The House by the River

for people peering out of windows. But only the windows of his own house commanded the garden; and Mrs. Bantam, his housekeeper, would be long since in bed. Paddling quietly through the dew, he, too, thought fantastically of other burdens he had smuggled down to the river on many a breathless night, pailfuls of potato-peelings and old tins and ashes. In his mind he gave a mute hysterical chuckle at the thought. What other residents, he wondered, had taken this kind of contraband through their gardens in the secret night? Old Dimple, the barrister⁠—ha! ha!⁠—or Mrs. Ambrose? Perhaps they, too, had strangled people in their house and consigned them guiltily to the condoning Thames. Perhaps all those sober, respectable people were capable, like Stephen, of astonishing crimes. Nothing, now, could be really surprising. God, what’s that?

There was a sudden scuffle and clatter in the dark angle by the river wall⁠—only the rabbits panicking into corners at the silent coming of a stranger. But John was aware of the violent beating of his heart.

They laid Emily on the ground and looked over the wall. The tide now had definitely turned. The middle stream was smoothly moving, oily and swift. John felt happier. It would soon be over now. An easy thing, to slip her over into the friendly water⁠ ⁠… no more of this hideous heaving and fumbling with a cold body in a sweat of anxiety.

But to Stephen, regarding doubtfully the close row of boats a hundred yards downstream, new and disquieting uncertainties had occurred. To him, too, it had seemed a simple thing to drop Emily over the wall and let the river dispose of her. But supposing the river failed, flung her against the mooring-chain of one of those boats, jammed her with the tide under the sloping bows of Mr. Adamson’s decrepit hulk, left her there till the tide went down.⁠ ⁠… He saw with a frightening clearness Emily Gaunt being discovered in the morning on the muddy foreshore of Hammerton Terrace⁠—discovered by Andrews, the longshoreman, or a couple of small boys, or Thingummy Rawlins, prowling down from his garden to tinker with his motorboat.⁠ ⁠… No, that would never do.

He said in a low voice, “John⁠ ⁠… we’ll have to take her out in the boat⁠ ⁠… we can’t just drop her.⁠ ⁠… These damned boats⁠ ⁠… supposing she caught⁠ ⁠…”

John Egerton uttered a long groan of disappointment. It was not all over, then. There must be more liftings and irritations, more damnable association with this vileness.

“O Lord!” he protested. “Stephen, I can’t.⁠ ⁠…” His face was pale and almost piteous under the moon.

Stephen answered him without petulance this time. “John, old man⁠—for God’s sake, see it through⁠ ⁠… we must get on, and I can’t do it without you.⁠ ⁠… I’m awfully sorry.⁠ ⁠… It’s got to be done.⁠ ⁠…” The appeal in his voice succeeded as an irritable outburst could not have done.

John Egerton braced himself again. In his own mind he recognized the practical wisdom of using the boat. He said with a great weariness, “Come on then.”

It was a long and difficult business getting that body into the boat. A flight of wooden steps led down from the wall to the water, and from there the boat⁠—a small motorboat, half-dinghy, half-canoe⁠—had to be hauled in with a boathook for Stephen to step acrobatically into her and unfasten the moorings. Then she had to be paddled close up under the wall and fastened lightly to the steps. While Stephen was doing this a tug swished by, with a black string of barges clinging clumsily astern. The red eye of her port-light glared banefully across the water. John felt that the man in that tug must guess infallibly what work he was at. A solitary lantern in the stern of the sternmost barge flickered about the single figure standing at the tiller. He could see the face of the man, turned unmistakably towards him.

She was travelling fast, and Stephen cursed as her wash took hold of his little boat and tossed her up and banged her against the wall and the rickety steps. John, leaning anxiously over, could hear his muttered execrations as he fended her off.

Then there was a hot, whispered argument⁠—on the best way of getting the body down, Stephen standing swaying in the boat, with his face upturned, like some ridiculous moonlight lover, John flinging down assertions and reasonings in a forced whisper which broke now and then into a harsh undertone. Stephen thought it should be carted down the steps. John, with an aching objection to further prolonged contact with the thing, said it should be lowered with a rope. “Haven’t you a bit of rope?” he reiterated⁠—“a bit of rope⁠—much the best.”

Sick of argument, Stephen fumbled with wild mutterings in his locker, and brought out in a muddle of oilcans and tools a length of stout cord. Together they made a rough bight about Emily’s middle, together lifted her to the flat stone parapet of the wall.

When she was there a dog barked suspiciously in Hammerton Terrace; another echoed him along The Chase. The two men crouched against the wall in a tense and ridiculous agitation.

Through all these emergencies and arguments and muffled objurgations there stirred in John’s mind ironical recollections of passages in detective stories, where dead bodies were constantly being transported with facility and dispatch in any desired direction. It seemed so easy in the books, it was so damnably difficult in practice⁠—or so they were finding it.

And always there was the menace of Margery’s return; she must be back soon, she would certainly come out into the garden on a night like this.⁠ ⁠…

When they had the body stretched flat and ready on the wall, Stephen went back into the boat. It had sidled down below the steps, and had to be hauled back. The tide was maddeningly strong. Stephen urged the boat with imprecations under the wall. To keep it there he must hold on stoutly with a boathook, and could give little help to John in the detested