She quickened her pace, kept her eyes fixed straight ahead, tried not to notice the endless supply of girls who displayed themselves in what struck her as a cynical caricature of femininity. She had the feeling that someone was following her, that she had been mistaken for one of these flashy denizens of Soho. At least she had left her white purse at home in New York. That was one of the badges of these girls, she had read. A large white purse and a belted trench coat. Though none of these girls seemed to be outfitted in that fashion. Perhaps the book she had read was out of date. Perhaps styles changed, even in that profession.
It was absurd, but she couldn’t shake off the feeling that she was being followed. Involuntarily she found herself stopping, darting glances over her shoulder. Was it her imagination, or did a male face seem to shrink back from her gaze, melting away from her eyes into the shadows and doorways?
Of course it was her imagination. She was turning into a typical old maid; she would get to her room at Crichton Hall and look under the bed for burglars. Why would anyone follow her through Soho? There were certainly enough other women available for anyone so inclined.
She stopped to get a cigarette, then remembered that she had finished the pack at Forte’s. She resumed walking, still unable to shake the feeling that there was someone behind her. At Soho Square, she found herself carefully skirting the little park as if it were Central Park in New York, unsafe for walking after dark. It was absurd, and she recognized the absurdity of it, but she could not seem to help herself.
She rounded the tiny park, walked to New Oxford Street, and turned east again. Her feet were beginning to hurt. It seemed as though she had spent all her time in London walking from one place to another, walking through the British Museum and the Tower and Westminster Abbey, walking to the theater, walking endlessly. She turned to look for a cab, and again she had the feeling that someone had been following her, that a man or two men had melted into the shadows as she turned.
There were no cabs in sight. It was only a few more blocks, she told herself, just a little further to the small bed-and-breakfast house on Bedford Place off Russell Square. Her feet could certainly hold out. And she knew that she was using her tired feet as an excuse for her mind, that it was the unholy feeling of being pursued that made her anxious to take a cab. She did not intend to let herself behave like an idiot. She would walk home, it was a beautiful night, there was no one behind her...
There was someone behind her.
She was just two blocks from her hotel, two blocks and a few odd houses, when she knew that her feeling was more than a feeling, that there actually was someone behind her. She heard footsteps, neatly fitted to her own but still discernible. She quickened her pace, and the footsteps to her rear speeded up in response. She turned her head, looked across the street, and saw that there was a man in the shadows on the other side of the street as well, walking at the same speed, walking behind her.
Before, she had been anxious. Now she was terrified. Fear leaped up within her, a physical presence, cold, brittle, pressing painfully within her chest and pushing at the base of her throat. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath. Her hands hardened into small fists, and their palms went moist with the cool, stale sweat of terror. She wanted to run, but that would only make them run after her, and she knew they could catch her. She walked faster, looking involuntarily over her shoulder, and again saw the man across the street. This time he saw that she saw him.
He stepped out from the curb into the street. For the shadow of a second she caught a glimpse of him in the halflight of a streetlamp, a very tall knife-thin man, his nose long and prominent, his shoulders hunched forward in an attitude of pursuit.
Now she started to run, turning from the men behind her, feet working furiously on the pavement. She was almost at the corner when she stumbled and fell. She threw her hands out to break the fall, and her purse dropped to the ground. She grabbed it up, regained her feet, darted across the street, started to fall again, caught her balance, began to run once more — and then they had her.
Two of them, there were two of them, and they both reached her at once. A hand touched her shoulder and chilled her to the bone. She froze, and the hand spun her around, and she opened her mouth to scream — and why hadn’t she screamed at the start, why, why? — but no sound came from her lips, nothing at all. The tall man was holding her, and the shorter man, the one she had not seen before, was reaching out to her. Fingers dug cruelly into her shoulder. Her mouth opened again, and this time she would have screamed, but a hand was clapped over her mouth and no sound could get past it.
Hands tore her purse from her grasp. Other hands pressed at the back of her neck, a firm, insistent pressure. Her legs were suddenly boneless, limp. She gasped for breath. Her eyes slid shut, and her brain burned bloody red. The red went to gray, the gray to black.
Hands released her, and she fell slowly, slowly, to the pavement.
Two
“Easy, now. Don’t be trying to get up too quickly, Miss. Take nice deep breaths, they’ll clear your head. Fainted, did you?”
She opened her eyes and looked up into the kindly florid face of a middle-aged woman with bright red hair and small bright eyes. “Two men,” she said. “They were following me, and” — she touched the back of her neck experimentally, her fingers finding only the slightest trace of soreness — “and one of them tried to choke me. I thought I was going to be killed.”
“And in this neighborhood! I don’t know what the city’s coming to. Got a mugger’s hold on you, did he? And I’d guess you had a purse and that it’s gone now.”
She got to her knees, then rose to her feet. She looked around for her purse, then remembered the hands that had eased it from her grasp. “A small black evening bag,” she said. “It doesn’t seem to be here.”
“No, and small chance you’ll see it again. You’re from America? We have a few of your programs on the telly, you know. Suppose you’re used to this sort of thing. My flat’s just next door, I was just out to take the midnight air. Are you up to walking a bit? Come in with me, you’ll feel fitter after a cup of tea.”
“Oh, I’m all right...”
“Come in and sit for a bit,” the woman said. “You don’t want to be alone now. There’s shock that sets in after anything of the sort, even just a bit of purse snatchery, and you wouldn’t want to be by yourself. Are you staying nearby?”
“Just two blocks from here. Crichton Hall.”
“I know the hotel. It’s cozy there, isn’t it? But sit with me for ten minutes, and then you’ll feel more up to going home to bed.”
Ellen considered. She did need company, and the woman was pleasant, someone to talk to. She nodded gratefully, and the red-haired woman led her into the house next door and up a flight of stairs to her flat. “I really can’t stay long,” Ellen said. “I have to get up early in the morning to catch a plane.”
“Where are you going?”
“Dublin.”
“Oh, I’ve never been, but from what I’ve heard you’ll like it there. Will you be spending much time in Ireland?”
“Almost two weeks.” The woman brought the tea, and Ellen added milk and sugar to hers. “About what happened,” she said. “Do you suppose I ought to call the police?”
“Well, you’re supposed to report it. Did you lose much money?”
“Hardly anything. My traveler’s checks are in my other purse, and most of my cash. Oh, my passport! No, that’s all in my other purse. I was a little anxious about that, I remember, because they tell you to carry it with you wherever you go, but I didn’t bother changing it from one purse to the other. I suppose it’s lucky I didn’t.”