“What’s that to me?” he asked. “What do I care if I’m followed?”
“Don’t you want to know where you were followed?”
John Marco swung round on her.
“Must I be expected to endure more of this madness?” he asked.
“It isn’t madness,” she answered. “I followed you to your bank.”
He was silent for a moment: he felt now that the net was closing round him, closing tighter than he could ever have foreseen it. But he was still calm.
“Haven’t I the right to go to my bank?” he asked.
“It was a lot of money you paid in,” she said.
He saw a loop hole there, one dwindling gap which the mesh-work had not yet covered.
“That had nothing to do with your money,” he said.
“That was something of my own. Do you want to know how much it was? It was fifty pounds.”
“I know already,” she answered. “I heard you tell the cashier.”
The thought that she had been so close to him, that she had been in his shadow at that moment alarmed him still further. But he kept his voice level.
“What did I do with the rest of it then?” he asked. “Waste my substance in riotous living?”
“You aren’t that sort of man,” she answered. “You paid it into other banks. You went to Parr’s Bank, in Bayswater, on the Wednesday and to Fowler’s Bank, in Edgeware Road, on the Friday. You haven’t been into a bank since.”
When she had finished speaking, he sank down. He was cold, desperately cold, and his stomach was sick inside him. It was not merely that he was trembling now, he was shivering.
“Is that the whole of your proof?” he asked; he managed to jerk the words out of him.
“It is,” she answered.
“Then go to the police with it,” he said. “Go to the police and make yourself a laughing stock. Go to the police and see if you ever dare to show your face inside the Chapel again.”
She got up slowly and drew on her gloves again.
“Very well, then,” she said. “I will go. I shall go to the police.”
He stood up and let her pass and she went out into the inky hall. Then he followed her to the front door and opened it for her. He was breathing heavily and his heart was pounding.
“Is that your last word?” she said from the porch.
“It is,” he said, without looking at her.
But when she got to the gate he called her back.
The room was in silence. The only sound—so slight that it only made the silence seem deeper—was the everlasting ting-ting of the ornamental marble clock on the mantelpiece with the bronze figure of Father Time swinging in an endless and silly see-saw beneath. They had been sitting there in that chilly front parlour for nearly an hour, the two of them, but for the last five minutes John Marco had not spoken. His eyes were fixed on that maddening pendulum, aimlessly crossing and recrossing its path in space.
“I’m still waiting for your answer,” Miss Croome said quietly.
John Marco started.
“I’ve told you I’ll give you the money back,” he said.
“I don’t want you to give it to me back,” she answered. “It isn’t that I came for.”
“But I can’t do it,” he said. “It’s not in reason to ask it.”
“There’s no other way,” she reminded him.
“Yes, there is,” he said. “I’d go to prison sooner.”
“You’re not the sort of man who lets himself be put in prison,” she answered. “You’re too fond of the future. Think of the shame of it if they arrested you. Think of what they’d say about you in the Chapel. Think of what would happen to your mother if they took you away. You’d never get another place in a shop, remember. You have to handle money. They wouldn’t trust you again. This has got to be a secret between the two of us.”
“I won’t do it,” he said again.
“Is it because you’re in love with Mary Kent?” she asked.
It was the first trace of emotion that had crept into her voice at all.
He got quickly to his feet at the mention of Mary’s name and came over to where Hesther Croome was sitting. The movement was so sudden that she drew back involuntarily at his approach.
“Yes,” he said recklessly as if he did not care who heard him. “I’m in love with Mary Kent. Put me in prison, and she’ll wait for me until I come out. Try to ruin me, and she’ll stand by me. Do what you like but you can’t come between us.”
“You think that?”
“I know it.”
Miss Croome paused. Her eyes were fixed very steadily on his as she spoke.
“Then I shall go to her,” she said. “Perhaps she can save you.”
“You’ll not go near her,” he shouted. “You’ll not say a thing to her.”
“I shall go to-morrow morning,” she answered. “I shall tell her everything.”
“She’ll not listen to you.”
“If she loves you she’ll want to save you. She won’t let you be sent to prison.”
“How can she stop it?”
“She’ll give you up. She’ll refuse to marry you.”
He turned away from her and leant against the mantelpiece, passing his hand across his face as though to wipe something away.
He looked very different now from the John Marco who had entered the room and found her sitting there. The spruce counter-jumper had been obliterated: this was someone else. This man’s hair was tousled where he had run his fingers through it, and his collar had sprung open. His nerves, too, were on fire: his fingers were twitching. Without moving he snatched the pendulum from the clock and threw it into the empty grate. Without its pendulum the clock subsided. The silence of the room was now complete.
“Hadn’t you better give me your answer?” she asked him.
“I’ve promised nothing,” he told her.
“I shall give you until the morning,” she said. “You’re tired. You can decide after I’ve gone.”
“No: give me longer,” he said desperately. “Give me time to think.”
“Only till the morning,” she answered. “I shall do nothing until then if I can trust you.”
“But I’ve got to think, I tell you. I’ve got to think.”
It still seemed at that moment that there must be a hole in the net somewhere, a tear in the mesh-work through which he could still escape.
