towards hapless promenaders as he went by. At the toll-gate he was approached by a photographer and almost bowled the man over. Photographs!
He had, of course, glanced frequently to his right as he came, to check whether a bather emerged from the water. He had seen none, but there were points on the route where his view was obstructed. In a situation such as this, he told himself, an element of risk was inevitable. It was a relief to reach the section of Esplanade overlooking the machine in question, and it was in the nature of a personal triumph when he observed through a gap that the towel still hung unclaimed on the open door.
Nonchalantly propping his right foot on the lowest cross-piece of the Esplanade railing, he took out his Zeiss and focused it on the sea. There was no need now to feel self-conscious about using binoculars. He simply joined the ranks of telescopists at intervals along the sea-wall from Cliftonville to Kemp Town, observing everything that disturbed the surface of the water. Peering out to sea was becoming as fashionable as bicycling along the front. Now he understood why his sales of optical instruments that summer had been the highest for years.
A murmur of pleasure escaped him at the quality of image the Zeiss produced. Every detail of a distant excursion-yacht was defined with diamond sharpness. Unhappily, though, the water nearer the shore where the waves were breaking was hidden from view by the steep bank of shingle. The bathers were invisible unless they ventured beyond the shallows. He put down the glasses and trusted natural vision to give him the first sighting of whoever came to claim the towel. On the beach, scores of small groups basked in the noon sun, read novels or studied the horizon, oblivious of the vigil being kept from behind.
Minutes later, a head and shoulders appeared above the ridge of shingle, moving upwards and forwards. By degrees, the figure emerged in full, slimly built, narrow-shouldered and wrapped in a beach-robe extending to the ankles. Had he not noticed that the female bathing-machines were situated many yards to the right, Moscrop would have doubted whether he was watching a man at all. He put the Zeiss to his eyes again.
The brilliance of the noon sun refracted by the waves made observation uncertain until the background was entirely of pebbles. Then there was no difficulty in identifying the bather as a youth of fourteen or fifteen. He put down the glasses. He was not looking for a boy. No connection was conceivable between a lad of that age and a married woman of thirty. His eyes travelled back across the stones to the line that divided land and water.
Yet there was something that fretted his concentration. What the devil was it? He glanced down again. The boy was approaching the machines, sidling between parasols clustered about the beach like monstrous fungi spawned by the morning sun. Such colours! The most garish combinations seemed acceptable in this light and setting. People never seen in anything but dark suits and white shirts could sport utterly outlandish stripes on a beach and appear perfectly at ease. Why, just to look at the robe the boy was wearing. . s›. . !s›. . !s›.
Moscrop looked. The robe had pink and white stripes. It was made of the same stuff as the towel.
He gripped the binoculars, half-lifted them to his eyes and put them down again. He was too near for that. He watched in dazed incomprehension as the boy walked to the bathing-machine, flicked the towel clear of the door and began rubbing his hair. Deuced extraordinary: the youth was too old to be the woman’s son and certainly too young. . Moscrop closed his eyes and shook his head in a quivering movement, expelling an unacceptable thought from his mind.
He occupied himself winding the strap around the glasses, clapping them into their case and fastening the buckles, performing each movement crisply, as if reacting to orders. Sometimes simple actions were a spur to decision. If he could summon the strength of purpose, this was the moment to pick up his bag and walk away along the promenade. No woman was worth the indignity of waiting for a fifteen-year-old boy to put on his clothes and following him along a public beach. He had never done such a thing in his life.
The picture of her picking her way up the pebbles flashed into his mind’s eye again. Perhaps, after all, he would spend a few more minutes standing here. There was an incomparable view of the pier. Was it possible, he wondered, to identify each of the flags between the toll-towers and the pier-head? Now it chanced that the standard of India was directly above the bathing-machine in his line of view, and that when his eyes reached it, his attention was deflected by the youth standing quite still on the steps, enjoying the sensation of the sun on his limbs before retreating inside. He seemed to be indulging in some youthful fantasy, striking the pose of an athlete or pugilist, the towel loosely draped about his neck, the robe drawn back from his chest. His face was in profile, chin jutting forward. It occurred to Moscrop that this was a face he could not bring himself to like. It was not the self- satisfaction in the boy’s expression; that went with the pose and was forgivable. No, it was the cut of the features that repelled him. They were neat enough, to be sure. Handsome even. A broad, high forehead, well-formed eyebrows, fine, tapered nose, manly chin. The hair straight and strikingly blond. The mouth, too, balanced the other features, but Moscrop descried a hint of coarseness in the lower lip, the merest superfluity of flesh betraying (to a trained observer) intimations of sensuousness. Where had he seen a mouth of that cast before? — in some disagreeable context, he was certain. While he considered the point, the youth turned his head slightly, following the flight of a seabird. The movement afforded Moscrop a view of the boy’s eyes. They were large and heavy-lidded and protruding, giving the face an unseemly, almost wanton aspect. He placed them at once: they were the eyes of the young man in
The boy turned and let himself into the bathing-machine. Moscrop produced a silk handkerchief and wiped his brow. Good Lord! What a lather he was getting himself into! It was utterly ridiculous. What did it matter whom the boy looked like? He was no more than a link in the present chain of circumstances. He could resemble anyone from Charles Peace to Mr. Gladstone himself and it would not matter a jot. Once he had made contact with the fair provider of the towel he ceased to be of any importance.
But when some ten minutes later the youth descended from the machine, carrying his roll of bathing garments, paid the attendant and crunched away across the stones, it was not to rendezvous with anyone on the beach. Instead he mounted the nearest steps to the Esplanade and headed away in the direction of the West Pier. There was nothing for it but to set off in pursuit. Laden as he was with his bag of optical instruments and scarcely recovered from his exertions in covering the same route from the reverse direction, Moscrop found the pace damnably fast. The boy was short of stature-though probably not for his age-and would soon have been indistinguishable in the press of promenaders ahead, were it not for the red blazer he wore, matched by a brilliant silk boater-ribbon.
By the pier entrance, where the crowd was thickest, he lost him. At another time it would have given him boundless pleasure to edge his way into the throng, regardless of whether he were joining a group buying brandy- balls or those trying to listen to the band. Today he skirted the crowd, anxiously seeking his quarry. Then-what relief! — he spotted the strip of red across the road. But-consternation! — the boy was paying for the hire of a bicycle. Moscrop had not used the two-wheel mode of transport in the whole of his life.
He did the only thing possible: crossed the King’s Road and ran to the cab-stand. Already the boy was aloft and in process of achieving sufficient momentum, with the assistant’s support, to sustain his own balance. The bathing things were in a convenient basket attached to the saddle. He passed the cab-stand at a wobble, but in independent motion. Moscrop took off his bowler and beat it against his thigh in exasperation. There was not a cab within hail.
It was five minutes at least before a growler drew up and disgorged its passenger. Five minutes! A bicyclist could be halfway to Kemp Town in that time. He mounted the carriage steps before he was aware that a second passenger, a Pekinese dog, had still to descend. He almost threw it into its owner’s arms and ordered the cabman to drive away.
Progress along the King’s Road was desperately slow. Nobody wanted to hurry; the drive along the front was an opportunity to be seen, not to raise dust. So the cab went at little faster than the pace of the goat-chaises carrying parties of small children between the piers. There was nothing to be gained from urging the cabman to go faster; the volume of traffic made that impossible unless you had your own horse or bicycle.
The quite charming views to left and right, the elegant Regency facades and the splendidly green sea, were lost on Moscrop. He was craning to look past the cabman at any snatch of red in prospect and being deceived by
