On the steps was seated a girl. She looked so marble-white and sat so still that she might have been sculptured there; but the moment the mist rolled back, she slid soundlessly into the water, and began to swim lazily downstream.
Believing she had not noticed his approach, Harben pulled off his clothes, dived cleanly into the river, and set himself to swim after her. He knew the deceptive speed of the long, slow stroke she used, and went his hardest. They passed the garden banks and the pleasant lawns, gained the bend, and a gravelled sweep at the foot of a yellowing water-meadow, passed elms and the thickets of bramble, the patches of careless willow-herb, and the tangles of bearded thistle. Slackening, Leda swam to the gravel stretch on the outside bend, and waited for Harben to come up.
“You went back to the house,” she said. It was not a question. Her eyes were as clear as water, and had bright brown flecks in them, like the sun on a stream.
“Yes,” he answered. “Why not? And where the devil did you get to? Why did you run away, anyhow? And what are you doing down here?”
“I came to find you,” she answered, disregarding the other things he had said. “We shall need to be very careful. They think you’re dead, I believe.”
“I ought to be dead,” he answered. He told of the men in the boat. She raised herself on her arms in the shallow water, and lay on the surface as a fish, with flickering fin, will lie on the bottom among weed.
It was extremely cold, but Harben, fascinated, watched her; traced the wide, flat shoulder, the strong white arms, the sweet, full curve of the throat and the long hands splay-fingered on the gravel, rippled over the movement of the river.
With a flick of her hand, she was away. He could not have said how she did it, or when she began to swim. He knew only that the long fingers must have pressed themselves into the stones to gain the first impetus for flight. In the flash of a fish’s tail she was in midstream, and in water deep enough for swimming. The long, straight legs did not move until she was out of his reach, but the little body, turning in one beautiful, fluid movement, like a mermaid’s, had eluded in a moment. The water streamed in her wake, then closed behind her, as though it would protect what was its own. Harben plunged forward, and was after her desperately fast, although he knew that he would not come up with her again unless she willed it. She went on swimming downstream, and the distance increased between them, but still he pursued her doggedly, a gleam of hope in his mind. A mile downstream was a lock. She would have to land before she got there. Another thought struck him. In the water she was more than his match, but there was never a swimmer yet who could match a runner on the bank.
Regardless of the fact that he was naked, for the river banks were deserted, but realizing that in less than a hundred yards he could overtake her, he swam to the bank, climbed out, and ran along the grassy edge of the river. The wind on his cold, wet body cut like knives.
The girl soon knew that he had played this move, for she turned, before he came up, and made for the opposite bank.
“Got you!” said Harben, exultant. The tangle of blackberry and thistle, and the low-growing, thorny shrubs, had the effect he foresaw. Panting, afraid, and trapped, she waited for him to join her. He dived, with a long, clean movement, half-way across the stream and was soon on the grass beside her. His madness fell away at her obvious fear.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said.
She slid into the water again. Harben, unprepared for this manoeuvre, was caught at a disadvantage. He plunged in after her, but he had not gone a dozen yards before she had covered forty. He climbed out again on to the open, grassy bank he had been deluded into leaving before, but by the time he reached the boathouse he had lost her. He swam ashore to the steps, pulled his trousers over his wet and chilly body, and cantered up to the house. He encountered his hostess on the doorstep.
“Now what have you been up to?” she demanded.
“I suppose it’s of no use to lie to you,” said Harben. “I’ve seen Leda. And I want to see her again. I’m going to see whether I can meet her at the house. I suppose I’m a fool to go—”
“But you’re going,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Yes, you are a fool. But I suppose you’ve made up your mind.”
“Well, I’m afraid so,” he said.
““The expense of spirit in a waste of shame,”’ observed his hostess austerely. “Well, for goodness sake, take my revolver. Remember those cigarette ends and the meat, and those men in the boat.”
“And the eight-day clock,” said Harben.
“Of course, it’s quite obvious,” said Pirberry, “that one of ’em knew the other one had done it, and—”
“All in good time,” said Mrs. Bradley. “What the soldier said isn’t evidence, remember.”
“Well, you’ve indicated one thing pretty clearly, ma’am. You yourself weren’t afraid of this young fellow. You didn’t think him a murderer.”
“I certainly didn’t think he would murder me.”
“Evidently not, ma’am, else you’d hardly have gone down that cellar, leaving him up at the top.”
“One thing I gained without his knowledge, Inspector. Something to rejoice your official heart.”
“Finger-prints, ma’am, I presume?”
“I should think I have the prints of everybody who has ever been in that house. I had plenty of opportunity whilst he was in the garden. You shall have them. They might come in useful.”
“Prints are always something,” said Pirberry.
“Even if only a snare and a delusion,” said Mrs. Bradley. “Oh, and the Spanish Bible and the volume of poetry had the name Inez Hueza on the fly-leaf.”
“That helps a lot, ma’am,” said Pirberry.