In her high bedroom in Abernethy Terrace Mary Kent suddenly cried out. It was a cry of pain followed by what sounded like a sob. Her mother heard her and went in. But Mary was sleeping. She was lying there with her cheek resting on her hand and with her fair hair like a cloud trailing across the pillow behind her. She looked very young. Mrs. Kent drew the covers closer over her and went out again. She never failed to remark that, in her sleep, Mary still looked as she remembered her as a child; she had cried out then sometimes, even though she was happy really.
Chapter VIII
The Second Day of the sale was the most sensational in the whole history of Morgan and Roberts. Mr. Jamieson, the manager in the Fancy Goods Department, was away (which was bad enough in itself at Sale time), and there were police in the shop. The latter came in through the stock door at the back and, with a somewhat ostentatious display of secrecy, went up heavy-footed to Mr. Morgan’s private office. The whole place buzzed with the news; it was the first time that the force had ever been on the premises.
Up to the moment of the police’s arrival, John Marco had seemed at first glance to be entirely normal; he was courteous and helpful and efficient. It was only on more intimate inspection that the strain, the cracks even, began to show: he looked older somehow. He was paler, too, much paler than usual; and his face was drawn as though invisible cords inside it had been knotted and pulled tight. He was, moreover, shut off from everything that was around him; he was isolated in a frigid, silent world of his own. So complete was the isolation, that before long the girls who worked beside him began to notice that he
seemed vaguely queer. For all the contact there was between them he might have been someone serving in another shop.
And when Mr. Hackbridge, with a look of immense gratification upon his face, came strolling down the aisle and whispered something in John Marco’s ear, it was the moment of climax. John Marco gripped the edge of the counter.
“Will you say that again, Mr. Hackbridge?” he asked. And as he spoke a sudden wave of terror broke over him.
Mr. Hackbridge tweaked the waxed ends of his moustache and gave the conceited smile of a man who is the bearer of important tidings.
“I said,” he repeated, “that the Old Gentleman has a couple of police officers with him, and they’re come to make enquiries.”
The shop and Mr. Hackbridge’s wide waistcoat and the young lady assistants all went black for a moment and disappeared, and John Marco thought that he was going to faint. But the darkness cleared away again and left him standing there.
Mr. Hackbridge was clicking his teeth at him.
“You look,” he said disapprovingly, “as though you’d had a night on the tiles, young man.”
The words brought John Marco up sharply. He passed his hand across his forehead.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “It’s just that I don’t feel very well this morning.”
Mr. Hackbridge, however, was not listening; he had passed on down the shop and was rubbing his hands over a customer.
“Germornin’ madam,” he was saying in a voice of treacle, “and what may we have the pleasure of showing you this morning?”
But John Marco was oblivious to it all. He was still standing at his counter staring blankly in front of him at the patch of air where Mr. Hackbridge had just been.
Then little Mr. Lyman, who looked after the accounts, came down, and said that the Old Gentleman wished to see John Marco in his office for a moment. As he heard the words, John Marco became aware of a strange fatalistic sense of pre-knowledge; he had waited for this summons so helplessly that it came almost as a relief. Ever since that one fatal act of folly that had jeopardised everything, he had been expecting this. Now that it had come, he only prayed that he would know how to meet it. Mr. Lyman had dropped his voice discreetly as he delivered the message—he was a bit self-conscious about it himself. But even so he was audible; the girls momentarily stopped serving and listened. John Marco was perfectly aware of their behaviour. That was why he merely gave a polite little nod and followed the diminutive Mr. Lyman with squared shoulders and his head carried high; at first glance it might even have been thought that it was Mr. Lyman whom the police wished to interview and John Marco who was his escort.
They were all sitting there when John Marco reached Mr. Morgan’s room. Mr. Morgan was seated at his desk with a plain-clothes man on either side of him. In front of the desk was one empty chair; John Marco looked at it and knew that it was for him. He caught a glimpse of Mr. Morgan’s face and saw how white and anxious it looked.
“Come in, Mr. Marco,” Mr. Morgan said with rather more formality than was necessary. “Come in and sit down. These gentlemen are police officers. They want to see if you can help them. Don’t be afraid to answer quite frankly.”
John Marco seated himself under three pairs of eyes and waited. He could hear his blood battering against his ear-drums as he sat there.
And then he became aware that Mr. Morgan was speaking again.
“It’s about Mr. Jamieson,” he was saying; “you will have noticed that he is not here this morning. I have to tell you that he met his death last night on the railway.”
“Do you want to speak to me about Mr. Jamieson?” John Marco asked.
And as he said it he laughed at the relief. With those three men staring at him he sat there and heard himself laughing.
Mr. Morgan looked shocked and startled.
But the Inspector was master of the situation.
“Take it easy,” he said. “I want you to tell me anything you know. Did he drink or bet, for instance?”
John Marco paused.
“I have seen him reading the racing editions, if that’s what you mean,” he said; and out of loyalty to the departed spirit of his ex-colleague, he added, “—out of business hours, of course.”
