“Still,” continued the little man, with naive seriousness, “I don’t think I’d ever kill anybody, even if I knew ’ow. Not that there ain’t some folks as deserve to be put out. My brother, f’rinstance. Lives up at Millport in a swell ’ouse — servants, motor-cars — all that. Rollin’ in money — did me out o’ my share when my father died. Made ’is fortune doing other people since — wouldn’t gimme a penny, not if I was starvin’, ’e wouldn’t. Sometimes I sees ’im at the station of an evenin’ — ’e ’as a factory ’ere — I sees ’im steppin’ into ’is first-class kerridge on the Millport train — and I could kill ’im with my own ’ands, straight, I could.”
Potterson stared at him with a certain interest; it was extraordinary that such a mild little fellow should nourish such a hatred. Hardly what one would expect — hardly even what he, Potterson, the student of human nature, would have expected. “Well, why don’t you kill him?” he said, with a wink at the crowd.
“I ain’t got the courage, that I ’aven’t,” replied the other. His frankness was so amusing. Potterson began to struggle with whiskified laughter. “Besides, mister, come to think of it, I dunno as there’d be any way. ’E’s so scared of burglars nobody’d ever get in ’is ’ouse.”
“Better kill him in the street, then,” said Potterson, almost hysterically. Really, the fellow was as good as a music-hall.
“No, mister — that wouldn’t do, either, with everybody lookin’ on.”
“Oh, don’t... don’t,” Potterson cried, holding his sides with merriment. “Oh, Lord — you make me laugh more than I’ve laughed for months! I think I know now why your wife married you — she thought you were the damn funniest thing she’d ever seen!” He laughed till the tears streamed from his eyes and mingled with the perspiration on his nose and cheeks. “Besides,” he added, pulling himself together, “you’re wrong. There is a way. There always is.”
“No, mister. Not with ’im. Even you couldn’t find one.”
“Couldn’t I?” Reaction, after the hysteria of laughing so much, gave him a tone that was curt and almost angry. “Couldn’t I, my little fellow? Don’t you be too sure what I could do and couldn’t do!”
He felt the woman’s hand on his arm like a bar of fire — another stage, when the woman first did the touching. “I suppose you think you could, eh?” she whispered.
“M’dear” — he began, thickly; he wondered if he might dare to put an encircling arm round her waist. He was almost doing so when she turned on him fiercely, “None of that!” What a little spitfire she was! Hopelessly drunk, of course... He heard her continuing, “All talk — brag — boast — no proof — that’s the sort he is!”
One or two of the crowd tittered and chuckled; he felt a dull angry flush mounting to his cheeks and stabbing his eyes from the inside. Making fun of him, was she? He’d show her — and the rest, too. “Look here!” he shouted, moving as if to take off his coat. “If there’s any man here who thinks I’m nothing but a boaster, let him come up and tell me so — man to man! And if there’s any woman thinks so, let her keep her damned mouth shut!”
“Rot!” retorted the woman. “I dare you to prove what you say. You say there was always a way of killin’ a chap if you wanted to. Well, to prove that, you gotter take a test case. Take my ’usband’s brother — ’e’ll do as good as any. ’Ow would you work the trick with ’im?”
He felt the crowd veering away from him in sympathy — a thing he could never endure. “Aye, that’s a fair question,” he heard someone say. Other voices came to his ears — eager, critical, derisive voices. And at the same time, looking down at the woman’s face so close to his own, he was filled with an overmastering, intolerable longing to subdue her, to justify himself before her, to make himself forever memorable in her life. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. That woman at Portsmouth — nothing to her. Nor the little French girl. Nor even Maudie Raines — Maudie who years before had driven him to such madness that...
“Same again, George,” he muttered. Then he gritted his teeth and fortified himself for a new struggle. “You’re a fine pack of fools,” he cried irritably at last. “How the hell can I tell what the best plan would be when I don’t know the man or his ways or anything about him?”
“I’ll tell you,” whispered the woman. “I’ll answer anything you want to know about ’im.”
Her eyes, lustrous and burning, seemed to swim into his seething brain. She would tell him. Could it be that she wanted him to succeed before her husband, before the crowd? Was she on his side? Extraordinary — there was something in her eyes — in the way she looked at him — that reminded him of Maudie Raines... He began to speak loudly, in something of his market-place manner, yet with greater emphasis than he usually employed. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he cried, “I accept the challenge. I’m a man of my word and I mean every single word that I say. No nonsense about Parker Potterson. He’s straight — he delivers the goods. Mind you — in my opinion, this is an entirely abshurd — absurd argument — discussing how to kill a man who is living a few miles away at this preshent moment — and who, despite our friend here, is probably a very decent and respectable member of the community. It is, I repeat, an absurd business altogether — and, if I may say so, in very bad taste. It was that, and that alone, that made me reluctant at first to enter into it. But” — and here his voice acquired a rich cathedral tone — “but having had my word doubted, ladish — ladies and gentlemen — having had foul ashpershions cast upon my good faith — what can I do but take up the challenge, good tashte or bad tashte?”
“Get to the point, mister,” cried a voice in the crowd, and Potterson turned upon it savagely. “I’ll get to the point in my time, shir, and not in yours! And if you dare to interrupt me again I’ll knock your damned head off!”
He paused to appreciate the silence; but, by God, he was getting them — calming them — thrilling them with his words — how marvellous it was to be able to do that! The old sense of power was on him again, but more than ever before — more than ever before in his life; a Berserker fierceness hammered at his temples. He would show them — never in Finchingfold would that night at the Crown and Woolpack be forgotten. “Ladies and gentlemen — where wash I? Ah, I remember... Thish gentleman — unknown to me — who lives at Millport... Very well, I accept the challenge. But” — and he leered down at the woman — “but you must always bear in mind that because I could do a thing, it doesn’t follow that anybody else could!”
“Never mind. Tell us how you would do it.”
“I’m going to. I’m going to make you realize that Parker Potterson is a man of his word. If Parker Potterson saysh he can do a thing, then he can do it. Now then...” He turned to the little man. “Did I, shir, or did I not — hear you remark a moment or so ago that you often saw your brother at Finchingfold Shtation — shtepping into a firsht-class carriage on the train for Millport?”
“That’s right, mister. ’E travels every day back’ards and for’ards.”
“Good. That givesh me an idea. He musht be killed on the train.”
“But ’ow, mister?”
“Ah, that’sh jusht where the brains comesh in. But it’sh ver’ simple. Get into the next carriage when hish train leavesh in an evening. Make sure hish carriage and yoursh are empty — mosht likely they are, ash he travelsh firsht. Then...” He stopped, caught his breath rather wildly, and added: “Ishn’t there a long tunnel between Finchingfold and Millport?”