“Don’t be ungrateful,” retorted Mrs. Bradley.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Tryst
The night with the war-time black-out not yet two months in existence seemed almost incredibly dark. Harben knew the riverside path by heart, but he found himself groping and stumbling between the bridge and the first of the riverside houses, and at one point he crashed into a bench which he had forgotten, and badly bruised his right shin.
He went cautiously after that, for fear of walking over the edge of the bank and into the river.
All was quiet until he got to the inn. From within came the sound of voices in cheerful talk. Dunkirk was months ahead. The popular songs were still about rabbits running, and about hanging washing on the Siegfried Line. Harben was tempted to go in. It was almost closing time, but there would be a chance of getting a drink and some friendly conversation. He pushed open the door, dodged round the black-covered light-trap partition just inside it, and found himself blinking in the white dazzle (as it seemed to him after the darkness) of electric light in the bar.
There was another thought which had occurred to him. He was already impatient at Admiralty delays and circumlocutions. He wanted to get into the war. He might get advice, he thought, at the inn, of how best to use his knowledge and a gift for navigation. He had heard talk of motor torpedo-boats, for instance; just the kind of craft that he could handle.
He looked round the well-filled bar and lighted immediately upon Woods, a crony of his, a man whom he had known for years as a yachtsman.
“Hullo, Stephen,” he said. Woods, a teak-faced, bearded man of fifty with a high, little feminine laugh, made room for him on the corner bench which he occupied, and Harben set down the beer he had bought and enquired what the other was doing.
“A.R.P. firefloats, old man. Great fun. Why don’t you join us?”
“Well, I’d thought of the Navy. Small stuff, you know. There ought to be something I could do.”
“Well, why not join us first, and then see how things work out? This picnic won’t last six months. Everyone betted that London would be in ruins by the end of last October, but you see, not a thing has happened. The Jerries have got cold feet, I should rather fancy.”
“That’s fool’s talk,” said Harben, taking a drink of bee
r. “Look here, I’ll see you tomorrow, if your push will let me join. It’s better than nothing, and does at least start me off in my own element, as it were. Oh, and by the way—I’m on rather a peculiar assignment tonight. You might ring up this number in the morning, round about ten, and ask them whether I got back all right. Would you mind?”
He gave Woods Mrs. Bradley’s Kensington number, knowing that her servants there would ring through to The Island as soon as they got the message. Woods copied down the number into his A.R.P. notebook, looked interested and inquisitive, but did not obtain any satisfaction for his natural curiosity. He was not the man to ask questions, and, as it was closing time, they finished their drinks, and Harben accompanied his friend as far as the bridge, and then retraced his steps towards the house.
The night seemed as dark as pitch, and although his eyes grew accustomed to the blackness a little, he was mortally afraid of missing the house in the dark.
Just as he came abreast of the almshouses his heart contracted suddenly and began a curious thumping. He had half a mind to turn back. An older man, a wiser man, or a man more laggard in love might well have given in to such a thought. He could see the house from where he stood. Someone with a torch was standing on top of the steps in front of the door. The torch was a powerful one. It illuminated the pillars of the entrance and threw a tremendous shadow on the porch. It was not possible to see whether the shadow was that of a man or a woman.
He stood, drawn back in the gateway which led to the almshouses, and waited for two or three minutes.
The torch-bearer came down the steps and walked away rapidly, with resounding masculine footsteps, in the direction of the slipway at the opposite end of the path.
Harben gave him five minutes. Then he went forward, mounted the steps, and knocked.
A scuffling sound came from within, and Leda’s voice said loudly and in fear:
“Who’s there? Is that the Warden?”
“Yes,” said Harben, disguising his voice. “I want to see you a minute.”
“Is it the black-out?”
“No.”
“Gas-masks?”
“No. Open up, please. I can’t waste time.” He was certain someone was with her and that her questions were put to deceive this other person, whoever it was.
“I can’t let you in at this time of night. I’m alone in the house,” she said. Harben opened the letter-box and peered through it into the hall. No black-out curtain was up, but the hall was not lighted.
He took a chance, and whispered through the open letter-slit:
“It’s David. Let me in, Leda. Don’t be afraid.”
“I can’t,” she whispered. “Go away.”
“Are you in any danger?”
“No, I don’t think so. But you may be if you come in.”
“I don’t care. Open the door.”
“No, no! If you love me, go! Come back in about an hour. They’ll be gone by then!”
Having no option, he went. He groped his way down the steps by counting them and keeping a hand on the wall. Then he turned west towards the bridge. He scarcely knew what to do with himself for an hour. He was tempted to watch the house from a cautious distance, but time passed slowly, and if, when Leda’s visitors left the house, a torch were flashed on him and he were recognized by one of the men (for instance) who had attacked him from the boat at Helsey Marsh, it would complicate an already complicated and dangerous business to the point where it might be impossible to unravel the tangle.
He waited for approximately five minutes, therefore, at the foot of the steps, whilst these other reflections passed through his mind. Then he went back towards the bridge. The riverside pub was closed. People were drifting over the bridge homewards. Beyond the bridge loomed the black bulk of the gasworks, darker than the very dark sky. Under the bridge, on whose parapet he leaned for twenty minutes before crossing the river to the quiet road beyond, the stream flowed on like black oil.
