They turned into the main road, and Cayley increased his speed.
The whisky he had drunk did not affect his driving. His hands held the machine quite steady, though he was now pushing it along as fast as it would go, anxious to arrive and get the business finished. He did not glance at Rose in the side-car beside him. Although it was the last time that Rose would ever ride in that side-car alive, yet her presence exasperated him as much as ever, and the way she would cock her feet up under her so that her knees stuck up in the air. In a dim way Cayley recognized the fact, and was surprised by it. He had expected to feel tolerant now towards Rose’s irritating ways. It was a relief to find that, in fact, he had not softened.
Nor had his resolution weakened.
Now that it had come to the point, Cayley was quite calm.
He knew that, normally, he was not always calm, and he had feared lest he might lose his head and somehow bungle things: be queer in his manner, tremble, let Rose see that something dreadful was afoot. But there was no longer any danger of that. Rose could not guess what was going to happen to her; and as for Cayley himself, he felt almost indifferent, as if the matter had all been taken somehow out of his hands. The whole affair was pre-ordained; events were moving forward of their own volition; nothing that he, or Rose, or anyone else, might do now could alter them.
Cayley drove on in a fatalistic trance. He realized vaguely that Rose was protesting against the speed, but disregarded her. It was no use Rose protesting against anything now.
Cayley’s lonely little cottage was not on the main road. It, too, was down a side turning, and a good half-mile from the village. The village itself, with its couple of dozen cottages and two little shops, was tiny enough, but Cayley had always been glad that he was half a mile from it. He liked solitude. Since he had determined to kill Rose, he had realized how his liking for solitude had played into his hands. Even so small a thing as that was going to help to destroy Rose.
As he turned off the main road his love of solitude rose up in him in a passionate wave. Had Rose really imagined that he was going to let her into that little corner of the world that he had made for himself — Rose, with her inevitable vulgarity of speech and mind?
A tremor of hatred shook him as he saw her sturdy form trampling about the house which, a fire-blackened ruin when he bought it out of his small savings, he had rebuilt with his own hands; Rose, marching like a grenadier through the garden he had created; Rose, so assured in her ownership of it all that he would be made to feel an interloper in his own tiny domain. Miriam would never be like that. Besides, Miriam was...
Cayley thought fiercely how peaceful everything would be again once Rose was dead: how peaceful, and how hopeful.
A hundred yards away from the cottage he shut off his engine. Late though the time was, it was just possible that old Mrs. Wace, who “did” for him, might not yet have gone. She liked to potter and potter in the evenings, and Cayley had not been foolish as to try to hustle her off the premises early. And slightly deaf though she was, Cayley had already been careful to find out that she could hear his motor-cycle drive up to the little shed at the bottom of the garden where he kept it.
Rose, of course, expostulated when his engine stopped, but Cayley was ready for that.
“Run out of juice,” he explained glibly. “Lucky we got nearly home. Give me a hand to push her, Rose.”
“Well, that’s a nice thing to ask a girl, I must say,” objected Rose for form’s sake.
Between them they pushed the bicycle past the cottage.
Before they reached the shed, Rose evidently considered it due to herself to protest further.
“Here, this is a bit too much like hard work for me. You didn’t ought to ask me to do a thing like that, Norm, and that’s a fact.”
“All right,” Cayley said mildly. “I can manage alone now.” There were indeed only a few more yards to cover.
“Well, it’s your own fault, isn’t it?”
Cayley did not answer. The bicycle was heavy, and he needed all his breath. Rose walked behind him.
“Here, half a mo’. I’ll get my suit-case out before you put the bike away, if you don’t mind.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Cayley threw back over his shoulder. “I’ll get it out in a minute.”
He brought the bicycle to a standstill outside the shed and opened the door.
Rose, a dim figure in the velvety August night, was peering up at the stars.
“Coo, it’s black enough for you tonight, I should think. Never known it so dark, I haven’t.”
“The moon doesn’t rise till after midnight,” Cayley answered absently, busy turning the bicycle round in the lane. It was better to turn it now, then it would be ready.
“Proper night to elope, and no mistake,” Rose’s voice came rallyingly. “Is that why you chose it, eh? Getting quite sloppy in your old age, Norm, aren’t you? Well, that’ll be a nice change, I must say.”
Cayley straightened up from the bicycle and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Why?”
“Oh, nothing. I just thought you’d been a bit standoffish lately.” There was a sentimental, almost a yearning note in Rose’s voice.
“Nonsense, darling. Of course I haven’t.”
“In fact, I don’t mind telling you, I thought at one time you didn’t mean to treat me right.”
“I’m going to treat you right, Rose,” said Cayley.
“Still love us, Norm?”
“Of course I do.”
“Where are you, then?”
Cayley’s fingers closed round the small revolver in his pocket. “Here.”
“Well, can’t you come a bit closer?” Rose giggled.
Cayley took her arm. “Come inside the shed for a minute, Rose.”
“What ever for?”
“I want you to.”
Rose giggled again. “Coo, Norm, you are a one, aren’t you?”
Cayley’s mouth and throat were dry as he drew Rose across the threshold and closed the door. But he was not really afraid. The dreamlike state was on him again. Things were not real. All this had happened somewhere before. Rose was dead already. The two of them were only enacting, like ghosts, a deed that had been performed ages and ages ago, in some other existence; every movement and word had been already laid down, and there could be neither deviation nor will to deviate.
Once more Rose uttered her silly, throaty giggle.
“What do you want to shut the door for? I should have thought it was dark enough already.”
Cayley had already proved, by repeated experiment, that with the door of the shed closed Mrs. Wace, even if she were in the cottage, could not hear a revolver-shot; but of course, he could not tell Rose that.
He drew the revolver from his pocket. He was still quite calm.
Hot hands were clutching for him in the darkness and he held the revolver out of their reach.
“Honest, I’m ever so fond of you, Norm,” whispered Rose.
“So am I of you, Rose. Where are you?”
“Well, that’s a nice question. Where do you think I am? Can’t you feel me?”
“Yes.” Cayley found her shoulder and gripped it gently while he edged behind her. Methodically he felt for the back of her neck and placed the muzzle of the revolver against it.
“Here, mind my hat, if you please. Here... what’s the game, Norm?”
Cayley fired.
The shot sounded so deafeningly loud in the little shed that it seemed to Cayley as if anyone not only at the cottage but in the village, too, must have heard it. A spasm of terror shook him. How could anyone in the whole of England not have heard it? He stood rigid, listening for the alarm that must inevitably follow.
Everything was quiet.
Cayley pulled himself together. Of course, the shot had been no louder than his experiments in the daytime. There was no time now to give way to fantastic panic of that sort. He realized that he was still holding Rose’s body in his arms. He had been so close to her when he fired that she had slumped down against him, and he had caught her mechanically. He laid her now on the floor of the shed. Then he lighted a stub of candle which he had brought here days ago for just that purpose. There was no window in the shed, and the door was still closed.