She was crying, and I had to comfort her. It broke my heart to think of all the times she had cried without any comfort.
In the end I had to promise not to disappear again. She said she could bear it if she knew where I was, and if we wrote to each other. When that was settled we both felt much happier, though I oughtn’t to have promised, and I was worried about it afterwards. At the time I just banged my conscience on the head and told it to shut up.
And then I thought I’d better find out why she had asked me to meet her. I was just going to, when she said,
“What did you want to see me about?”
She would have seen how surprised I was if it hadn’t been so dark.
I said, “I?” and then I laughed. “That’s funny-that’s what I was going to ask you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was going to ask why you wired me to meet you here. I’ve been racking my brains ever since I got the telegram, but I couldn’t think of a reason.”
“Car-stop!” she shook my arm. “What do you mean? I didn’t wire to you-there wasn’t time. I just came.”
I began to have an odd, excited feeling.
“I think we’re at cross purposes,” I said. “Why did you come here?”
“Because you asked me to,” she said.
This was news to me of course.
“Oh, I asked you? How did I ask you?”
“Car-what is it? I don’t understand. You wired to me to meet you here. You said ‘Very urgent.’ I was spending the morning with Corinna, and I just got back in time to snatch some lunch and catch the two-forty at Bidwell. You know there’s nothing after that till six unless one goes into Ledlington, and I wanted to leave my bag at Aunt Carrie’s. It was such a rush. Anna was with Miss Willy when the telegram came, but she forgot to tell me about it, so I had to hurry like anything.”
“You got a wire from me?” I said. I could hardly believe my ears.
“Yes, of course.”
“And I got one from you,” I said. “Is that of course too?”
She drew a very quick breath and pressed against me.
“No-no! Car-I didn’t wire to you at all-I told you I didn’t.”
“Neither did I wire to you, Isobel.”
“Car-oh-what does it mean?”
I felt her trembling.
“I don’t know,” I said, “I got a wire which was signed Isobel. It said, ‘Must see you. Very urgent indeed. Meet me Olding Crescent Putney eight-thirty to-night.”
“I never sent it,” said Isobel. “Miss Willy said a telegram had been telephoned through from Bidwell. She took it down as it came through. It said, ‘Meet me Olding Crescent Putney eight-thirty to-night. Very urgent indeed. Car.’ Didn’t you send it?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Then who-Oh, Car, I don’t like it!”
I didn’t like it either. It might be a practical joke, or it might be something else-I didn’t quite know what. But all of a sudden I wanted Isobel to go almost as badly as I had wanted her to come. If she and I had been brought here to serve some one else’s purpose-and that was what it began to look like-well, I wasn’t for it, and the sooner I got her away the better.
I put my arm round her and began to walk her down the dark side of the road towards the main street. I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s quite brightly lighted, and there are buses that ply over Putney Bridge. My idea was to put Isobel on to a bus and push her off to Mrs. Lester’s, whilst I hung about a bit to see whether anything turned up.
Isobel was rather intractable about leaving me to it, but in the end she saw that I really meant what I said, and that if she stayed, I should only be thinking of her, and no earthly good as a sleuth.
We were waiting for a bus, when all of a sudden she dived into her bag and fished out a little white parcel.
“Here’s another mysterious thing.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. It’s for you.”
She put it into my hand, and I read my own name on the white paper wrapping.
“Where did you get it?” I asked.
“Aunt Willy gave it to me just as I was starting.”
“Miss Willy?”
“She said it came by post.”
“This hasn’t been through the post,” I said.
Isobel turned her head and looked at me with wide, startled eyes. She opened her lips to speak but over her shoulder I saw the bus swing into sight, and I wasn’t going to have her miss it for twenty mysterious packages. I slipped it into my pocket and stepped out into the road with my hand up.
XXXIV
When the bus was out of sight, I went back into Olding Crescent, keeping on the dark side of the road. I couldn’t make out in the least what sort of game this was; but it was clear enough that Isobel and I were being used as pawns in it, and I’d a fancy to see if I couldn’t knock the board over and start a game of my own-and in that game I should be king, and Isobel would be queen.
I was a bit above myself, and no wonder. It was three years since I had dreamed that I should ever tell Isobel what I felt about her, and even three years ago I never got as far as thinking what it would feel like to hear her say the things she had said to me tonight. It didn’t seem possible; but if it was possible, then everything I had ever hoped for or dreamed about was possible too. I wanted to sing and shout. I wanted to do something difficult and dangerous. I felt as if I could tackle anybody or anything. I suppose I as really quite drunk with happiness.
I walked as far as the door in the wall, and there I stopped. My idea, if I had one, had been to hand about for a bit and see whether anything happened. The door in the wall struck me as being the sort of place where things might begin to happen.
Well, I waited. Times goes slowly when you are waiting in the dark. That breath of rain had cleared off. The wind had dropped. It was dead still, with not a leaf moving. I thought I should hear a footstep a long way off, but no footstep came. It seemed to get darker and stiller every moment. The sky seemed to be pressing down on the top of my head, and the houses opposite were like a lot of dead things.
I slipped my hand into my pocket and touched the packet which Isobel had brought. And when I touched it, I wanted to know what was inside it, and I wanted to know it so badly that I couldn’t wait another minute. I was tired of waiting there now-I wanted to do something.
I crossed over on a long slant and made for the nearest lamp. It was pretty dim and dull. I stood right under it and opened the packet. First there was a sheet of white note-paper, and then there was one of those long match-boxes, the sort that you buy full of vestas. I didn’t some how think it was full of vestas now.
The box was full of little paper packets done up like powders from a chemist. One of them had fallen. I stooped down and picked it up. It had initials on it: A-J-
I put it back in the box and picked up another. This one had initials too, printed like the other: J-S-
The others were all the same. The only thing that was different was the initials. There were a dozen packages. I opened one of them, and there was a white powder in it. I shut it up again and put it back in the box.
I began to have the strongest feeling that there was something beastly about the whole thing. I thought of Fay and her yarn about the man Fosicker, who had got her to peddle drugs for him. I thought about Isobel getting a telegram from me, and me getting a telegram from Isobel, when neither of us had sent a telegram at all, and it came over me with a rush that I was being an absolutely prize mutt to hang around and wait for trouble. I felt a solid conviction that trouble was coming, and it seemed to me that if I didn’t want it to hit me like a cartload of bricks, I’d better vamoose.
I went straight back across the road and chucked the match-box over the wall. And then I made tracks for home.