled as it deserves, the tale of those days would make apsychological chapter of dual interest, and for reasons that may yetappear. But for the moment Alfred Croucher holds the stage, andsoliloquies are out of vogue. Yet even his objective life had points ofinterest. He slept less than he had planned to sleep, but read more thanhe had ever read in all his life; and his reading, if not a sign ofgrace, was at least a straw that showed the way the wind might haveblown but for the intrusive Shoddy.
Out of the doctor's little typewritten list, the patient in thetop-floor-back began by choosing _For the Term of His Natural Life_. Itheld him--with a tortured brow that sometimes glistened. When the bookwas finished, he was advised that _It Is Never Too Late to Mend_ was abetter thing of the same kind; "In spite of its name," added Dollar, instudied disparagement. Croucher took the hint, and was soon breathing ashard as he had done before he knew that Shoddy was Shoddy; was heardblaspheming over Hawes in his solitude, and left wondering what TomRobinson's creator would have made of Alfred Croucher. Something of thatspeculation found its way into words, with the return of the book, andwas the cause of lengthier visitations from the doctor, whose eye beganto brighten when it fell on Croucher, as that of a man put on his mettleafter all.
And then one morning he came in with a blue review and a new long poem,which might have hurt but might have helped; only it had no chance ofdoing either, because the top back room was empty of Alfred Croucher,who had walked out of the house in the loudest of his brand-new clothes.
III
The Rome Express had left Paris sprinkled with the green flakes of aprecocious spring; and it hummed through a mellow evening into a nightof velvet clasped with a silver moon. The famous train was notuncomfortably crowded; it is not everybody who will p
ay two pounds,eight shilling, seven pence for a berth in a sleeper which inSwitzerland, say, would cost some twenty francs. Most of those who hadcommitted the extravagance seemed by way of getting their money's worth;even the lady traveling alone in the foremost _wagon-lit_, though sherefrained from dining in the restaurant-car, would have struck anacquaintance as in better spirits than for some months past. And so shewas. But she was still far from being the Lady Vera Moyle of last year'sfogs.
She was going to her mother, who had been seriously ill since Christmas,but was now completing her recovery in Rome. And yet her illness hadmeant less to Lady Armagh than to the wayward child who had been told(by the rest of the family) to consider herself its cause; it mightindeed have been a direct dispensation to tie Lady Vera's hands andtongue; and in the _train de luxe_, perhaps for the first time, sheherself recognized the merciful wisdom of Providence in the matter.
Alfred Croucher was a free man: that was the great thing. There weremoments when it was an even greater thing than Lady Armagh'sconvalescence. But there was later and greater news yet for Lady Verato gloat over in the train. Not only was poor Croucher a free man, butthat dear Doctor Dollar had hopes of him at last! He had said so the dayshe left for Paris; he had never said anything of the kind before.Nothing could have been more pessimistic than the crime doctor's firstreport on his latest patient; nothing franker than the way he had maderoom for him in the home, merely and entirely to gratify her whim.Alfred Croucher was "not his style," and there had been an end of himbut for the fact that Lady Vera was.
She belonged to the class that he was pleased to consider as potentiallythe most criminal of all. She was well aware of it, and the knowledgeprovided her with a considerable range of feelings as the train flew onand on. She felt herself the object of a purely pathological interest;she felt almost as small as a specimen under a microscope; she feltlonelier than ever in her life before....
Lonely she was in the way that mattered least. She was traveling foronce without a maid. The faithful creature (a would-be militant of theblood-thirstiest, in her day) had been with her dear ladyship over theSunday in Paris (hobnobbing with certain exiles for the Cause); but justas they were leaving their hotel a telegram had come to summon her to abucolic death-bed. Esther would have let her old father die without her,but her beloved ladyship, still quick with her own filial awakenings,had sent her about her dismal business with a kiss.
The compartment was overheated; they always are unless you complain intime. Lady Vera had made her efficient little fuss too late, and theresult was not apparent before the small hours and Modane. During thelong wait there she lay awake, though she had duly entrusted her keys tothe conductor, and the voices of those who had omitted that precautioncaused a welcome change in her "long, long thoughts." She put her mindto her fellow-passengers, and kept it on them with native resolution.
