“That’s no good,” he said. “Pull down the sack again.”
Stephen did so. The sweat now was running down his face; he was spent and panting, and his composure was all gone. With his black hair ruffled over his forehead he looked wicked.
Something of his impatience had communicated itself to John, mastering even his abhorrence. He wanted furiously to get the thing done. It was he now who seized the recalcitrant arm and thrust it into the sack; it was he who fiercely pulled the sack over Emily’s head, and hid at last that puffy and appalling face with a long “Ah‑h” of relief. At the mouth of the sack was a fortunate piece of cord, threaded through a circle of ragged holes.
John Egerton pulled it tight and fumbled at the making of a knot. He felt vaguely that something special in the way of knots was required—a bowline—a reef knot or something—not a “granny,” anyhow. How was it you tied a reef knot? Dimly remembered instructions came to him—“the same string over both times”—or “under,” wasn’t it?
Stephen crouched at his side, dazedly watching his mobile fingers muddling with the cord.
A step sounded outside on the pavement. Stephen woke up with a whispered “My God!” and panic snatched at the pair of them. Feverishly John finished his knot and tugged at the ends. It was a “granny,” he saw, but a granny it must remain. The steps had surely stopped outside the door.
“Quick,” he whispered, and got his right arm under the sack. Stumbling and straining, with a reckless disturbance of rugs and mats, they bundled the sagging body of Emily Gaunt into the dining-room. In the dining-room John Egerton halted and laid his end of her down. He was not strong, and she was heavy. Stephen clung to her feet, and the two of them stood listening, very shaky and afraid. There was no sound in the street now. The steps must have passed the door. From the rear there was the melancholy hooting of a tug, calling for its waiting barges at Ginger Wharf. They could hear the slow, methodical panting of her engines and the furtive swish of the water at her bows. In the garden a cat was wailing—horribly like a child in pain. To John Egerton these familiar sounds seemed like the noises of a new world, the new world he had entered at about , when he had become a partner, an accomplice, in this wretched piece of brutality and deceit. He felt curiously identified with it now—he was part of it, not merely an impersonal observer. He had a sensation of personal guilt.
“It’s all right,” said somebody, very far away, in the voice of Stephen Byrne—a hoarse and furtive voice.
John Egerton picked up his burden, and another staggering stage was accomplished into the conservatory.
It was dusk now, but a large moon was up, and thin streams of silver filtered through the opaque roof and the crowded vine-leaves on to the long bundle on the floor. It was too light, Stephen thought, for this kind of work.
When they had halted he said, “Wait a minute, John—I’ll go and see if the coast is clear.” He went quickly down the stone steps into the tiny garden. The long, rich grass of Stephen’s “lawn” was drenched and glistening with dew. There was the heavy scent of something in the next-door garden, and over all a hot, intolerable stillness. Stephen became suddenly oppressed with the sense of guilt. Instinctively he stepped on to the wet grass and rustled softly through it to the river, his silk socks sponging up the dew.
Over the shallow wall he inspected furtively the silent river. Nothing moved. It was slack water, and the downward procession of tugs had not properly begun. The water was smooth; the black reflections of the opposite trees were sharp and perfect. Down towards Hammersmith a few lights hung like pendant jewels in the water. Over the far houses there was a flicker like summer lightning from an electric train. A huddle of driftwood and odd refuse floated motionless in midstream, very black and visible, waiting for the tide to turn; but along the edges the stream already crept stealthily down, lapping softly against the moored ranks of boats, against Stephen’s boat riding comfortably beneath him. In the neighbouring gardens nothing moved. About this hour in the hot weather the residents of Hammerton Chase would creep out secretly into their gardens and cast their refuse into the river, and there was often to be heard at dusk a scattered succession of subdued splashes.
But tonight there were no splashes. Probably the duty was already done. Stephen remembered incongruously this local habit, and was at once relieved and disappointed. Too many people prowling in their gardens might be dangerous. On the other hand, there was a certain safety in a multitude of splashes. One more would have made no difference.
There were no splashes now, and scarcely any sound: only the fretful muttering of distant traffic, the occasional rumble of buses on the far-off bridge, and the small plops of fishes leaping at the moon. Close to Stephen was an unobtrusive munching in the wired space where Joan’s rabbits were kept. A buck rabbit lay hunched in the moonlight masticating contentedly the last remnants of the evening cabbage. Another nosed at the wire-netting, begging without conviction for further illicit supplies. Stephen stooped down automatically and rubbed his nose.
But for the moonlight and the present slackness of the tide the moment was propitious. Stephen walked back more boldly into the conservatory. “You take the feet,” he said.
Without further speech they picked up the bundle and descended laboriously into the garden. The bright moon intimidated John. He looked back over his shoulder