He guessed the time, having no watch. People jostled against him in the darkness, for he had no torch. At last he recrossed the bridge, took the sloping little road to the riverside, and after losing his way in a turning he had forgotten, found the narrow riverside path and made his way very slowly back to the house.
He knocked, and Leda let him in and took his hand to guide him along the hall. She pushed open the dining-room door. Harben went in. The room was empty.
The grate was empty, too. So much he had time to notice before Leda came in and shut the door. The cigarette ends were gone, and, with them, he took leave to assume, the only evidence that two people, other than himself and his very strange hostess, Mrs. Bradley, had been to the house after Leda and he had left it.
The girl came over to the fireplace and sat down. She smiled at him, her green eyes deepening in the way that he remembered, her long mouth stretched and narrow, and her long hands laid along the polished arms of the chair.
“Melisande; Sirena; Pamphiles; Vivien,” said Harben, under his breath; and suddenly, for no reason, he was afraid of this amphibious, green-haired girl who had forced herself into his life.
“The blanket of the dark,” he said aloud. He thought of witches, and of their familiar spirits, and found himself shivering at the thought. She noticed it; the smile faded. She leaned forward, looked concerned, the witchcraft gone from her eyes and her long, thin mouth.
“Darling, you’re cold. Come on! Let’s have a fire.” She went out and brought a portable gas-fire back. She fixed it on to the tap and then went out for a little vessel of water to put before it. “Water,” she said, as one invoking a god, and, to Harben’s discomfort, she smiled at him—the witch’s smile again. The hair began to prick on his neck. He was suspicious of the house, of the hour—it was close on midnight—and, keenly, now, of her. He said:
“Now, what are you up to? Why did you get me to come here? And who else is in the house with us?”
She did not answer immediately, and when she did, her remark was not what he expected.
“David, marry me, will you?”
“What are you up to?” asked Harben. “What’s the game? Who’s been to live here since you and I went away? There was food in the cupboard gone bad. It hadn’t been there very long—certainly not since you and I left, just after Whitsun.”
She looked at him, her green eyes flickering.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, “and I don’t know because …”
But the reason was lost to Harben. He heard the creak of the door and glanced across. The girl got up. The door began to open very slowly. Harben, groping wildly for Mrs. Bradley’s revolver, discovered he had left it behind. He never saw who came in, or how many there were. Just as he stepped out to pick up a chair to make a fight for it, the room shot gold and black at him. He clutched at the chair, but crashed. He remembered watching the floor come up towards him. Then there was nothing at all.
“You mean that’s his story,” said Pirberry.
“Wait,” said Mrs. Bradley. “There is more. Believe it or not, as you please.”
“The whole yarn, so far, proves that they were in love, Mr. Harben and this rather peculiar young lady,” said Pirberry slowly. “The old bloke, obviously the husband, is done in by one or other of ’em—possibly by both, on the lines of the Thompson-Bywaters case …”
“A dangerous example to cite,” said Mrs. Bradley.
“Anyway, it hangs together very nicely, ma’am. I should put it that Mr. Harben killed the old man, he and the girl between them got rid of the body, and some relations of the dead man got wise to what had happened, but couldn’t prove it.”
“How do you make your last deduction?” asked Mrs. Bradley.
“Because they laid for him, ma’am. If they’d had proof, they’d surely have come to us.”
Mrs. Bradley cackled.
BOOK FOUR
Ulysses
Call not thy wanderer home as yet
Though it be late.
> Now is his first assailing of
The invisible gate.
Be still through that light knocking. The hour
Is thronged with fate.
George William Russell (“A.E.”)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Castaway
Harben had a long, circumstantial dream. He received the impression that he must have been drunk the night before. His head ached, he felt sick, his mouth seemed filled with grit, and he had neither bodily strength nor will-power.
The bed on which he was lying gave a series of slight bounces, then seemed still to be moving, but smoothly this time. After some seconds, but before he had opened his eyes, it settled and became steady.
He sat up and looked about him. The pain just above his eyebrows was agonizing. He could not recognize his surroundings. He knew he was not on the tub; neither was he in a house. He closed his eyes again, overcome by a feeling of nausea. It was too great an effort to think, or to try to remember how he had come where he was.
Two men entered the narrow space in which his bunk was placed. He opened his eyes, realized that both were strangers to him, and closed his eyes again. Beyond a vague impression that one of them was in uniform, he had gained nothing from his brief inspection.
A voice said:
“I told you not to hit him too hard. All these intellectuals have skulls like egg-shells. A fine thing if, after all our trouble, he dies on us.”
“He’ll do all right,” said a second voice. “It’s the girl I’m worried about. What can we do with her now?”
“Leave her off here. We must get more juice,” said the first. “We’ll be here at least a couple of hours. I know what these half-breed dagoes are, the lazy tikes! Every day’s Sunday with them.”
“How’s the time?”
“Just going ten. If we’re off by the midday, that will have to do. He can’t expect miracles, can he? At least, not until we’re involved.”
Sunset Over Soho (Mrs. Bradley) Page 9
