“You know as well as I do, that there are all sorts of turnings in London that a young fellow can take; good, bad, and indifferent. There was a good deal of bad luck about it. I do believe, and I was too young to know or care much where I was going; but I got into a turning with the black pit at the end of it.”
He beckoned me to lean forward across the table, and whispered for a minute or two in my ear. In my turn, I heard not without horror. I said nothing.
“That was what I heard shrieked out in the wood. What do you say?”
“You’ve done with all that long ago?”
“It was done with very soon after it was begun. It was no more than a bad dream. And then it all flashed back on me like deadly lightning. What do you say? What can I do?”
I told him that I had to admit that it was no good to try to put the business in the wood down to accident, the casual filthy language of a depraved village girl. As I said, it couldn’t be a case of a bow drawn at a venture.
“There must be somebody behind it. Can you think of anybody?”
“There may be one or two left. I can’t say. I haven’t heard of any of them for years. I thought they had all gone; dead, or at the other side of the world.”
“Yes; but people can get back from the other side of the world pretty quickly in these days. Yokohama is not much farther off than Yarmouth. But you haven’t heard of any of these people lately?”
“As I said, not for years. But the secret’s out.”
“But, let’s consider. Who is this girl? Where does she live? We must get at her, and try if we can’t frighten the life out of her. And, in the first place, we’ll find out the source of her information. Then we shall know where we are. I suppose you have discovered who she is?”
“I’ve not a notion of who she is or where she lives.”
“I daresay you wouldn’t care to ask the Morgans any questions. But to go back to the beginning: you spoke of blackmail. Did this damned girl ask you for money to shut her mouth?”
“No; I shouldn’t have called it blackmail. She didn’t say anything about money.”
“Well; that sounds more helpful. Let’s see; to-night is Saturday. You took this unfortunate walk of yours a couple of nights ago; on Thursday night. And you haven’t heard anything more since. I should keep away from that wood, and try to find out who the young lady is. That’s the first thing to be done, clearly.”
I was trying to cheer him up a little; but he only stared at me with his horror-stricken eyes.
“It didn’t finish with the wood,” he groaned. “My bedroom is next door to this room where we are. When I had pulled myself together a bit that night, I had a stiff glass, about double my allowance, and went off to bed and to sleep. I woke up with a noise of tapping at the window, just by the head of the bed. Tap, tap, tap, it went. I thought it might be a bough beating on the glass. And then I heard that voice calling me: ‘James Roberts: open, open!’
“I tell you, my flesh crawled on my bones. I would have cried out, but I couldn’t make a sound. The moon had gone down, and there’s a great old pear tree close to the window, and it was quite dark. I sat up in my bed, shaking for fear. It was dead still, and I began to think that the fright I had got in the wood had given me a nightmare. Then the voice called again, and louder:
“‘James Roberts! Open. Quick.’
“And I had to open. I leaned half out of bed, and got at the latch, and opened the window a little. I didn’t dare to look out. But it was too dark to see anything in the shadow of the tree. And then she began to talk to me. She told me all about it from the beginning. She knew all the names. She knew where my business was in London, and where I lived, and who my friends were. She said that they should all know. And she said: ‘And you yourself shall tell them, and you shall not be able to keep back a single word!’”
The wretched man fell back in his chair, shuddering and gasping for breath. He beat his hands up and down, with a gesture of hopeless fear and misery; and his lips grinned with dread.
I won’t say that I began to see light. But I saw a hint of certain possibilities of light or — let us say — of a lessening of the darkness. I said a soothing word or two, and let him get a little more quiet. The telling of this extraordinary and very dreadful experience had set his nerves all dancing; and yet, having made a clean breast of it all, I could see that he felt some relief. His hands lay quiet on the table, and his lips ceased their horrible grimacing. He looked at me with a faint expectancy, I thought; as if he had begun to cherish a dim hope that I might have some sort of help for him. He could not see himself the possibility of rescue; still, one never knew what resources and freedoms the other man might bring.
That, at least, was what his poor, miserable face seemed to me to express; and I hoped I was right, and let him simmer a little, and gather to himself such twigs and straws of hope as he could. Then, I began again:
“This was on the Thursday night. And last night? Another visit?”
“The same as before. Almost word for word.”
“And it was all true, what she said? The girl was not lying?”
“Every word of it was true. There were some things that I had forgotten myself; but when she spoke of them, I remembered at once. There was the number of a house in a certain street, for example. If you had asked me for that number a week ago I should have told you, quite honestly, that I knew nothing about it. But when I heard it, I knew it in the instant: I could see that number in the light of a street lamp. The sky was dark and cloudy, and a bitter wind was blowing, and driving the leaves on the pavement — that November night.”
“When the fire was lit?”
“That night. When they appeared.”
“And you haven’t seen this girl? You couldn’t describe her?”
“I was afraid to look; I told you. I waited when she stopped speaking. I sat there for half an hour or an hour. Then I lit my candle and shut the window-latch. It was three o’clock and growing light.”
I was thinking it over. I noted, that Roberts confessed that every word spoken by his visitant was true. She had sprung no surprises on him; there had been no suggestion of fresh details, names, or circumstances. That struck me as having a certain — possible — significance; and the knowledge of Roberts’s present circumstances, his City address, and his home address, and the names of his friends: that was interesting, too.
There was a glimpse of a possible hypothesis. I could not be sure; but I told Roberts that I thought something might be done. To begin with, I said, I was going to keep him company for the night. Nichol would guess that I had shirked the walk home after nightfall; that would be quite all right. And in the morning he was to pay Mrs. Morgan for the two extra weeks he had arranged to stay, with something by way of compensation. “And it should be something handsome,” I added with emotion, thinking of the duck and the old ale. “And then,” I finished, “I shall pack you off to the other side of the island.”
Of that old ale I made him drink a liberal dose by way of sleeping-draught. He hardly needed a hypnotic; the terror that he had endured and the stress of telling it had worn him out. I saw him fall into bed and fall asleep in a moment, and I curled up, comfortably enough, in a roomy armchair. There was no trouble in the night, and when I writhed myself awake, I saw Roberts sleeping peacefully. I let him alone, and wandered about the house and the shining morning garden, till I came upon Mrs. Morgan, busy in the kitchen.
I broke the trouble to her. I told her that I was afraid that the place was not agreeing at all with Mr. Roberts. “Indeed,” I said, “he was taken so ill last night that I was afraid to leave him. His nerves seem to be in a very bad way.”
“Indeed, then, I don’t wonder at all,” replied Mrs.