RICEYMAN STEPS. Bennett Arnold

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СКАЧАТЬ needed a man for all sorts of purposes, and she resolved passionately that she would not live alone another day longer than she could help.

      This resolve, however, did not mitigate her loneliness in the candle-lit shop with the shut door in front of her hiding dreadful matters and the rain pelting on the flagstones of Riceyman Steps. She looked timidly forth; a policeman might by Heaven's mercy be passing. If not, she must run in the wet, as she was, to the police-station. She then noticed a faint light in Mr. Earlforward's shop, and dashed across. Through the window she could see Mr. Earlforward walking in his shop with a candle in his hand. She tattooed wildly on the window. A tramcar thundered down King's Cross Road, tremendously heedless of murders. After a brief, terrible interval the lock of Mr. Earlforward's portal grated, and Mr. Earlforward appeared blandly in the doorway holding the candle.

      "Oh, Mr. Earlforward!" she cried, and stepped within, and clutched his sleeve and told him what had occurred. And as she poured out the words, and Mr. Earlforward kept apparently all his self-possession and bland calm, an exquisite and intense feeling of relief filled her whole being.

      "I'll come over," said Mr. Earlforward. "Rather wet, isn't it?"

      He cut a fine figure in the eyes of Mrs. Arb. He owed his prestige at that moment, however, not to any real ability to decide immediately and courageously upon the right, effective course to follow, but to the simple fact that his reactions were very slow. Mr. Earlforward was always afraid after the event. He limped vigorously into the dangers of Mrs. Arb's dwelling with his placidity undisturbed by the realisation of those dangers. And he had no conception of what he should do, Mrs. Arb followed timorously.

      The door into Mrs. Arb's back-room was now wide open; the lamp near the carving-knife burnt on the white table there. Also the candle was still burning in the shop, but the umbrella had vanished from the shop floor.

      The back-room was empty. No symptom of murder, nor even of a struggle! Only the brief, faint rumble of an Underground train could be heard and felt in the silence.

      "Perhaps he's chased her upstairs."

      "I'll go and see. Anyhow, he's left the knife behind him." Mr. Earlforward picked up the carving-knife, and thereby further impressed Mrs. Arb.

      "Take the lamp," said Mrs. Arb.

      "Nobody up here!" he called from the first floor. Mrs. Arb ascended. Together they looked into each room.

      "She's taken her jacket!" exclaimed Mrs. Arb, noticing the empty peg behind the door when they came down again to the back-room.

      "Ah! That's better," Mr. Earlforward commented, expelling breath,

      "I've left my candle lighted," he said a moment later. "I'll go and blow it out."

      "But—"

      "Oh! I'm coming back. I'm coming back."

      While he was gone Mrs. Arb had a momentary lapse into terror. Suppose——! She glimpsed again the savage and primeval passion half-disclosed in the gestures and the glance of the young man, hints of forces uncontrollable, terrific and fatal.

      "I expect he's that young fellow that's running after her," said Mr. Earlforward when he returned. "Seems he's had shell-shock! So I heard. She'll have to leave him alone—that's clear!" He was glad to think that he had found a new argument to help him to persuade Elsie not to desert him.

      "She seemed to be so respectable!" observed Mrs. Arb.

      "Well, she is!"

      "Poor girl!" sighed Mrs. Arb; she felt a genuine, perturbing compassion for Elsie. "Ought I to go and tell the police, Mr. Earlforward?"

      "If I were you I shouldn't have the police meddling. It's all right."

      "Well, anyhow, I can't pass the night here by myself. No, I can't. And that's flat!" She smiled almost comically.

      "You go off to bed," said Mr. Earlforward, with a magnificent wave of the hand. "I'll make myself comfortable in this rocking-chair. I'll stop till daylight."

      Mrs. Arb said that she couldn't think of such a thing, and that he was too kind. He mastered her. Then she said she would put a bit of coal on the fire.

      "You needn't." He stopped her. "I'll go across and get my overcoat and a quilt, and lock up there. It'll be all right. It'll be all right."

      He reappeared with his overcoat on and the quilt a little rain-spotted. Mrs. Arb was wearing a long thick mantle.

      "What's this?" he asked. "What's the meaning of this?"

      "I couldn't leave you to sit up by yourself. I couldn't, really. I'm going to sit up too."

      Chapter 9 Sunday morning

      Table of Contents

      "She never came to you this morning?" questioned Mr. Earlforward with eager and cheerful interest.

      "No. Did she to you?"

      Mr. Earlforward shook his head, smiling.

      "You seem to be quite the philosopher about it," said Mrs. Arb. "But it must be most inconvenient for a man."

      "Oh, no! I can always manage, I can."

      "Well, it's very wonderful of you—that's all I say."

      This was Sunday morning, the third day after the episode of the carving-knife.

      "What's so funny," said Mrs. Arb, "is that she should come yesterday and Friday, just as if nothing had happened, and yet she doesn't come to-day! And yet it was settled plainly enough she was to come—early, an hour to you and an hour to me, wasn't it now? I do think she might have sent round a message or something—even if she is ill."

      "Yes, but you see it never strikes them the inconvenience they're causing. Not that she's a bad girl. She's a very good girl."

      "They always work better for gentlemen," remarked Mrs. Arb with an air vivacious and enigmatic.

      Mr. Earlforward, strolling towards the steps, had chanced—if in this world there is such a thing as chance—to see Mrs. Arb, all dressed, presumably, for church—standing in her shop and regarding the same with the owner's critical, appreciative eye. Mr. Earlforward had a good view of her, as anybody else might have had, because only the blue blind of the door was down, this being the recognized sufficient sign to the public of a shut shop. The two small windows had blinds, but they were seldom drawn, except to protect butter against sunshine. The pair had exchanged smiles, Mrs. Arb had hospitably unlocked, and Mr. Earlforward had entered. To him she presented a finely satisfactory appearance, dressed in black, with vermilion flowers in her hat, good shoes on her feet, and good uncreased gloves held in her ringed hand. She was slim—Mr. Earlforward thought of her as petite—but she was imposing, with all her keen restlessness of slight movements and her changing glance. No matter how her glance changed it was always the glance of authority and of intelligence.

      On her part, Mrs. Arb beheld Mr. Earlforward with favour. His pointed short beard, so well trimmed, seemed to give him the status of a pillar of society. She still liked his full red lips and his fresh complexion. СКАЧАТЬ