Everything was exactly the same. There was her card in a tiny

brass frame screwed to the panel of the door. There was the long

scratch on the paint-work which I had made when slightly drunk with

the latchkey. There was the thick wool mat before the door. I found

my heart was beating a shade quicker, and my hands were a little

damp. It seemed to me all of a sudden that Netta had become

important to me: I’d been away too long.

I punched the bell, waited, heard nothing, punched the bell again.

No one answered the door. I continued to wait, wondering if Netta

was in her bath. I gave her a few more seconds, punched the bell

again.

“There’s no one there,” a voice said from behind me.

I turned, looked down the short flight of stairs. A man was

standing in the doorway of the lower flat, looking up at me. He was a

big strapping fellow around thirty, broad and well-built but far from

muscular. With a frame like a hammer-thrower, he was yet soft, just

this side of fat. He stood looking up at me with a half-smile on his

face, and the impression he gave me was that of an enormous sleepy

tom-cat, indifferent, self-sufficient, pleased with himself. The waning

sunlight coming through the grimy window caught the gold in his

mouth, making his teeth come alive.

“Hello, baby,” he said. “You one of her boy friends?” He had a

faint lisp, and his corn-coloured hair was cut close. He was wearing a

yellow and black silk dressing-gown, fastened at his throat; his pyjama

legs were electric blue, his sandals scarlet. He was quite a picture.

“Go jump into a lake,” I said. “Jump into two if one won’t hold

you,” and I turned back to Netta’s door.

The man giggled. It was an unpleasant hissing sound and for no

reason at all it set my nerves jumping.

“There’s no one there, baby,” he repeated, then added in an

undertone, “she’s dead.”

I stopped ringing the bell, turned, looked at him. He raised his

eyebrows, and his head waggled from side to side ever so slightly.

“Did you hear?” he asked, and smiled as if he were privately amused

at some secret joke of his own.

“Dead?” I repeated, moving away from the door.

“That’s right, baby,” he said, leaning against the door-post, giving

me an arch look. “She died yesterday. You can still smell the gas if you

sniff hard enough.” He touched his throat, flinched. “I had a bad day

with it yesterday.”

I walked down the stairs, stood in front of him. He was an inch

taller than I and a lot broader, but I knew he hadn’t any iron in his

bones.

“Calm down, Fatso,” I said, “and give it to me straight. What gas?

What are you raving about?”

“Come inside, baby,” he said, smirking. “I’ll tell you about it.”

Before I could refuse, he had sauntered into a large room which

stank of stale scent and was full of old, dusty furniture.

He dropped into a big easy chair. As his great body dented the

cushions a fine cloud of dust arose.

“Excuse the hovel,” he said, looking around the room with an

expression of disgust on his face. “Mrs. Crockett’s a slut. She never

cleans the place and I can’t be expected to do it, can I, baby? Life’s too

short to waste time cleaning when one has my abilities.”

“Never mind the Oscar Wilde act,” I said impatiently. “Are you

telling me Netta Scott’s dead?”

He nodded, smiled up at me. “Sad, isn’t it? Such a delightful girl;

beautiful, lovely little body; so ful of vigour — now, just meal for the

worms.” He sighed. “Death is a great level er, isn’t it?”

“How did it happen?” I asked, wanting to take him by his fat

throat and shake the daylights out of him.

“By her own hand,” he said mournfully. “Shocking business. Police

rushing up and down stairs . . . the ambulance . . . doctors . . . Mrs.

Crockett screaming . . . that fat bitch in the lower flat gloating . . . a

crowd in the street, hoping to see the remains quite, quite ghastly.

Then the smell of gas — couldn’t get it out of the house all day.

Shocking business, baby, really most, most shocking.”

“You mean she gassed herself?” I asked, going cold.

“That’s right, the poor lamb. The room was sealed with adhesive

tape . . . roll upon roll of adhesive tape, and the gas oven going full

blast. I’ll never be able to buy adhesive tape again without thinking of

her.” The words were a vibrationless hum, intimate and secret-

sounding. The perpetual smile bothered me too.

“I see,” I said, turning away.

Well, that was that. I felt suddenly deflated, a little sick, infinitely

sad.

I thought: If you had only waited twenty-four hours, Netta, we’d

have faced whatever it was together, and we’d have licked it.

“Thank you,” I said at the door.

“Don’t thank me, baby,” he said, heaving himself out of the chair

and following me on to the landing. “It’s nice to know I’ve rendered a

little service, although a sad one. I can see you’re suffering from

shock, but you’ll get over it. Plenty of hard work is the best healer.

Doesn’t Byron say, The busy have no time for tears? Perhaps you don’t

admire Byron. Some people don’t.”

I stared at him, not seeing him, not listening to him. From out of

the past, I heard Netta’s voice saying: “So the fool killed himself. He

hadn’t the guts to take what was coming to him. Well, whatever I do,

I’d be ready to pay for it. I wouldn’t take that way out-ever.”

She had said that one night when we had read of a millionaire

who had bulled when he should have beared and had blown out his

brains. I remembered how Netta had looked when she had said that,

and I felt a little cold breath of wind against my cheek.

There was something wrong here. I knew Netta would never have

killed herself.

I pulled my hat farther down on my nose, felt in my pocket for a

cigarette, offered the carton.

“Why did she do it?” I asked.

“I’m Julius Cole,” the pixy said, drawing out a cigarette from the

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