There was silence, a slight rustling as Morrow turned over the pages of the paper. He lay back in the arm-chair, a man very much at ease, but presently he lowered the paper and contemplated the figure of his wife. She appeared to be happily absorbed in some financial business.
He spoke.
“Butcher and baker and candlestick-maker.”
She turned her head.
“I’m adding.”
“Sorry. Someone has said that it is the male’s privilege to interrupt.”
“So it seems,” and she smiled. “I have been tackling the question of soap.”
“Are we so extravagantly clean?”
“Soap at the Home. I’ve managed to bring it down by three shillings and sevenpence a week. Buying in bulk, you know.”
“You are a born organizer.”
“Not quite—born.”
“Well, shall we say—inspired?”
“Thank you, Noll. But it’s quite a fascinating job.”
“Seems so. Before you took over the quartermastering the Home was rather—feckless. I hadn’t the time, and Miss Frederick may be an excellent matron, but she’s a little too dignified for household details.”
“She doesn’t love it as I do.”
“I believe you do. And those week-ends in the cottage.”
“Yes, Noll. Even the winter and the firelight and the wind in the chimney, and your old plaid slippers! I feel—somehow—so secure.”
He put down the paper, and his face was both mischievous and grave.
“I suppose you know that I realize why you go and sit at that bureau directly after lunch?”
“To digest my lunch and my accounts.”
“Not a bit of it. You play mouse so that the old black cat can blink in a chair for half an hour.”
“Think so?”
“I don’t think, I know. Thirty precious minutes in the rush of a doctor’s day. A cigarette, the paper or a little meditation, and a woman who understands.”
“Do I understand, Noll?”
“Even the lunch has to be left to repose.”
“Yes, I told Ann.”
“I often wonder why women are so kind to us.”
“Some of them. But why wonder?”
“Yes, and if you didn’t sit there, if you weren’t in the room, it wouldn’t be the same.”
“I think that’s the most precious thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Well, it’s true. My God, if people would only learn not to fuss and to fidget, and grab telephones and chatter.”
“I don’t think one fidgets if one is happy, Noll.”
“Well, we must be happy. That’s all I can say. Time for me to move.”
He rose and folded up the paper.
“Hospital. I shall be back for tea.”
“Good. I’m going to look up Nobbs, and see if he is keeping fit.”
“Splendid idea. One of our successes, Nobbs.”
He went and stood behind her chair, and taking her chin between thumb and finger, he looked at her quizzically and then kissed her.
“Couple of sentimental idiots, aren’t we? I’m most horribly un-highbrow.”
“Except as a doctor.”
“I’ve come to the conclusion that husbands shouldn’t be highbrow.”
“And wives?”
“That depends on the coiffure that happens to be in fashion. I’m glad you don’t pluck your eyebrows. Women might as well wear rings in their noses.”
When he had gone Kitty rose and rang the bell, and went back to her work at the bureau. The maid came in to clear away the lunch, and as she was going out with the tray Mrs. Morrow turned her head.
“Tea as usual, Ann, please.”
“Yes, madam.”
“If you or Bertha like to go out for an hour, arrange it between you.”
“Thank you, madam.”
She paused in the doorway.
“I think that’s the front door bell. If it is a patient shall I make an appointment?”
Kitty consulted a diary.
“Dr. Morrow has no time free to-day or to-morrow. It would have to be the morning after to-morrow.”
“Very well, madam.”
She went out with the tray and closed the door, and Kitty extracted another small ledger from a pigeonhole and turned over its leaves. Finding what she wanted she scribbled a note on a pad, and whistled a few notes from the waltz in “Bitter-Sweet.”
The door opened suddenly, and the voice of Ann was heard, ruffled and apologetic.
“Madam, this gentleman——”
As Kitty turned her head Jack Carthew pushed his way past the maid into the room, a shabby Carthew carrying a greasy felt hat. His face had a curious pallor, an unwholesome flaccidity, and the eyes looked sunken and strangely bright. Somehow his smeary shabbiness assumed an impudent swagger.
“How do, Mrs. Morrow? I told the girl I’d come straight up.”
“He pushed past me, madam.”
Kitty sat very still, looking at this resurrected fragment of her past. Her face had a sudden, bleak rigidity. She seemed to restrain herself, to realize that she was in danger, and that the invasion would have to be met and repulsed, but not in the presence of the servant. She rose from her chair with an assumption of ease.
“Why, Mr. Carthew! Have you had lunch?”
His grin was ironic.
“Yes, at Claridge’s.”
“I’m afraid we could not have competed with Claridge’s. All right, Ann.”
The maid, with a disdainful and offended glance at Carthew, closed the door, and Kitty Morrow, strolling to the fire-place, opened the silver cigarette-box on the mantelpiece. The shock had shaken her for the moment. She lit a cigarette, seemed to pause for three seconds, and then turned suddenly on Carthew.
“How dare you come here?”
He threw his hat on the table.
“Aren’t you pleased to see me? I suppose that girl isn’t listening?”
