He had won Amy, won her fair and square, from the lot of them — including George, who would soon be standing where he, Bert Higgins, stood that day. For George had done it and there would be no reprieve for George.
George had begun by taking them out, both of them, to the pictures and to a little fish and chips afterwards.
So it had gone on till one day he had come back from looking for a job of work to find George and Amy in the parlor together. Sitting on the sofa, they were, and there had been words with Amy about it that evening and Amy had been saucy and he had smacked her face and she had thrown the saucepan at him, and the biggest black eye you ever saw had begun to sprout where the saucepan had hit him. But when Amy had seen it next day she had cried and kissed him and gone out and got a bit of meat to put on his eye. And he had said they ought to eat it and they had laughed together. Quick-tempered Amy was... had been.
A sob rose in his throat, but he gulped it down and at that moment the door of the cell opened.
It was Mike with the breakfast.
Bert sat down and began to peg away. But his mind was not on the food though the steak tasted good. He had started to think again of his final quarrel with Amy, not about George, this time, but something quite silly — the sort of thing people quarrel about in music halls. He couldn’t even remember what it was. Yet he would never forget that Saturday evening as long as he lived — not as long as he lived.
Well, he was only twenty-four. No reason why he should not live till seventy — after the reprieve.
Amy had been violent again and he had raised his hand, but he hadn’t meant to strike her. This time she had thrown the coffee-pot. But it had missed him and hit the wall and made a hell of a clatter. And he turned on his heel and walked straight out into the fog.
That was the first misfortune. No one had seen him leaving the house.
He had made his way to the Goat and Compasses. But it had taken him some time, for the fog had been so thick. There he had taken a drink and what with one thing and another... well, he had taken several drinks and his pal, Harry, being sympathetic, had poured gin in his beer and suggested he should go home and give Amy a good walloping.
“Bert,” he had said, “what she wants is a firm ’and.”
So he had started back home meaning to give Amy what she wanted. But it had taken him half an hour to get home.
Half an hour to go from the Goat and Compasses to West bury Terrace when it was only five minutes’ walk.
Nobody, of course, believed it — least of all that nasty little man with the twitching nose who had conducted the prosecution.
Yet what could have been more natural? He had just wandered round the street for half an hour making up his mind to go in and wallop Amy. And then, when at last he had gone in...
Bert pushed away his unfinished cup of tea. He suddenly felt he did not want any more breakfast. He still saw Amy lying there, in the bedroom upstairs, with her head all cut open and a broken beer bottle lying on the floor. He would remember that to his dying day... his dying day.
He had picked up the bottle and at that moment the coppers had come. Old Green from next door brought them. Old Green heard the row earlier in the evening and he hadn’t seen the prisoner — that was him — Bert Higgins — leave the house or come back. Old Green had sworn to having heard several such rows before. He had testified in court that Amy and Bert Higgins were on bad terms with each other, which was a lie. He had always been on the best of terms with Amy. Bad terms, indeed!
Nobody had seen George enter or leave the house. But that was only because of the fog. George, of course, must have come along while he was at the Goat and Compasses. It was George who had sloshed Amy with the beer bottle. Wasn’t he employed by a brewery? But that prosecutin’ fellow had pointed out that you could get a bottle of Bishop’s ale anywhere and that there were several bottles of it in Bert’s own kitchen.
George must have had a row with Amy, the same as he had. But while he had only hit her with his hand, George had sloshed her with a bottle.
That was what had happened, but he couldn’t prove it and George had dug up an old sweetheart who had sworn he had been with her at the time and that was what they called an alibi.
There came a knock at the door and Warder Joe crossed the cell.
“Chaplain to see you, mate,” he announced.
“Not for me,” said Bert. “ ’E’ll only talk to me about a future life and this one’s good enough for me.”
Bert spent the next quarter of an hour walking up and down his cell. They were cutting things rather fine with the reprieve. But those government chaps were always like that. Look at the clerks at the Labor Exchange. It took you hours to draw the dole. Lack of organization, that’s what it was.
But here, at last, was the governor. Chap in gray with a white mustache. Behind him were three men in dark clothes. Two of them had their hands behind their backs as though they were hiding something. Behind them again was the chaplain. There was no getting away from these parsons.
“Put your hands behind your back, please.”
It was one of the men in dark clothes speaking. Warder Joe stood at his elbow. Somebody seized his arms firmly above the elbows. Something tight was pressing against them and he found suddenly that they had been strapped behind him. Another of the men in dark clothes was slipping something over his head, something woolly, a woolen bag.
“ ’Ere,” protested Bert Higgins.
But they had pulled it right down to his neck and he could not see and his protest was stifled. But he could hear all right. The chaplain was at him now.
“I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord. He that believeth in me, though he be dead, yet shall he live.”
“ ’Ere,” Bert protested again.
But no one answered him. He felt himself being pushed firmly forward. His feet touched stone as he walked, then wood. The wood quivered a little beneath his feet and he was brought to a halt. At the same moment something was slipped over his head.
It rasped his neck as it settled on his shoulders and a hard lump sat uncomfortably to the left underneath his chin.
“ ’Ere,” protested Bert Higgins for the third time.
The hands which had touched him, moved away. He was suddenly alone...
Footsteps sounded somewhere. A door creaked. A voice cried out sharply in the darkness.
“Here you are, Governor. Straight from the Home Secretary.”
There was a crackle of paper. The Governor was saying something.
Bert Higgins breathed a sigh of relief. They had cut it pretty fine but this was just what he had expected.
Yes, that was right. They were untying his arms. The woolen bag was pulled from his face and there stood the Governor smiling at him.
“A narrow squeak,” the Governor was saying. “But the reprieve has come at last. George Butterworth was arrested early this morning.”
“And may God have mercy on his soul,” said Bert Higgins, as he followed the Governor from the cell.
Could they be at the prison gates already?
“Here they are, mate,” said Joe and Bert Higgins perceived that the warder was offering him a collar and tie.
But first he must shake hands with the Governor.
“Goodbye, Higgins,” said the Governor.
“So long, Guv-ner.”
It was raining as usual and the streets were sombre and gray. That was a tram. It was fading with a noise of bells, into the fog. Bert Higgins ran after it. His legs were heavy and reluctant, but by a supreme effort he jumped on board and found a place.
He sat in the train. Time passed. He was being carried quite a long way and suddenly he perceived that the tram was empty. The conductor, wearing a mackintosh cape, loomed in from the fog.