CHAPTER VII
THE SECOND ENCOUNTER
I began, as the days went by, to be more and more a prey to unhealthy,and apparently unreasonable doubts and fears--fears which, in truth,were so intangible that they were without form and void, but whichwere very real for all that. I began to feel as if a net were beingdrawn tighter and tighter round me, and as if every step I took wasbeset by hidden dangers. Such a mental condition was as I have said,an unhealthy one. I realised that well enough, and I had beenwandering one evening to and fro on the Embankment, striving to freemyself, if only for a time, from the imaginary mists and shadows whichseemed to compass me about, when as I was turning into the street inwhich stood Mrs. Barnes's hotel, I saw a man crouching in the darknessof the wall. What was the man's purpose I had no doubt: he was seekingfor concealment. He had seen me before I saw him, and was endeavouringto escape my scrutiny.
I took him to be the new waiter. I supposed that I had caught him inthe act of spying on me at last. I turned swiftly on him, and beforehe could retreat I had him by the shoulders.
"Before I let you go, my friend, you will be so good as to tell me,now and here, what is the cause of the extreme interest which youevidently take in my proceedings."
That was what I said to him; but already, before I had said my sayright out, I perceived that I was wrong: that the man I had hold ofwas not the man I thought he was. This man was shorter and of slighterbuild, and he showed more signs of fight than, within my experience,the other had evinced. He wriggled in my grasp like an eel, but,holding tightly on to him, I dragged him a little into the light.
When I succeeded in getting a glimpse at him there came from betweenmy lips a series of interjections:--
"You!--James Southam!--Mr. Barnes! Good God!"
I had hardly spoken when he knocked me down. I was so taken bysurprise that I was unable to offer the least resistance; he felled meagain, as he had felled me before, as if I had been a ninepin. By thetime I had realised what had happened I was lying on my back on thepavement. His hand was on my throat, and his knee was on my chest. Hewas peering closely into my face--so closely that I could feel hisbreath upon my cheeks.
"It's you again, is it? I thought it was. Don't you make a noise, orI'll choke the life right out of you. You tell me, straight out, whatit is you want with me--do you hear?"
As if to drive his question well home, he gave my head a sharp tapagainst the pavement. His strength must have been prodigious. I wasconscious that, with him above me thus and with that iron grasp uponmy throat, I was wholly at his mercy. The hour was late. Althoughalmost within a stone's throw of the Strand, the place was solitary;not a creature might pass just where we were the whole night through.
"Take your hand from my windpipe--I cannot speak--you are choking me,"I gasped.
"Give me your word you will make no noise if I do. See here!"
He was clutching a knife--as ugly a looking knife as ever I saw. Hebrandished it before my eyes.
"I give my word," I managed to utter.
He relaxed his hold. It was a comfort to be again able to freelyinflate my lungs, though the continued presence of his knee on mychest was none too pleasant. With the point of his knife he actuallypricked my nose.
"Don't you try to move, or I will cut your throat as if you were apig. Lie still and answer my questions--and straight, mind, or you'llbe sorry. What is it you want with me?"
"I want nothing from you--I have never wanted anything. You have beenunder an entire misapprehension throughout."
Once more, with gruesome sportiveness, he tickled my nose with hisknife.
"Stow that, my lad! It's no good trying to catch this bird with salt.How did you come to know that my name was James Southam?"
"I never did know it. The simple truth is that that name happened tobe mine."
"What's that?"
"I say that that name happens to be mine--I am James Southam."
Bending down he glared at me with eyes which seemed to glow likeburning coal.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean precisely what I say. If you choose to examine the contents ofmy pockets--they are at your mercy--you will find ample proof of thetruth of what I say. Besides, I take it that you have had truth ofthis proof from the contents of the papers."
"The contents of the papers--what papers?"
I looked at him to see if his seeming ignorance of what I meant wasreal. It appeared to be.
"You and I, Mr. Southam, or Mr. Barnes, or whatever your name is, havebeen, and it would seem still are, at cross purposes. I take no moreinterest in your affairs than you take in mine--perhaps not so much.The mention of my name seems to have awoke uncomfortable echoes inyour breast, which fact is of the nature of an odd coincidence."
"You are not a policeman, or a detective, or a private inquiry agent,or anything of that kind--you swear it?"
