Dead Man's Rock Part 43

The soul of one of us shall never see to-morrow."

Her hand was as cold as ice, and her pale face never changed.

"Kill him!" she said, simply.

I turned, and climbed the steps. By this time day had broken, and the east was streaked with angry flushes of crimson. The wind swept through my dripping clothes and froze my aching limbs to the marrow.

Up the river came floating a heavy pall of fog, out of which the masts showed like grisly skeletons. The snow-storm had not quite ceased, and a stray flake or two came brus.h.i.+ng across my face.

So dawned my Christmas Eve!

As I gained the top, I turned to look down. She was still standing there, watching me. Seeing me look, she waved her arms, and I heard her hoa.r.s.e whisper, "Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!"

I left her standing so, and turned away; but in the many ghosts that haunt my solitary days, not the least vivid is the phantom of this white-haired woman on the black and silent river, eternally beckoning, "Kill him!"

I found myself in a yard strewn with timber, spars and refuse, half hidden beneath the snow. From it a flight of rickety stone steps led to a rotting door, and thence into the street. Here I stood for a moment, pondering on my next step. Not a soul was abroad so early; but I must quickly get a change of clothes somewhere; at present I stood in my torn dress trousers and soaked s.h.i.+rt. I pa.s.sed up the street, my shoeless feet making the first prints in the newly-fallen snow. The first? No; for when I looked more closely I saw other footprints, already half obliterated, leading up the street.

These must be Simon Colliver's. I followed them for about a hundred yards past the shuttered windows.

Suddenly they turned into a shop door, and then seemed to leave it again. The shop was closed, and above it hung three bra.s.s b.a.l.l.s, each covered now with a snowy cap. Above, the blinds were drawn down, but on looking again, I saw a c.h.i.n.k of light between the shutters. I knocked.

After a short pause, the door was opened. A red-eyed, villainous face peered out, and seeing me, grew blank with wonder.

"What do you want?" inquired at length the voice belonging to it.

"To buy a fresh suit of clothes. See, I have fallen into the river."

Muttering something beneath his breath, the p.a.w.nbroker opened his door, and let me into the shop.

It was a dingy nest, fitted up with the usual furniture of such a place. The one dim candle threw a ghostly light on chairs, clocks, compa.s.ses, trinkets, saucepans, watches, piles of china, and suits of left-off clothes arrayed like rows of suicides along the wall.

A general air of decay hung over the den. Immediately opposite me, as I entered, a stuffed parrot, dropping slowly into dust, glared at me with one malevolent eye of gla.s.s, while a hideous Chinese idol, behind the counter, poked out his tongue in a very frenzy of malignity. But my eye wandered past these, and was fixed in a moment upon something that glittered upon the counter. That something was my own watch.

Following my gaze, the man gave me a quick, suspicious glance, hastily caught up the watch, and was bestowing it on one of his shelves, when I said--

"Where did you get that?"

"Quite innocently, sir, I swear. I bought it of a gentleman who came in just now, and would not p.a.w.n it. I thought it was his, so that if you belong to the Force, I hope--"

"Gently, my friend," said I; "I am not in the police, so you need not be in such a fright. Nevertheless, that watch is mine; I can tell you the number, if you don't believe it."

He pushed the watch across to me and said, still greatly frightened--

"I am sure you may see it, sir, with all my heart. I wouldn't for worlds--"

"What did you give for it?"

He hesitated a moment, and then, as greed overmastered fear, replied--

"Fifteen pounds, sir; and the man would not take a penny less.

Fifteen good pounds! I swear it, as I am alive!"

Although I saw that the man lied, I drew out three five-pound notes, laid them on the table, and took my watch. This done, I said--

"Now I want you to sell me a suit of clothes, and aid me to disguise myself. Otherwise--"

"Don't talk, sir, about 'otherwise.' I'm sure I shall only be too glad to rig you out to catch the thief. You can take your pick of the suits here; they are mostly seamen's, to be sure; but you'll find others as well. While as for disguises, I flatter myself that for getting up a face--"

Here he stopped suddenly.

"How long has he been gone?"

"About half an hour, sir, before you came. But no doubt you know where he'd be likely to go; and I won't be more than twenty minutes setting you completely to rights."

In less than half an hour afterwards, I stepped out into the street so completely disguised that none of my friends--that is, if I had possessed a friend in the world--would have recognised me. I had chosen a sailor's suit, that being the character I knew myself best able to sustain. My pale face had turned to a bronze red, while over its smoothly-shaven surface now grew the roughest of untrimmed beards. Snow was falling still, so that Colliver's footprints were entirely obliterated. But I wanted them no longer. He would be at Paddington, I knew; and accordingly I turned my feet in that direction, and walked rapidly westward.