She was in decent company: a moderately well-known man and wife in oneadjoining compartment, a white-haired ecclesiastic in the other. Shewove a romance about the venerable gentleman, and speculated on thewell-being of the other pair. In such innocent ways could she amuseherself when out of muddle-headed mischief in the name of God knowswhat. In all else she was sweet and sane enough--unless it was just onetiny matter that annoyed her memory before she fell asleep to therenewed lullaby of the express. It was the utterly unimportant matter ofa youngish man in a loud suit, one of a brace of incredibly commonEnglishmen, who had nevertheless been staying at the hotel in Paris, had"passed a remark" to Esther in the lift, and certainly stared withinsolence at Esther's mistress, not only in Paris but in passing alongthe corridor of this very train, before and after the hour for dinner.
To Vera Moyle there seemed no time at all between her passing thought ofthis creature and the vile glare that woke her up. At first it blindedher, for she was in the upper berth, within inches of the excruciatingblaze. It came almost as a relief when a head bobbed between the glareand her eyes.
Lady Vera blinked her indignation. She was too sleepy to do more atfirst, and too old a traveler to make much fuss about a mere piece ofstupidity. She could not see the man's face, but his head was of thetype which occasions the inevitable libel on the bullet, and itshideousness hardly mitigated by the Rembrandtesque effect of theelectric light behind it. She conceived it to belong to some blunderingofficial, and ordered him out in pretty sharp French. But the man didnot move. And in another short moment Vera Moyle had become aware ofthree very horrible things: it was the creature in the loud suit, and hehad shut the door behind him, and was holding an automatic pistol to herbreast.
"One syl'ble that anybody else can 'ear," he muttered as her mouthopened, "an' it's yer larst in life! 'Old yer noise an' I won't be 'ardon you--not 'alf as 'ard as you been on me!"
"It isn't--oh, surely it isn't Croucher?" cried the girl, with anemotion made up of every element but fear.
"It is Croucher," said he in brutal mimicry. "That bein' just so, I putsaway the barker--see?--no decepshun!" The pistol dropped into a loudtweed pocket. "I reckon I can do me own bit o' barkin'--yuss! an'bitin', too!" concluded Croucher, with an appropriate snarl.
"Will you please go out?" said Lady Vera, still with sorrow in hersteady eyes.
"No, I will not please. I'll see you damned first!" said Croucher, withsudden ferocity--"like you very near seen me! If we're over'eard, you'llbe thought no better'n you ought to be; but by Gawd they won't think youas bad as wot you are!"
Lady Vera took no advantage of a studious pause. The ruffian was makinghis points with more than merely ruffianly effect; the whole thing mighthave been carefully rehearsed. But to the girl in the upper berth it wasnow no more than she deserved. It was a light enough punishment for thedreadful deed by her committed--no matter how unconscious, in how fine afrenzy or how just a cause--and on him visited with all but the lastdread vengeance of the criminal law. He had a right to say what he likedto her after that, even to say it then and there, with all his naturaland acquired brutality. Was it not she who had done most of all tobrutalize him?
"That is, until I tell 'em," added Croucher, with crafty significance.His hearer had to recall the words before the pause; when she had doneso, he was again requested to leave the compartment, and there was aharder light in her eyes.
"Surely it isn't Croucher?"]
"I'll see you in the morning," she promised. "I'm going on to Rome."
He laughed scornfully. "You needn't tell _me_ where you're goin'! I knowall about you, and 'ave done for some time. I been on yer tracks, mydear! You seen me. It's your own fault we didn't 'ave it out before.This ain't quite the pitch--but it's a better place than the one you gotme into!"
"I got you--out again," was what Lady Vera had begun to say, butsomething about him made her stop short of that. "I was doing my bestfor you," she continued humbly. "I thought you were going to let me giveyou a fresh start in life."
"A fresh start! I want a bit more than that, lidy!"
"Well, what do you want?"
He rolled his eyeballs over the racks laden with her hand-luggage.
"Your jewel-case," said he promptly. "Which is it?"
"That one, in this corner, over my feet."
Her equal alacrity might have been the mere measure of her eagerness toget rid of him; but Alfred Croucher was far too old in deception to behimself very easily deceived.
"Then you can keep it, with my love!" said he. "I'll trouble you forthem rings instead--_and_ the rest wot you're 'idin' be'ind 'em!"
