John Egerton stood still by the solid table, his hands gripping the edge of it behind him. He understood now.
“Good God!” he said quickly, as if to himself, and again, “Good God!” Then starting up, “But, Stephen, it’s … it’s … you mean …” Suddenly the word “murder” had flashed into his thoughts, and that word seemed to light up the whole ghastly business, made it immediately more hideous. “It’s murder,” he had been going to say, but some fantastic sense of delicacy stopped him.
Stephen halted at the door. A wild rage came over him. There was a strange kind of fierce resolution about him then which his friend had never seen before.
“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t stand dithering there, John,” he flung back. “Are you going to help me or not? If not, clear out … if you are, come on … quick, before Margery comes.” He went into the hall.
John Egerton said no more, but followed. That illuminating unspoken word “murder,” which had shown him the whole awfulness of this affair had shown him also the urgency of the present moment, the necessity of helping Stephen to “get her away.” For Margery Byrne’s sake. Just how he felt towards Stephen at that moment, what he would have done if Stephen had been a bachelor, he had had not time to consider. And it did not matter. For Mrs. Byrne’s—for Margery’s—sake, something must be done, as Stephen said. And he, John Egerton, must help.
“What are you going to do?” he said.
Stephen was crouched on his haunches, busily tidying Emily’s nightdress, pulling it about.
“The river,” he said shortly. “It’s high tide—Thank God!” he added.
John Egerton looked shrinkingly at the torn and ineffective nightdress, at the wide spaces of pink flesh showing through the rents. He could not imagine himself picking up that body. He said, “What?—like—like that?”
Stephen looked up. “Yes,” he said; “why not?” But he knew very well why not. Because of a certain insane sense of decency which governs even a murderer in the presence of death. Emily Gaunt must not be “got away” like that! Besides, it would be dangerous. He thought for a moment. Then, “No,” he said. “Wait a minute,” and clattered down the basement stairs.
When he came back he was trailing behind him a long and capacious sack, which had hung on a nail in the scullery for the receipt of waste paper and bottles and odds and ends of domestic refuse. The sack, fortunately, had been only half full. All its contents he had tumbled recklessly on the scullery floor. But as he came up the stairs he was curiously disturbed by the thought of that refuse. What was to be done with it? What would Margery say? The scullery had been recently cleaned out, he knew. And the sack? How could he explain its disappearance? These damned details.
“Here you are,” he said. “This will do,” and he laid the sack on the floor.
He began to put Emily into the sack. He drew the mouth of the sack over her feet. They were already cold. John Egerton stood stiffly under the light, in a kind of paralysis of disgust. He felt “I must help! … I must help!” but somehow he could not move a finger.
The sack was over the knees now. It was strangely difficult. The toes kept catching.
But Stephen was fantastically preoccupied with the refuse on the scullery floor, with coming explanations about the sack. “There’ll be an awful row,” he said … “the hell of a mess down there … what shall I say about the sack?” Then, suddenly, “What shall I say, John? … Think of something, for God’s sake!”
John Egerton jumped. The wild incongruity of Stephen’s question scarcely occurred to him. He tried solemnly to think of something to say about the sack. He would be helpful here, surely. But no thought came. His mind was a confused muddle of nightdresses and inquests and naked legs and Margery Byrne—Margery Byrne arriving quietly on the doorstep—Margery Byrne scandalized, agonized, hideously, fatally ill.
“I don’t know, Stephen,” he said feebly—“I don’t know … say you … oh, anything.”
He was fascinated now by the progress of the sack, which had nearly covered the legs. He saw clearly that a moment was coming when he would have to help, when one of them would have to lift Emily and one of them manipulate the sack. Already Stephen was cursing and in difficulties. The nightdress kept rucking up and had to be pulled back, and when that was done the sack lost ground again.
“Oh, hell!” he said, with a note of final exasperation, “lend a hand, John—lift her a bit,” and then as John still hesitated, sick with reluctance, “Oh, lift her, can’t you?”
John stooped down. The moment had come. He put his hands under the small of Emily’s back, shuddering as he touched her. With an effort he lifted her an inch or two. With a great heave Stephen advanced the sack six inches. Then it caught again in those maddening toes. With a guttural exclamation of rage he turned back towards the feet and tugged furiously at the sack. When it was free John Egerton had relaxed his hold. Emily was lying heavy on the slack of the sack. He was gazing with a kind of helpless horror at the purple inflammation of Emily’s throat, realizing for the first time just how brutal and violent her end had been.
Stephen cursed again. “Lift, damn you, lift—oh, hell!”
John lifted, and with a wild fumbling impatience the whole of Emily’s body was covered. Only the head and one arm were left. They had forgotten the arm. It lay flung out away from the