"Very willingly. I am simply a poor devil of a clerk out of asituation. Why you should object to me, or, still more, why you shouldfear me, I have not the faintest notion."
He hesitated before he spoke again--then his tone was sullen.
"I don't know if you are lying: I expect you are: but anyhow, I'llchance it. I fancy that I'm about your match, if it's tricks you'reafter. If I let you get up, can I trust you?"
"You can: again I give you my word for it."
He let me rise. When I had done so, and was brushing the dust off myclothes, I took his measure. Even by the imperfect light I could seehow shabby he was, and how hollow his cheeks were. He seemed to haveshrunk to half his size since that first short interview I had hadwith him.
"You will excuse my saying you don't look as if you have been livingin clover."
"I haven't. I am nearly starving. It is that which has brought meback."
"Why did you ever go? Mrs. Barnes tells me that you are her husband. Ishould imagine that you had a pretty comfortable birth of it."
He glowered at me with renewed suspicion. "Oh, she has told you somuch, has she? What has she told you more?"
"Very little. She has been half beside herself trying to think whathas become of you, especially since this affair of Duncan Rothwell."
We had crossed the road and were on the Embankment, walking towardsthe City side by side. Although I had made the allusion of setpurpose, I was scarcely prepared for the effect which it had on him.Plainly, he was a person of ungovernable impulses. He stopped, swung,round, again the knife was gleaming in his grasp, and his hand was atmy throat. But this time I succeeded in warding him off.
"What is the matter with you, man? Are you stark mad?"
He was breathing in great gasps. "What name--was that--you said?"
"Surely the name must be a familiar one to you by now. It has been tothe front enough in all the papers."
"The paper! What papers?"
"The newspapers, man, of course!"
"How do I know what is in the newspapers? I never look at them. Thereis nothing in them which is of interest to me. What name was that yousaid? Tell me if you dare!"
He made a threatening gesture with his knife, seeming to be halffrenzied with excitement.
"Duncan Rothwell--the man who was murdered at your wife's front door."
"Duncan Rothwell! Murdered--at my wife's--front door!"
The knife fell from his hand. He gave such a backward lurch that Ihalf expected to see him fall down after it. In an instant, stooping,I had the knife in my grasp. I felt strongly that such a weapon wassafer in my possession than in his. He did not seem for the moment tobe conscious of what it was which he had lost and I had gained. Hestood staring in front of him with an air of stupefaction. He repeatedhis own words over to himself, stammeringly, as if he were unable tocatch their meaning: "Murdered--at my wife's--front door!"
"Where have you been living not to have heard of it? It has been thetopic of every tongue."
I could see that he was struggling to collect his scattered senses. Hespo
ke at last as if he were waking from a dream.
"I have heard nothing. I do not understand what you are talking about.Tell me everything."
I told him all that there was to tell. Evidently the whole of it wasnews to him. He listened greedily, gulping down, as it were, everyword I uttered, as if I had been feeding him with physical food aswell as mental. As I noted his demeanour, it seemed incredible that hecould have been the chief actor in the tragedy to the details of whichhe listened with such apparently unfeigned amazement. I had beenguilty of an unintentional injustice in doubting him. As I told mytale we leaned upon the parapet--he never looking at me once, butstraight into the heart of the river.
When I had finished he was silent for some moment. Then he put to me aquestion:
"Do you mean to say that nothing has been found out to show who didit?"
"Absolutely nothing."
Unless I erred, he smiled. Had I not done him an injustice after all?Could the man be such a consummate actor?
"And yet you almost saw him killed?"
"Had I come into the hall half a moment sooner I might have seen themurderer in the act of perpetrating his crime."
This time he laughed right out--an evil laugh.
"For goodness' sake, man, don't laugh like that--it makes me shiver."
He was still, with a stillness which, somehow, I did not care tobreak. A far-away look began to come into his face. He seemed tobecome lost in thought. When, after a long interval, during which Iwas sufficiently engaged in watching the different expressions whichseem to chase each other across his face, he broke the silence, it wasas though he muttered to himself, oblivious of his companion and ofthe place in which he was: "What a woman she is!"
That was what he said. I caught the words as he uttered them beneathhis breath--uttered them, as it seemed, half in admiration, half inscorn. And he again was still.
The Woman with One Hand, and Mr. Ely's Engagement Page 8