The girl turned paler in the electric light She was sitting up in hersuspicious readiness to point out the jewel-case; the other hand, withmost of her rings on it, had flown instinctively to her throat; for shewas traveling, as ladies will, with her greatest treasures--her diamondnecklace and pendant, and a string of pearls--on her neck for safety.
"Suppose I refuse and----"
She glanced toward the bell.
"Then I'll say what _I_ know."
"And what do you know?" Her back was to the wall. r />
"What I see that night! What I see an' was mug enough not to twig till Icome out an' 'eard all the talk! Is that good enough? If not, therest'll keep; but it'll put you in the jug all right, I don't care 'oo'son your side. It's one law for the rich and one for the pore. 'Ang me asnever done it, an' 'ush you up, as did! But I've heard tell that murderwill out, an' you'll find that murderers will in--to prison--even whenthey're titled lidies with the King on 'is throne be'ind 'em! It'll ruinyou, if it does no more--ruin you an' yours--an' break all your 'earts!"
It was enough. She stripped her neck, she stripped her fingers; ringsand necklace, pearls and pendant, all lay in a shimmering heap in hiscapacious palm, held for a moment's triumph under the electric light,reflected for that moment in a mirror which his bulky frame had hiddenuntil now.
It was the mirror on the door of the miniature dressing-room betweenevery two compartments in the _train de luxe_; but in the very moment ofhis exultation it ceased to reflect either Alfred Croucher or hisill-gotten spoil. The door had opened; it framed a sable figure crownedwith silvery locks; lean hands flew out from the black shoulders, andmet round the neck of Croucher with the fell dexterity of a professionalgarroter.
The pair backed together without a word. The one had murder in his setteeth, the other death in the bulging eyes and darkening face, with itscollar of interlaced fingers white to the nails with their own pressure.Lady Vera watched the two men as the fawn might watch the python struckto timely death, until the communicating door shut upon them both, andonly her own unearthly form remained in the mirror. And the train ran onand on, and the whole coach creaked and trembled, as coaches will evenin a _train de luxe_, only in that particular compartment it had notbeen noticeable for some time.
Presently, as her nerve came back, one or two further observations of anegative order were gradually made by Vera Moyle. She may be said tohave noticed that she did not notice one or two things she might haveexpected to notice by now. The chief thing was that there was no soundwhatever from the compartment beyond the looking-glass door, no fuss orundue traffic in the corridor. What had happened? Only too soon sheknew.
They had stopped at some nameless station between the tags of theItalian boot. It was a chance of peeping out, and out peeped the shakengirl from her window overlooking the line. And there, skipping on tothe next low platform, bag in hand, went the loud trousers under AlfredCroucher's equally new and noisy ulster; and there at his elbow went thevenerable ecclesiastic, even holding him by the sleeve!
It was a long road to Rome for Lady Vera Moyle, but toward the end therecame another stage in which the _wagon-lit_ forgot to swing and singlike humbler coaches, and the pale Campagna swam past unseen. It beganwith a knock behind the drawn blind of her compartment--now but amirrored divan of Utrecht velvet and stamped leather--as unsuggestive ofa good night's rest as the white face and the bright eyes behind thetiny table in the corner.
"_Entrez!_" she cried with nervous irritation.
The door opened and shut upon the somber face and long athletic limbs ofJohn Dollar.
"Doctor Dollar! I had no idea you were in the train!"
Her voice had broken with very joy; her hand trembled pitifully duringits momentary repose in his.
"You have never shown up, you see," said he. "I have been in the nextcompartment all the way from Paris."
"The next compartment on which side?"
He jerked his head at his own reflection in the looking-glass door.
"But there was a priest in there!" cried the girl.
"There was the high priest of a new religion in which you'll neverbelieve any more," said Dollar with a wry smile. "May he sit down for aminute, Lady Vera?"
She looked at him with cooling eyes. "Certainly, Doctor Dollar, if itmakes an explanation any easier."
"I didn't intend to explain at all," he had the nerve to tell her. "Imeant my ecclesiastical body to do that for me--but its wig was blownout of the window on the other side of Genoa. I've been hanging aboutall day in the hope of catching you. I couldn't leave it any longer. Ihad to give you these."
And he placed upon the table between them the diamond necklace andpendant, the string of pearls, and the handful of rings she had beenwearing in the night.
