Turpin was there, a pale taut young man with his brows knit, as I remembered them in tight corners in France. The green girl had darted to Mary’s side, and Turpin strode up to her.
“Adela, my dear,” he said, “I think it is time for you to be going home.”
The next I saw was Miss Victor’s hand clutching his arm and Odell advancing with a flush on his sallow face.
“You letta go that goil,” he was saying. “You got no business with her. She’s my goil.”
Turpin was smiling. “I think not, my friend.” He disengaged Adela’s arm and put her behind him, and with a swift step struck Odell a resounding smack on the cheek with the flat of his hand.
The man seemed to swell with fury. “Hell!” he cried, with a torrent of Bowery oaths. “My smart guy, I’ve got something in my mitt for you. You for the sleep pill.”
I would have given a fortune to be in Turpin’s place, for I felt that a scrap was what I needed to knit up my ragged nerves. But I couldn’t chip in, for this was clearly his special quarrel, and very soon I saw that he was not likely to need my help.
Smiling wickedly, he moved round the pug, who had his fists up. “Fiche-moi la paix,” he crooned. “My friend, I am going to massacre you.”
I stepped towards Mary, for I wanted to get the women outside, but she was busy attending to Miss Victor, whom the strain of the evening had left on the verge of swooning. So I only saw bits of the fight. Turpin kept Odell at long range, for in-fighting would have been fatal, and he tired him with his lightning movements, till the professional’s bad training told and his wind went. When the Frenchman saw his opponent puffing and his cheeks mottling he started to sail in. That part I witnessed, and I hope that Mary and Miss Victor did not understand old Turpin’s language, for he spoke gently to himself the whole time, and it was the quintessence of all the esoteric abuse that the French poilu accumulated during the four years of war. His tremendous reach gave him an advantage, he was as light on his legs as a fencer, and his arms seemed to shoot out with the force of a steam-hammer. I realised what I had never known before, that his slimness was deceptive, and that stripped he would be a fine figure of sinew and bone. Also I understood that a big fellow, however formidable, if he is untrained and a little drunk, will go down before speed and quick wits and the deftness of youth.
They fought for just over six minutes. Turpin’s deadliest blows were on Odell’s body, but the knockout came with one on the point of the chin. The big man crumpled up in a heap, and the back of his head banged on the floor. Turpin wrapped a wisp of a handkerchief round his knuckles, which had suffered from Odell’s solitaire, and looked about him.
“What is to become of this offal?” he asked.
One of the dancers replied. “We will look after him, sir. The whole house is in our hands. This man is wanted on a good many grounds.”
I walked up to the prostrate Odell, and took the latchkey from his waistcoat pocket. Turpin and Adela had gone, and Mary stood watching me. I observed that she was very pale.
“I am going to Hill Street,” I said.
“I will come later,” was her answer. “I hope in less than an hour. The key will let you in. There will be people there to keep the door open for me.”
Her face had the alert and absorbed look that old Peter Pienaar’s used to have when he was after big game. There was no other word spoken between us. She entered a big saloon-car which was waiting in the street below, and I walked to Royston Square to find a taxi. It was not yet eleven o’clock.
XIX
The Night of the First of June—Later
A little after eleven that night a late walker in Palmyra Square would have seen a phenomenon rare in the dingy neighbourhood. A large motorcar drew up at the gate of No. 7, where dwelt the teacher of music who had long retired to rest. A woman descended, wearing a dark cloak and carrying a parcel, and stood for a second looking across the road to where the lean elms in the centre of the square made a patch of shade. She seemed to find there what she expected, for she hastened to the gate of No. 4. She did not approach the front door, but ran down the path to the back where the tradesmen called, and as soon as she was out of sight several figures emerged from the shadow and moved towards the gate.
Miss Outhwaite opened to her tap. “My, but you’re late, miss,” she whispered, as the woman brushed past her into the dim kitchen. Then she gasped, for some transformation had taken place in the district-visitor. It was no longer a faded spinster that she saw, but a dazzling lady, gorgeously dressed as it seemed to her, and of a remarkable beauty.
“I’ve brought your hat, Elsie,” she said. “It’s rather a nice one, and I think you’ll like it. Now go at once and open the front door.”
“But Madame …” the girl gasped.
“Never mind Madame. You are done with Madame. Tomorrow you will come and see me at this address,” and she gave her a slip of paper. “I will see that you do not suffer. Now hurry, my dear.”
The girl seemed to be mesmerised, and turned to
