«Bradley, could you come round at once.»
«I'm just leaving London.»
«Please could you come round at once, it's very, very urgent.»
«Can't you come here!»
«No. Bradley, you must come, I beg you. Please come, it's something about Julian.»
«Rachel, she is in Venice, isn't she? Do you know her address?
I've had a letter from her. She's staying with a fan of Arnold's. Do you know? Have you got an address book of Arnold's you could look it up in?»
«Bradley, come round here at once. It's very-important. I'll tell you everything-you want to know-only come-«What is it, Rachel? Rachel, is Julian all right? You haven't heard anything awful? Oh God, have they had a car accident?»
«I'll tell you everything. Just come here. Come, come, at once, in a taxi, every moment matters.»
«Rachel, is Julian all right?»
«Yes, yes, yes, just come-I paid the taxi with trembling hands, dropping the money all over the place, and ran up the path and began banging on the knocker. Rachel opened the door at once.
I hardly recognized her. Or rather, I recognized her as a portentous revenant, the weeping distraught figure of the beginning of the story, her face grossly swollen with tears and, it seemed, again bruised, or perhaps just dirtied as a child's may be after much rubbing away of tears.
«Rachel, there's been a car accident, they've telephoned, she's hurt? What's happened, what's happened?»
Rachel sat down on a chair in the hall and began to moan, uttering great terrible ringing moans, swaying herself to and fro.
«Rachel-something terrible has happened to Julian-what is it? Oh God, what has happened?»
Rachel got up after a moment or two, still moaning and supporting herself against the wall. Her hair was a thick tangled frizzy mass, like the hair of the insane, torn at and dragged across her brow and eyes. Her mouth, all wet, was open and shuddering. Her eyes, oozing great tears, were slits between the swollen lids. Laboriously, like an animal, she pushed past me, still leaning with one hand on the wall, and made her way towards the door of the drawing-room. She pushed it open and made a gesture forward. I followed her into the doorway.
Arnold lay sideways, his knees up, one hand palm upward extended towards my foot. His eyes were half closed, showing a glint of white eyeball, his teeth were gritted together and the lips slightly withdrawn from them as if in a snarl. There was blood caking his pale tossed hair and dried in marbled patterns on his cheek and neck. I could see that the skull was appallingly dinted at the side, the darkened hair descending into the depression, as if Arnold's head had been made of wax and someone had pressed strong fingers hard in. A vein at the temple still oozed a little.
A large poker was lying on the carpet where the blood was. The blood was red and sticky, the consistency of custard, skinning a little on the surface.1 touched, then held, Arnold's tweedy shoulder, warm with the sun, trying to stir him a little, but he seemed as weighty as lead, bolted to the floor, or else my trembling limbs had no strength. I stepped back with blood upon my shoes, and trod upon Arnold's glasses which were lying just beyond the circle of blood.
«Oh God-you did that-with the poker-She whispered, «He's dead-he must be-is he?»
«I don't know-Oh God-«He's dead, he's dead,» she whispered.
«Have you sent for the-Oh Christ-what happened?»