As he said the words, the picture of Mr. Jamieson flashed across his mind; it was the picture of a small man in a seedy frock coat, crouched down behind a cupboard in the stockroom, assiduously working out with the stump of pencil on a piece of paper the chances of one dark horse against another over the five furlongs of unseen, distant turf somewhere near Newmarket.
Mr. Morgan shook his head over the reply.
“Horse-racing’s the devil’s pastime,” he said. “It’s the high road to ruin.”
“And drink?” the Inspector went on. “What about drink?”
“I have never personally seen Mr. Jamieson the worse for liquor,” John Marco answered. “He always seemed the most sober of men.”
Mr. Morgan shook his head.
“I can’t understand it,” he said. “The two things usually go together.”
John Marco looked at him with contempt: the whole shop knew that Mr. Jamieson drank like a sink. Every day after lunch he used to stand on the pavement outside chewing a clove ball before he came in. But if Mr. Morgan hadn’t discovered it during all these years, John Marco did not feel inclined to tell him now.
“Did he ever discuss any money worries with you?” the Inspector asked.
“No,” said John Marco. “Never.”
“And you hadn’t any reason to think that he might take his life?”
John Marco raised his eyebrows a little. So that was it: they had simply been polite to the dead man when they said he had met his death. It was evident that they all thought that he had arranged the meeting. But John Marco merely shrugged his shoulders.
“Really,” he said, “I hardly knew the man.”
The answer did not seem to satisfy Mr. Morgan. He leant forward and addressed himself to John Marco.
“Mr. Marco,” he said, “I will be frank with you. Mr. Jamieson was under suspicion: he was fourteen-and-seven-pence short on his day’s takings: I had to speak to him about it. And it wasn’t the first time it had happened.” He dropped his voice almost to a whisper. “He was nearly three pounds short altogether last month,” he said. “I told him that if he couldn’t explain it, I should have to send for the police. And the same night he fell under a train.”
“Threw himself under a tank-engine, you mean, sir,” said the Inspector cheerfully.
Then the other policeman came into life.
“Had you actually dismissed him, sir?” he asked.
Mr. Morgan shook his head.
“Of course if I’d been able to find out anything definite he’d have had to go,” he answered. “You can’t afford to employ a thief in retail business.”
John Marco could feel a cold sweat breaking out upon his forehead: it seemed that in some inscrutable way the unlamented Mr. Jamieson had been sacrificed as an example: what twenty-four hours before had been a man was now merely a bloody and terrifying warning to sinners and the undetected.
“Did you see the widow?” Mr. Morgan was asking, turning towards the Inspector. “How was she taking it?”
“Sort of dazed, sir,” he answered. “They usually are a bit at first. She’s an invalid, you know. Been bed-ridden for years.”
John Marco half-rose.
“Will you be wanting me any more, sir?” he asked.
He felt that he could sit there no longer. This little comedy at which he was both spectator and actor was too grim for him. And he did not know how much longer his self-control, his beautiful self-control, would last.
He wanted to jump up and shout out: “Don’t go on chattering about poor old Jamieson. He’s dead anyhow, you fools; he got clear. Take a look at me. I’m a real thief. I didn’t just pinch a few shillings here and there. I stole bank-notes, handfuls of them.”
But all that happened was that Mr. Mo
rgan beamed on him.
“Quite right,” he said. “We mustn’t forget the Sale. We mustn’t let this other affair interfere with business.” And when John Marco had got to the door he went after him. “I shall have to put you in charge of the fancy goods as well,” he said. “They’re very important at Sale time remember; they’re quick turnover.” He paused. “And if I find you can manage it,” he added, jingling his small change in his pockets as he spoke, “I may give you both departments for good. Then we’ll have to see about your salary: it may mean an increase, you know.”
“Thank you, sir,” John Marco said and left him.
As soon as he was in the corridor he took out his handkerchief and wiped the inside of his collar with it: the handkerchief came away quite moist.
By eleven o’clock when Miss Croome had not arrived, John Marco began almost to doubt that she would come at all. The theft, his theft and the threat of exposure that she was hanging over him, did not seem any longer to belong to this world at all. And this one was the real world, this retail world of inches and farthings. The other was simply the finale to a nightmare that somehow or other had not vanished at morning. And then he remembered that Mr. Jamieson must often have felt like that while an unseen race-horse with five stolen shillings of Mr. Morgan’s money on it was winning or losing on one of the thumping tracks of England. But Mr. Jamieson had been wrong: only yesterday he had discovered that reality and the nightmare can become one.
And at twelve o’clock, just as Mr. Morgan and the two policemen came down the stairs and began to tour the shop, Miss Croome came in; John Marco’s eye was on the door as she entered; it had been there all the time in fact. But she looked different now; he noticed that at once. Even the mourning which she was wearing was not the same. She had brought a black, handsome fur and wore it slung across her like a prize. Somehow in the midst of death she had become fashionable.
She walked up to John Marco, and this time stood there without even making the pretence of buying anything.
“Have you decided?” she asked quietly.
John Marco’s throat was dry. At the end of the counter Mr. Morgan and the two police officers were standing.
I Shall Not Want Page 10
