It certainly seemed reasonable enough when she put it like that. But—was it really reason—or just her scent?
‘Yes—but ’e tried ter shoot me!’ blurted Ben, struggling against both her scent and her sense, and striving feebly to make out a case for himself.
She jumped up from the stairs, and seized his arm. Now her face was very close, and almost hypnotised him. A little wisp of hair was nearly touching his cheek.
‘Tried to shoot you?’ she cried, in alarm. ‘Good heavens! He’s in that condition! Don’t you see, you must leave—you must! Now! This moment!’
Her fingers tightened convulsively on his sleeve. Unconsciously, he had strengthened her case instead of weakening it. He felt himself being impelled imperiously towards the door, while rich fur brushed against shabby cloth and Houbigant mingled with stale tobacco … Now the front door was wide. The damp street opened its misty arms … And now he was on the pavement, his mind in a whirl, being bundled into the taxi …
‘Wot’s this?’ he protested.
‘My taxi,’ whispered the woman’s voice in his ear. ‘I’ll get another, but you mustn’t wait a second! I’ve told the man to drive you away, and I’ve paid him—’
He felt her final shove. The soft fingers could be hard and capable. The next instant the taxi began to move, and he was being driven away from Jowle Street.
His brain swam. He must steady it, and think. He groped for his cigarette.
THERE was no doubt about it, Ben needed a few soothing whiffs to regain his normal balance. Abruptly, within the space of a single minute, his little world had been uprooted and his immediate future changed; moreover, he was struggling to throw off the effects of the bemusing beauty that had entered the little world and had uprooted it. It had entered from a world much vaster than Ben’s. It had enveloped him with almost sinister potency, and with all the cynicism of the unattainable; yet its design had been backed by ruthless logic, or else the semblance of it, and he could not put his finger on the flaw. A flaw there must be. But where was it? That was the problem Ben hoped, with the aid of his cigarette, to solve.
He little realised, as he inserted the dainty, gold-tipped thing, how definitely it was going to assist him in his search for the catch!
‘I’ll give meself a couple o’ minits,’ he thought. ‘Just a couple, that’s orl. Then I’ll do something’.’
He struck a match, and lit the cigarette. The match-light glowed on the back of the taximan. It was a broad back, and the end of an untidy moustache protruded beyond the curve of a cheek. It must be a big moustache, Ben reflected, because it was a big cheek. Funny how you liked some moustaches, and hated others!
The match went out. Now only the reflection of his cigarette glowed in the broad back of the taximan. Yes, it was soothing, all right! Just what he wanted. But only for a couple of minutes, mind! No longer …
Ben watched the little glow as he puffed. It expanded and dwindled. So did the back it shone in. Now the back was enormous. Now it was tiny. Now it was enormous again. Queer, that. You could puff a cigarette glow up and down, but could you puff a back?
‘Wunner where ’e thinks ’e’s takin’ me,’ thought Ben; ‘’cos wherever ’e thinks, ’e’s wrong.’
But the next moment he was wondering about something else. The back was doing extraordinary things. It was swaying. First one side, then the other. Left—right—left—right! ‘’E’ll fall off ’is seat in a minit,’ thought Ben. But he didn’t fall off his seat, and all at once Ben realised the reason, with a shock. The taximan wasn’t swaying. Ben was swaying!
‘’Ere—wot’s orl this?’ murmured Ben. ‘I’m comin’ over orl funny!’
He puffed fiercely, and then suddenly raised his hand and snatched the cigarette from his mouth. His hand was like lead.
‘Gawd—so that was ’er gime!’ choked Ben.
He had struck the flaw in the logic. No really nice girl carries a drugged cigarette in her case!
Suppose he had smoked the cigarette when she had first offered it to him? She had offered it, he recalled, before he had mentioned anything about the pistol shot. He would have been feeling then as he was feeling now. The hall would have swum, instead of the taxi. He would have become limp … he would have been carried out unconscious … into the taxi …
‘’Ere! Stop!’ he bawled.
That was funny! Where was his voice? He didn’t hear it! Nor, apparently, did the taximan, for he didn’t stop.
‘Police! Fire! ’Elp!’ roared Ben.
But, again, it was a roar without a sound. His imagination raged, while his lips were mute. Two white arms went round him and held him. He sank into a sea of scent. A beautiful woman with a gleaming throat stood on the shore and laughed as he went under … Now, all was peaceful and velvet …
The sense of gliding—that remained. He had not smoked the whole cigarette. The body that could no longer function glided through the velvet, conscious of movement and of occasional incidents in the movement. Sometimes, for instance, the movement became a little jerky. Sometimes a cow squeaked through it. Sometimes it changed its direction abruptly, and took loops. Sometimes the velvet became speckled with little lights, or alleviated by a momentary big one, reminding one of the sensations of passing through stations on night journeys. And, as a sort of background to it all, there was a continuous, rhythmic throbbing, soft, and very close to the ears …
Now the movement became very jerky. Now the cow squeaked loudly, two squeaks at a time. And now the movement stopped, and the Universe paused in its transit. And now a new movement started—a heavy, formless, bumping kind of movement, that irritated one and made one vaguely rebellious. The gliding hadn’t been so bad. You could sink into it, yield yourself to it, accept it. In fact, you had to. But you couldn’t sink into this new form of locomotion through space. It shook you. It made you feel slighted. It caused your heavy arms to try and move with preventive intent, and your legs, equally heavy, to attempt kicks. But it wasn’t any good. The bumping movement went on, up, along, up, along, up, along, this side, straight again, t’other side, straight again, now tipping, now swaying, now swinging, now jolting, now cursing, now grumbling—up, along, up, along—woosh—flop!
Ben’s form became horizontal and inert again. Stretched out limply, it entered into its last stage of impassivity. When it began to emerge, the dim space around it started separating into sections, and each section formed into an object. An enormous oblong dwindled in size as it improved in focus, till it became a wardrobe. A block became a chest of drawers. A smaller block became a chair. A curious golden arrow became the light of a street lamp streaking in through a window.
‘’Ere—wot’s