The Debit Account Part 9

"I didn't--quite--I knew in myself--not otherwise."

"In yourself--how?"

"Oh, how does one know these things? One sees this--hears that----"

I clutched at her hand.

"Not so quickly. What 'this'? What 'that'?"

"Well, for one thing, Kitty Windus----"

"Does she know?"

"No----"

"You hesitate."

"She doesn't know. She helped me to knowledge. She doesn't know she did."

Again I s.n.a.t.c.hed at her hand.

"That's not the same thing. She may know of--that other--but not know she's let you know."

"That's just possible. That's why I----"

"Oh, anything's possible!" I broke out. "Let's be plain. Does she know that I killed----?"

"I don't think so. Indeed I'll say no."

"But you hesitate again. (Come this way--it's quieter.)"

As if a fusillade had been suspended there came a thrilling silence. We were pa.s.sing St. Peter's Church at the east end of Eaton Square. We were in the Square before she replied.

"Very well. Don't interrupt unless I ask you questions. I'll be as plain as I can. It's extraordinarily difficult...."

I waited.

"You see," she began carefully, "Kitty's so--queer. You couldn't expect that insane arrangement with her to go on indefinitely--I mean that incredible engagement of yours. She was bound to find out something.

She----"

"Yes--that's it--what _did_ she find out?" broke once more from me.

"Sss.h.!.+... Of course she found out--about Evie--that it was Evie you were in love with. Naturally she did. What woman wouldn't? _I_ saw it, with far less reason than Kitty had. We won't waste time over that. So after she left you, she expected week by week to hear of the next thing--your becoming engaged to Evie. Week by week, I say. How many weeks was it?"

"Four years."

"Week by week, for four years. All those weeks. If it didn't come one week it would be the next--you see. She prophesied it. It became an _idee fixe_. You never saw her during that time?"

"I never as much as----"

"Nor heard of her?"

"No."

"You didn't hear of her breakdown?"

"No; but all this doesn't----"

"Doesn't go beyond you and Evie. I know. Don't interrupt. And Evie didn't hear of her breakdown either?"

"No--I think I can say that."

"What did Evie think of--let us say Archie Merridew's suicide?"

I hesitated. "What should she think? She thought what everybody thought--more or less."

"As something inexplicable?"

"I a.s.sume so--but of course I've never----"

"What does she think now?"

"I hope she doesn't think of it at all. As far as I've been able----"

"Yes, yes, yes.... Plainly, then, have you told her? Told her what you did?"

"Told her? No!"

"Have you _thought_ of telling her?"

"Have I thought ... do you mean have I thought of killing her too?"

Louie was suddenly silent. A hansom slipped swiftly through the deserted Square, its wheels making no sound and the slap of the horse's hoofs dying gradually away in the distance. The rain had stopped, but the trees still dripped sadly, and something vague and far away had approached, resolved itself into a policeman's s.h.i.+ning cape, and pa.s.sed again before Louie spoke.

"Well," she said slowly, "after all, that's not the immediate point.

That comes later. The first thing's Kitty's condition. That condition, as far as I can make it out, is this. You showed yourself clever and unscrupulous almost beyond belief in one thing, and she found you out in that; now, I fancy, she thinks there's no end to your cleverness and unscrupulousness. Positively no end. You're _capable de tout_.... So she broods. Of course she ought never to have been allowed to live alone....

And she knows she has these--fancies--about you--and so when she's all right she's quite persuaded they _are_ fancies. And most of the time she _is_ all right. Then the fits come, and--she's off."

A quick s.h.i.+ver took me. "Do you mean----?" I faltered.

"Violently? Oh no. At the best she's just as she used to be; at the worst she's merely helpless, a child. Otherwise I should never dare to have her come and live with me."

"What, you're----?"

"Well, somebody's got to look after her."

"And so you----?"

"She's coming to me next week."