'When your old neck-tie was torn, did you know that one end of it went to the rag-shop, and the other fell into my hands?'
I said these bold words to him suddenly, and, as it seemed, without my own will taking any part in them.
He started, stared, changed color. He was too much amazed by my sudden speaking to find an answer for me. When he did open his lips, it was to say rather to himself than me:
'You're not the girl.'
'No,' I said, with a strange choking at my heart, 'I'm her friend.'
By this time he had recovered his surprise, and he seemed to be aware that he had let out more than he ought.
'You may be anybody's friend you like,' he said, brutally, 'so long as you don't come jabbering nonsense here. I don't know you, and I don't understand your jokes.'
He turned quickly away from me when he had said the last words. He had never once looked fairly at me since I first spoke to him.
Was it his hand that had struck the blow? I had only sixpence in my pocket, but I took it out and followed him. If it had been a five-pound note I should have done the same in the state I was in then.
'Would a pot of beer help you to understand me?' I said, and offered him the sixpence.
'A pot ain't no great things,' he answered, taking the sixpence doubtfully.
'It may lead to something better,' I said. His eyes began to twinkle, and he came close to me. Oh, how my legs trembled—how my head swam!
'This is all in a friendly way, is it?' he asked, in a whisper.
I nodded my head. At that moment I could not have spoken for worlds.
'Friendly, of course,' he went on to himself, 'or there would have been a policeman in it. She told you, I suppose, that I wasn't the man?'
I nodded my head again. It was all I could do to keep myself standing upright.
'I suppose it's a case of threatening to have him up, and make him settle it quietly for a pound or two? How much for me if you lay hold of him?'
'Half.'
I began to be afraid that he would suspect something if I was still silent. The wretch's eyes twinkled again and he came yet closer.
'I drove him to the Red Lion, corner of Dodd Street and Rudgely Street. The house was shut up, but he was let in at the jug and bottle door, like a man who was known to the landlord. That's as much as I can tell you, and I'm certain I'm right. He was the last fare I took up at night. The next morning master gave me the sack—said I cribbed his corn and his fares. I wish I had.'
I gathered from this that the crook-backed man had been a cab-driver.
'Why don't you speak?' he asked, suspiciously. 'Has she been telling you a pack of lies about me? What did she say when she came home?'
'What ought she to have said?'
'She ought to have said my fare was drunk, and she came in the way as he was going to get into the cab. That's what she ought to have said to begin with.'
'But after?'
'Well, after, my fare, by way of larking with her, puts out his leg for to trip her up, and she stumbles and catches at me for to save herself, and tears off one of the limp ends of my rotten old tie. 'What do you mean by that, you brute?' says she, turning round as soon as she was steady on her legs, to my fare. Says my fare to her: 'I means to teach you to keep a civil tongue in your head.' And he ups with his fist, and—what's come to you, now? What are you looking at me like that for? How do you think a man of my size was to take her part against a man big enough to have eaten me up? Look as much as you like, in my place you would have done what I done—drew off when he shook his fist at you, and swore he'd be the death of you if you didn't start your horse in no time.'
I saw he was working himself up into a rage; but I could not, if my life had depended on it, have stood near him or looked at him any longer. I just managed to stammer out that I had been walking a long way, and that, not being used to much exercise, I felt faint and giddy with fatigue. He only changed from angry to sulky when I made that excuse. I got a little further away from him, and then added that if he would be at the Mews entrance the next evening I should have something more to say and something more to give him. He grumbled a few suspicious words in answer about doubting whether he should trust me to come back. Fortunately, at that moment, a policeman passed on the opposite side of the way. He slunk down the Mews immediately, and I was free to make my escape.
How I got home I can't say, except that I think I ran the greater part of the way. Sally opened the door, and asked if anything was the matter the moment she saw my face. I answered: 'Nothing—nothing.' She stopped me as I was going into my room, and said:
'Smooth your hair a bit, and put your collar straight. There's a gentleman in there waiting for you.'
My heart gave one great bound: I knew who it was in an instant, and rushed into the room like a mad woman.
'Oh, Robert, Robert!'
All my heart went out to him in those two little words.
'Good God, Anne, has anything happened? Are you ill?'
'Mary! my poor, lost, murdered, dear, dear Mary!'
