Maurice glanced at the clock. “Not long. Only about twenty minutes.”
“I say, I am sorry. I’d no idea they’d—”
“Oh, that’s all right. I’ve nothing particular to do. Fact is,” he forced a smile, “I was just wondering if I’d drawn another blank.”
“Another?”
“Yes. I went all the way out to see Baines, and he wasn’t in.” That was good. It had only just come into his head. Baines was out that afternoon; he happened to know, indirectly. He was covering up his tracks in grand style.
“Oh, well,” his host stretched out a cigarette case, “I’m glad you found me, anyway.”
IV
It hardly seemed worth while making other calls, after that, but he looked in at two places on his way back to the station. Then there seemed to be a queer gap in his memory, for the next thing he knew, he found himself walking up the platform carrying some of Muriel’s parcels, with no clear idea of how he got there.
“Here,” she said, halting beside a door, “this will do.”
Going back. Home. Up from the station, up the stairs, in the door...
He turned his mind away, rubbed a clear patch on the window, and tried to look out. The lights of a factory whirled derisively by. He shuddered and steeled himself to endure the long, barren, eternal journey. Why did people nod their heads in a train, the fools? His head was nodding too, he supposed. How idiotic they must all look — nodding in fatuous, rhythmic assent to some unheard proposition; replying in the only way they could devise to the unanswerable question — why did they exist at all? The whole thing was symbolic of humanity answering the major riddles — obstinate, endless assertion instead of reason.
And other questions. Was she dead? Nod — nod — nod. Did they know who had killed her? Nod — nod. Would he be caught? Nod — nod — nod. Would he hang?
The train rushed over the joints of a junction and swung away on a new path in the darkness.
And every nod, every clitter-clock, clitter-clock of the wheels, was carrying him so much nearer to... to what had happened. He turned his mind away resolutely and tried to read the back of the man’s paper opposite. Muriel was in her corner, her eyes closed, one hand delicately against her cheek. She met all the disagreeable things of life like that, gracefully, fastidiously. Her composure was very precious to her. Well, she’d need it soon.
He fell to reviewing all the steps he had taken to build up an alibi. Flimsy enough, they looked — full of great black gaps through which the huge arm of the law could suddenly shoot and grab him. A light shiver ran down his spine. But, so far, he was not so much frightened of the consequences as curious — academically, disinterestedly curious — to see how it would all work out. Would the local police tackle it, or would they call in the Yard at once? Recalling himself with a jolt, he fixed his eyes upon the joggling paper opposite him, and with great concentration read something very silly about an actress who was being sued for breach of contract.
At last, after ages so long that his whole life and several previous existences seemed to have been spent in the same hideous compartment, the train slowed down, and they stepped out into the chill air of the platform. They took a taxi, because of Muriel’s parcels. In precisely the same way as one turns one’s mind away while the dentist fixes a drill in his machine, Maurice turned his mind to any externals it could seize upon during the journey up.
“Two and six, is it?” he was repeating presently. “Two and six, eh?” And he took the money out of his pocket and counted it over twice, with great deliberation, before the action would register in his consciousness at all. “Oh, ah, yes — two and six.” The man was looking at him. “Well. Here you are. Good night.”
He was walking up the stairs, his arms full of parcels. His heart seemed to be beating distinctly, sharply, rather than fast; and at once he saw a picture of it, as a sort of cylinder with two convex ends, swinging imperatively against the surrounding tissues.
“All right. I have a key.”
Muriel’s manner seemed a bit constrained. She had looked at him strangely, he thought. Pooh! All fancy. It shows how one’s conscience can run away with you. Oh, my God, here they were, in the dark little hall, only a few yards, only a door away from it! He almost ran down the passage to the bedroom, stumbling in at the door and shedding his parcels on the bed in a heap. He kept his back turned on Muriel, for the lower part of his face seemed to have become all loose and uncontrolled. Muriel put down her bag, took off her hat, leaned forward to scrutinize her face in the dressing table mirror; then went out of the room, without speaking.
Sick and shaking, he caught hold of the bedpost and held on. She went along the passage. She was outside the living-room door. No — she had gone into the bathroom. He brushed his forehead and tried vainly to moisten his lips. This was awful, awful, awful, his mind kept saying. It... ah. She had come out again. He heard her turn the handle of the living-room door, switch on the light... Shutting his eyes, he nerved himself for her scream.
It did not come. He could hear her moving about in the room. He... she... oh, God, this was past all bearing, worse than any outcry. Something told him that his eyes were staring in his head; he ducked, not daring to look in the glass, and ran out into the passage, falling, lurching, swaying, with hands outstretched against the cold walls; tottered to the open door of light; grasped the doorpost, the knuckles sticking out white from the back of his hand, and, with a rending, terrible effort, pulled himself into the room and looked on the floor in front of the fireplace.
There was no body. Nothing at all.
“Ah — ha — ha-ha!” A little shrill whimpering laugh sounded in the room, and he realized that it had come from his own throat. Frantically he raised his eyes. Muriel was staring at him in amazement and distaste.
“Whatever is the matter with you, Maurice!” she exclaimed.
“The matter?”
“Yes.” She came a step nearer. “You’ve been behaving in the queerest way, all the afternoon.” She gave a half laugh, looking closely into his eyes. “You haven’t been drinking, have you?”
“Queer? I — why, what’s been the matter with me?” He got the words out, but all the time his mind was trying to cope with the staggering thing she had just said. All the afternoon. Queer all the afternoon. That’s what she had said.
Muriel laughed again. It was her way of turning aside her irritation. “I don’t know what’s the matter with you,” she answered. “All I know is that you’ve been behaving very queerly all the afternoon. They were all wondering what was the matter with you. I could see they were.”
His mouth fell open. “They — who were?”
“Why, at the Chadwickes’, of course. You wouldn’t say a word to a soul, except once, when you were quite unnecessarily rude to old General McKie.”
“At the Chadwickes’!” he shouted. “You don’t know what you’re saying! At the Chadwickes’?”
“Why, Maurice, whatever is the matter with you! Of course you were at — oh, my darling! Maurice! My darling boy!”
For he had begun to laugh — soundlessly at first, a horrible, silent shaking; and then he was screaming, sobbing, laughing, calling out...
V
How soon afterward he did not know, he found himself on his knees, holding on tight to her, his head in her lap; and she was stroking his hair, soothing him, comforting him as if he were a tiny child. “There, there, my darling, Maurice, my darling, it will be all right. There’s nothing to be frightened of. Nothing. Nothing. There, darling, there.”