My chase had begun. I had before me plenty of time in which to reach Paddington, and the exercise of walking did me good, relaxing my stiffened limbs until at length I scarcely felt the pain of the weals where the cords had cut me. It was snowing persistently, but I hardly noticed it. Through the chill and sullen morning I held doggedly on my way, past St. Katharine's Wharf, the Tower, through Gracechurch Street, and out into St. Paul's Churchyard. Traffic was already beginning here, and thickened as I pa.s.sed down Ludgate Hill and climbed up to Holborn. Already the white snow was being churned and trodden into hideous slush in which my feet slipped and stumbled.

My coat and sailor's cap were covered with powdery flakes, and I had to hold my head down for fear lest the drifting moisture should wash any of the colouring off my face. So my feet carried me once more into Oxford Street. How well remembered was every house, every lamp-post, every flag of the pavement almost! I was on my last quest now.

"To-night! to-night!" whispered my heart: then came back the words of Claire's mother--"Kill him! Kill him!" and still I tramped westward, as westward lay my revenge.

Suddenly a hansom cab shot past me. It came up silently on the slushy street, and it was only when it was close behind that I heard the m.u.f.fled sound of its wheels. It was early yet for cabs, so that I turned my head at the sound. It pa.s.sed in a flash, and gave me but a glimpse of the occupant: but in that moment I had time to catch sight of a pair of eyes, and knew now that my journey would not be in vain. They were the eyes of Simon Colliver.

So then in Oxford Street, after all, I had met him. He was cleverly disguised--as I guessed, by the same hands that had painted my own face--and looked to the casual eye but an ordinary bagman. But art could not change those marvellous eyes, and I knew him in an instant.

My heart leapt wildly for a moment--my hands were clenched and my teeth shut tight; but the next, I was plodding after him as before.

I could wait now.

Before I reached Paddington I met the cab returning empty, and on gaining the station at first saw nothing of my man. Though as yet it was early, the platform was already crowded with holiday-makers: a few country dames laden with countless bundles, careworn workers preparing to spend Christmas with friends or parents in their village home, a sprinkling of schoolboys chafing at the slowness of the clock. After a minute or so, I spied Simon Colliver moving among this happy and innocent crowd like an evil spirit. I flung myself down upon a bench, and under pretence of sleeping, quietly observed him. Once or twice, as he pa.s.sed to and fro before me, he almost brushed my knee, so close was he--so close that I had to clutch the bench tightly for fear I should leap up and throttle him. He did not notice me. Doubtless he thought me already tossing out to sea with the gulls swooping over me, and the waves merrily das.h.i.+ng over my dead face. The waiting game had changed hands now.

I heard him demand a ticket for Penryn, and, after waiting until he had left the booking office, took one myself for the same station.

I watched him as he chose his compartment, and then entered the next.

It was crowded, of course, with holiday-seekers; but the only person that I noticed at first was the man sitting directly opposite to me-- an honest, red-faced countryman, evidently on his way home from town, and at present deeply occupied with a morning paper which seemed to have a peculiar fascination for him, for as he raised his face his round eyes were full of horror. I paid little attention to him, however, but, having the corner seat facing the engine, watched to see that Colliver did not change his compartment. He did not appear again, and in a minute or two the whistle shrieked and we were off.

At first the countryman opposite made such a prodigious to-do with his piece of news that I could not help watching him. Then my attention wandered from him to the country through which we were flying. Slowly I pondered over the many events that had pa.s.sed since, not many months before, I had travelled up from Cornwall to win my fortune. My fortune! To what had it all come? I had won a golden month or two of love, and lo! my darling was dead. Dead also was the friend who had travelled up with me, so full of boyish hope: both dead; the one in the full blaze of her triumph, the other in the first dawn of his young success: both dead--and, but for me, both living yet and happy.

Suddenly the countryman looked up and spoke.

"Hav'ee seen this bit o' news? Astonis.h.i.+n'! And her so pretty too!"

"What is it?" I asked vacantly.

For answer he pushed the paper into my hands, and with his thumb-nail pointed to a column headed "TERRIBLE TRAGEDY IN A THEATRE."

"An' to think," he continued reflectively, "as how I saw her wi' my own eyes but three nights back--an' actin' so pretty, too! Lord!

It made me cry like any sucking child: beautiful it was--just beau-ti-ful! Here's a story to tell my missus!"

I took the paper and read--

"TERRIBLE TRAGEDY IN A THEATRE. SUICIDE OF A FAMOUS ACTRESS.-- Last evening, the performance of the new and popular tragedy, _Francesca_, at the Coliseum, was interrupted by a scene perhaps the most awful that has ever been presented to the play-going public. A sinister fate seems to have pursued this play from the outset. It will be within the memory of all that its young and gifted author was, on the very night of its production, struck down suddenly in the street by an unknown hand which the police have not yet succeeded in tracing.

Last night's tragedy was even more terrible. Clarissa Lambert, whose name--"

But I wanted to read no more. To the countryman's astonishment the paper slipped from my listless fingers, and once more my gaze turned to the carriage window. On we tore through the snow that raced horizontally by the pane, through the white and peaceful country-- homeward. Homeward to welcome whom? Whom but the man now sitting, it might be, within a foot of me? To my heart I hugged the thought of him, sitting there and gloating over the morrow.