She looked at him with aversion and scorn, and going to the door, opened it.
“No one there. My maids haven’t your mentality. Now, what do you want here?”
As she closed the door he crossed the room and helped himself to a cigarette.
“You haven’t asked after my health.”
“It doesn’t interest me.”
“No? Don’t you think I look rather cheap?”
She returned to the bureau, and turning the chair, sat facing him.
“Dissipated—perhaps. Have you come to see my husband?”
“No. Look here, supposing we cut out the personalities. You may as well be polite to me.”
“Indeed. Supposing I ring up the police and have you removed?”
He perched himself on the back of the sofa. He swung a foot, and looked at her obliquely, with a smirk of menace.
“Shouldn’t do that. I may as well tell you that I have been watching this house for a week. It’s a most respectable house. I know that your good husband goes off punctually at two.”
“Indeed.”
“Well, don’t you see a little light?”
She spoke bitingly.
“I see a little cad, and I sit here and think with amazement of a woman who was so blind——”
He sneered.
“Don’t you see a back bedroom, and——”
But she interrupted him with sudden and astonishing fierceness.
“You will not speak of those beastly, shameful days. Possibly I am beginning to realize why you are here. You can go.”
He retorted with almost equal fierceness.
“Look here, this is not a sentimental show. None of your prevarications. I’m not one of the sleek people. I’m down and out. I don’t care a damn about the conventions. Look at this.”
He got off the sofa and crossed the room. He pulled up his left sleeve and showed her a forearm covered with little puncture marks.
“See those?”
“I do.”
“Know what they mean
?”
She sat rigid.
“So, you have come to that? Perhaps it was inevitable.”
His voice seemed to snarl.
“Inevitable! Is that all you’ve got to say to the man who gave you all you wanted at the sex game?”
She shrank a little, but not with fear.
“You beast.”
He drew back and smirked at her.
“Thanks. How nice of you. But I think I might suggest that the dope costs money, and when a man has the crave he doesn’t care a despicable damn how the money comes. All he wants is the stuff. He’s mad without it. D’you see?”
She looked at his flaccid, faded face.
“Indeed. So you want——?”
“Cash or supplies.”
“Supplies?”
“I suppose you know where to get ’em. A doctor must have a nice little cabinet.”
She rose suddenly from her chair.
“You suggest that I should supply you——?”
“It may be worth your while, my dear. I’m dynamite. If I explode——”
He gave a kind of truculent giggle, and sitting down in a chair by the window, he sat watching her.
“I’m rather jumpy these days, so be careful. I suggest that you regard this as a mere matter of business. I could do with some of the cash I spent on you, or I would take part in cash and part in goods.”
She leaned against the bureau.
“How nice! But don’t you know that a doctor has to account for every grain of such a drug?”
“No flies here. There’s nothing about the dope game I don’t know. It’s to be had when you pay spot cash, but when you’re dry there’s nothing doing.”
“So you came here as a common blackmailer.”
He gave her a malicious look.
“Not quite common, my dear. I suggest it is worth your while——”
“And supposing——?”
“I might make things rather awkward. When you have fooled a man once, he’s apt to be suspicious, especially when he’s played the noble fellow. And Cæsar’s wife, my dear, and this respectable street! I don’t care a damn what sort of scene I make. Your reputation’s a bit delicate. And there’s your husband’s reputation, the eminent and fashionable physician. I hear he is going to be knighted. It might interest society to know that his wife had been——”
She stood up straight and still.
“So—there’s no decent thing left in you.”
He sniggered.
“Fetch me one of old Morrow’s books on medicine and I’ll read you quotations from it on dope fiends. It will tell you that they lose all moral sense. And, after all, what is moral sense, the refuge of the respectable? I’m just a savage, an appetite, a blazing furious crave.”
She considered him, and her eyes seemed to narrow.
“I see. A sort of mad dog. And you want me to feed the mad dog in you, without my husband knowing?”
“Question of policy, isn’t it? Keep cool, my dear. I’ve got to have the stuff, got to, do you understand?”
She nodded. She was considering how best this creature out of the past could be captured and shut up in a cage. If he was desperate, and she did not doubt but that he was desperate, half-measures would be useless. She remembered the telephone standing on her bureau. She gave a cynical shrug.
“Some problem, isn’t it. So it’s a cheque book affair. I happen to have a private account.”
“That’s better.”
“Have another cigarette.”
She turned to the bureau, and while his back was turned she took down the receiver.
“1073 Gerrard, please.”
He swung round with a snarl.
“Here, put that damned thing down.”
“I’ve got the bell behind me. If you move I’ll ring and the maid will come.”
“You little idiot, you’ll be sorry.”
“Shall I? Yes, is that St. Martin’s Hospital? Yes. Mrs. Morrow speaking. Morrow. Is that the porter? Yes. Will you please find Dr. Morrow at once and tell him something terrible has happened here at his house. Tell him to come at once. Yes—that’s all.”
She hung up the receiver, and keeping her place near the bell, she looked at the hesitant and malevolent Carthew.
