Dead Man's Love. Gallon Tom

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СКАЧАТЬ AM HANGED – AND DONE FOR

      So soon as I could get my eyes away from that thing that swung horribly above the table, I forced them to find the window. But even then I could not move. It was as though my limbs were frozen with the sheer horror of this business into which I had blundered. You will own that I had had enough of sensations for that day; I wonder now that I was able to get back to sane thoughts at all. I stood there, with my teeth chattering, and my hands clutching at the grey coat I wore, striving to pull myself together, and to decide what was best to be done. To add to the horror of the thing, the man who lay half across the table began to stir, and presently sat up slowly, like one waking from a long and heavy sleep. He sat for some moments, staring in front of him, with his hands spread out palms downwards on the table. He did not seem to see me at all. I watched him, wondering what he would do when presently he should look round and catch sight of me; wondering, for my part, whether, if he cried out with the shock of seeing me, I should grapple with him, or make for the window and dash out into the darkness.

      He did a surprising thing at last. He raised his eyes slowly, until they rested upon what gyrated and swung above him, and then, as his eyes travelled upwards to the face, he smiled very slowly and very gently; and almost on the instant turned his head, perhaps at some noise I made, and looked squarely at me.

      "Good evening, sir!" he said in a low tone.

      Think of it! To be calmly greeted in that fashion, in a room into which I had blundered, clad grotesquely as I was, and with that dead thing hanging above us! Idiotically enough I tried to get out an answer to the man, but I found my tongue staggering about among my teeth and doing nothing in the way of shaping words. So I stared at him with, I suppose, a very white face, and pointed to that which hung above us.

      "He's very quiet, sir," said the old man, getting to his feet slowly. "I was afraid at first – I didn't understand. I was afraid of him. Think of that!" He laughed again with a laughter that was ghastly.

      "Cut – cut him down!" I stammered in a whisper, holding on to the edge of the mantelshelf and beginning to feel a horrible nausea stealing over me.

      He shook his head. "I can't touch him – I'm afraid again," said the old man, and backed away into a corner.

      What I should have done within a minute or two I do not really know, if by chance I could have kept my reason at all, but I heard someone moving in the house, and coming towards the room in which I stood. I did not think of my danger; everything was so far removed from the ordinary that it was as though I moved and walked in some dream, from which presently, with a shudder and a sigh of relief, I should awake. Therefore, even when I heard footsteps coming towards the room I did not move, nor did it seem strange that whoever came seemed to step with something of a jaunty air, singing loudly as he moved, with a rather fine baritone voice. In just such a fashion a man flung open the door and marched straight into the room, and stopped there, surveying the picture we made, the three of us – one dead and two alive – with a pair of very bright, keen eyes.

      He was a tall, thin man, with sleek black hair gone grey at the temples. He had a cleanly-shaven face, much lined and wrinkled at the corners of the eyes and of the mouth; and when he presently spoke I discovered that his lips parted quickly, showing the line of his white teeth, and yet with nothing of a smile. It was as though the lips moved mechanically in some still strong mask; only the eyes were very much alive. And after his first glance round the room I saw that his eyes rested only on me.

      "Who are you? What do you want?" he demanded sharply.

      I did not answer his question; I pointed weakly to the hanging man. "Aren't you going – going to do anything with him?" I blurted out.

      He shrugged his shoulders. "He's dead; and the other one," – he let his eyes rest for a moment on the old man – "the other one is as good as dead for anything he understands. The matter is between us, and perhaps I'd better hear you first."

      "I can't – not with that in the room!" I whispered, striving to steady my voice.

      He shrugged his shoulders again, and drew from his pocket a knife. Keeping his eyes fixed on the swaying figure above him, he mounted to a chair, and so to the table, deftly and strongly lifted the dead man upon one shoulder while he severed the rope above his head. Then he stepped down, first to the chair and then to the floor, and laid the thing, not ungently, on a couch in the corner. I was able now to avert my eyes from it.

      "Does that please you?" he asked, with something of a sneer. "Get forward into the light a little; I want to see you."

      I stepped forward, and he looked me up and down; then he nodded slowly, and showed that white gleam of his teeth. "I see – a convict," he said. "From what prison?"

      "Many miles from here," I answered him. "I escaped early this morning; someone brought me as far as this on a motor-car. I broke in – because I wanted food and a change of clothing. I was desperate."

      "I see – I see," he said, in his smooth voice. "A change of clothing, and food. Perhaps we may be able to provide you with both."

      "You mean you'll promise to do so, while you communicate with the police, I suppose?" I answered sullenly.

      He smiled, and shook his head. "That is not my way of doing things at all," he said. "You are desperate, you tell me, and I have no particular interest in your recapture. If it comes to that, I have trouble enough of my own." He glanced for a moment at the body behind him. "I should like to know how it comes about that you are a convict – for what particular crime, I mean?"

      I told him, as briefly as I could, the whole story, not painting myself too black, you may be sure. He listened with deep attention until I had finished, and then for a minute or two he stood still, with his arms folded, evidently considering some point deeply. I waited, forgetful of all else but the man before me, for he seemed to hold my fate in his hands. All this time the old man I had found in the room stood in a corner, smiling foolishly, and nibbing his hands one over the other. The other man who dominated the situation took not the faintest notice of him.

      "How long have you been hanging about this place, waiting to break in?" demanded the man who had come into the room last. "Speak the truth."

      "I don't exactly know," I answered. "I fell asleep while I lay in the grounds, and lost count of time. But I saw him," – I nodded my head towards that prone figure on the couch – "I saw him in the grounds."

      "Alone?" He jerked the word out at me.

      "No, there was a lady."

      "Since you know that, you may as well know the rest," he replied. "This young man has had a most unhappy attachment for a young lady in this house, who is my ward. He has persecuted her with his attentions; he has come here under cover of the darkness, over and over again, against my wishes. She liked him – "

      "I heard her say that," I broke in, incautiously.

      "Then you only confirm my words," he said, after a sharp glance at me. "Perhaps you may imagine my feelings when to-night I discovered that the unhappy boy had absolutely taken his revenge upon me, and upon her, by hanging himself in this very room. So far I have been able to keep the knowledge from my ward, – I think there's a possibility that I may be able to keep it from her altogether."

      I did not understand the drift of his thought then, nor did I see in what way I was to be concerned in the matter. He came a little nearer to me, and seated himself on the table, and bent his keen glance on me before going on again. I think I muttered something, for my own part, about being sorry, but it was a feeble mutter at the best.

      "Perhaps you may wonder why I have not sent at once, СКАЧАТЬ