"You made him give them up!" she cried, in thankful tears that neverfell, but only softened and sweetened her indescribably.
"Naturally," he laughed. "It wasn't very difficult."
"And I thought you were a confederate when I saw you crossing the linetogether!"
"I was putting the fear of a foreign jail upon him to the last. But hehad a confederate in the train; he was in reserve outside your berthuntil I lured him into mine and laid him out. Otherwise I should havebeen with you sooner; but in one way it was better to take our man withyour jewels on him--there was no getting out of it. The two of them wereonly too glad to be kicked out at the first station. And the otherfellow was a man who broke into my house to see Croucher the first nightwe had him there."
"Did they tell you so?"
"No. I knew it at the time. I heard the whole thing, even to fragmentsof a conversation from which it was possible to reconstruct the planthey actually brought off last night. I make it a rule not to listen atpatients' doors, any more than one would at other people's, but I'm notgoing to blush for this particular exception."
Her soft wet eyes were looking him through and through.
"Yet you kept him on--for my sake!"
"Not altogether, Lady Vera." They were an honest couple. "It put me onmy mettle; it gave me something to prevent. At first--as I'm afraid youknew--I really didn't want to touch the fellow with a pole. He was anobvious incurable; he would have been better hanged--justly orunjustly."
"Don't speak of that--or do!" exclaimed the girl. "It makes me forgivehim everything!"
"Well, my first idea was about right. He was beyond reclaim. But I neverthought he would give me a definite move to block; that, as you know; isone's chief job after all, and it put a new complexion on the case. Itwas as though--as though one took a man on for cancer and found himplotting to shoot the Chancellor of the Exchequer before he died! Iapologize for the analogy, Lady Vera," said Dollar, making the most oftheir laugh, "but the man became a new proposition on the spot. And thefunny thing is that I believe I almost might have cured him afterall--done him some good, anyhow--but for the very thing that bucked meup!"
Lady Vera looked out at a flying brake of naked trees, the color ofcigar-ash. He had lost her attention for the moment.
"I was a little fool," she said at length. "I should have listened toyou, and been content to help in some other way. I am sorry."
"I'm not!" replied Doctor Dollar. "It was a very sporting folly--buteverything you ever did was that!"
She shook her head sadly, as a brown river, girt with olives, flashedunder the train like a child's skipping-rope.
"I haven't changed my opinions," she said, just a trifle aggressively."But I would give my life to undo many of my actions--not only thatone--many, many!" and she looked him bravely and humbly in the eyes. "Sothe whole thing has served me right, and will if it happens all overagain."
"If what does?"
"This blackmailing of me by that poor man!"
"It won't. I've frightened him."
"He will think of some subtler way."
"There's no subtlety in him, no power, no initiative, no anything butmere brute force," said Dollar, with a touch of that same strength andweakness in his unusually emphatic assertion. "The fellow is a deadlytool and nothing more. He knuckled under to me in a moment."
Lady Vera shook her head again, but this time she was looking firmly inhis face.
"I feel," she said, with a stoical conviction, "that I shall be fairgame to him as long as we are both in the world. And it's what Ideserve."
Dollar abandoned his attempt at disingenuous disabuse; the extreme towhich he flew instead was a little startling, but these two knew eachother.
"You must marry, Lady Vera,"
he was moved to say. But his manner waseminently uninspired. He might have been telling her she must hand herkeys to the hotel porter at Rome. That was in fact the note he meant totake, only he sang it louder than he knew.
"I can never marry," she answered calmly. "I have blood upon my hands."
"You can marry a man who knows!"
And the unaltered note took on a tremolo of which he was both aware andashamed; but still their eyes were frankly locked.
"I can marry nobody, Doctor Dollar."
"The man I mean isn't fit to black your boots! But he'd protect you,he'd help you, and you would be the making not only of him but of hisdream--and not only _his_ little dream----"
It was her hand that stopped him. It had taken his across the littletable.
"The man you mean is worth ten million of me! But I can never marry himor anybody. And you, and you alone, know why!"
She bent her brave eyes back on the Campagna; a pale tufted heath wasswimming by; gum-trees hardly heightened the prevailing neutral tint; amodern corrugated roof, pinned in place by a few primeval boulders, heldher attention on its swift course across the window-panes; and when shelooked round, Lady Vera was all alone.