“How’s that?”
He was rolling a cigarette between finger and thumb, and his hands betrayed a fine tremor.
“You’ve torn it. You’ll be sorry, my lady.”
“We shall see.”
She moved quickly to the door, locked it, and removed the key.
“You are going to stay here and see my husband. If you are a mad dog, he may know how to handle mad dogs.”
He showed the chattering rage of a coward.
“Here, hand over that key.”
“If you move I’ll ring the bell and tell them to bring in the police.”
He hesitated. He had come half-way across the room, and he stood there looking mean and furtive. The tremor of his hands was more evident. He dropped the cigarette, stooped for it, and with a leer at her, returned to his perch on the sofa.
“Regular melodrama, what! You’ll be sorry.”
He found a box of matches on the small table, and lit the cigarette, and sat silently, smoking and observing her out of furtive and threatening eyes.
“Yes, you’ll be sorry. Remember that little place in Soho where I first took you upstairs? The sofa, and one of your shoes fell off. And that flat in Summers Street, and that fellow Mason who was squiffy——? Yes, nice details. I’ll retail them all to your dear husband. I don’t suppose you went into all the details with him.”
She was stark but steadfast.
“Is that your idea of humour?”
“It’s my idea of realism. I can paint a nice picture, my dear. Don’t you think you had better hand over that key?”
“So you want to sneak out—now.”
“Your husband is a lumbering sort of brute. We might hurt each other.”
“Yes, you may——”
There was sudden silence between them, and a sound of footsteps on the stairs. A hand tried the door. They heard the voice of Dr. Morrow.
“Kitty—hallo!”
She went quickly to the door, unlocked it, and flung it open.
“Arnold—this—has reappeared.”
Morrow, big hands hanging clenched, stood looking at Carthew.
“Our parasitic past—I think. What brought it here?”
She went and stood by the window.
“He came to try and blackmail me. He has taken to drugs. He wanted me to give him drugs. He threatened. He warned me that he is a mad dog. So I locked the door and sent for you.”
Morrow closed the door.
“O, a mad dog, is he! Charming fellow. About as septic—I suppose—as anything one could meet west of Port Said.”
He crossed towards Carthew who remained poised on the sofa.
“So you have taken to drugs and blackmail. I think this is an occasion when men talk in private.”
He turned to his wife, and taking her arm, led her to the door.
“Leave me the problem.”
There was sudden fear in her eyes.
“Arnold, he threatened me—that he would blacken everything——. I have never seen him since that night.”
Morrow bent and kissed her.
“So—that’s his idea. I’ll deal with it. Don’t worry.”
XI
When he had closed the door on his wife Morrow turned and faced Carthew, who, perched on the sofa seemed trying to enlarge his pallid, sodden self. Cornered, he showed his teeth. To defend oneself it might be necessary to threaten, to appear casual and insolent.
“Nice domestic touch, that. She’s become the lily, has she? I might get out my little paint box and tint the lily.”
“I think not.”
Carthew pulled up his sleeve.
“As a doctor—look at that.”
“Yes, you’ve punctured yourself pretty freely
. Who are the scoundrels who sold you the stuff?”
“Never you mind. Some of the black sheep of your own profession, perhaps.”
“Not very likely.”
Carthew pulled down his sleeve.
“But that’s neither here nor there. I haven’t had a dose for twenty-four hours. As a doctor you should know what that means in a case like mine. It means I’m mad, that I don’t care a blasted bean for anything or anybody but the drug. I’ve got to have it. I’ve no decencies left. If you don’t give it me I’ll be as indecent about your wife——”
Morrow went near to him.
“Be careful.”
“Now, keep off and talk business.”
“I am much more likely to kill you.”
“O, bluff. Well, here goes. When your wife——”
But Morrow was upon him, and for a moment they struggled together. Carthew, taken by the throat and rolled back on the sofa, was held pinned there, squirming. Morrow’s big hands were merciless, and Carthew choked.
“Let—go—I—can’t breathe.”
“I’m going to kill you.”
“O, my God—let go.”
“How does it feel—being strangled? You were trying to strangle the soul of a woman. I’m only choking a mad dog.”
Carthew, struggled feebly, his eyes agonized and staring.
“I’ll give in—I’ll——”
And suddenly Morrow’s grip relaxed. He lifted him bodily and threw him along the floor. He stood over him.
“You infinitely foul thing, what am I to do with you?”
Carthew lay panting and twitching, and suddenly he began to whimper. He squirmed towards Morrow.
“You’ve had your fun. You’ve knocked me about. Now, give me a dose.”
“You foul thing.”
“Give me a dose, just a little of the stuff, and I’ll go away.”
“You’re not a man, you’re a crave.”
Morrow sat down on the sofa, and Carthew, crawling towards him, showed his bare arm.
“You see, I can’t help it, can I? It’s like drink, only ten times worse.”
Morrow observed him as though the man at his feet was some pathological specimen.
“You’re about the biggest problem I’ve tackled.”
Two in a Train Page 26
