“But … but …” began John.
“Quick! … I’ve got to get back.” Stephen stood up. “God knows what they think of me at home as it is. … Say you’ll go, John—here’s the key of the boat … she’ll start at once now. … It’s a thousand to one chance, but it’s worth it. … And if you’re not quick it’ll go past again.”
Something of his old masterfulness was coming back with his excitement. But when John still hesitated, his slow mouth framing the beginnings of objection, the hunted look came upon Stephen again.
“John, for God’s sake!” he said, with a low, pleading note. “I’m about done, old man … what with Margery and—and … but there’s still a chance … John!”
The wretched John was melted again. He left his objections to the preposterous proposal unspoken. He put his hand affectionately on the other’s shoulder.
“It’s all right, Stephen. … I’ll manage it somehow … don’t you worry, old boy. … I’ll manage it.”
“Thank God! I’ll go now, John. … I’ll come down when I hear you come back. … I must go. …”
Together they hurried down the stairs, and John found himself suddenly alone at the end of his garden in an old mackintosh, bemused and incredulous.
The rain had come, a hot, persistent, sibilant rain, and already it had brought the dark. The river was a shadowy mosaic of small splashes. The lights of Barnes showed mistily across the river, like lamps in a photograph. The tide was gathering momentum for the ebb; a mass of leaves and dead branches floated sluggishly past under the wall.
John was in the boat, fiddling stupidly at the engine, glistening and splashing in the rain, before he had thought at all what exactly he was going to do to discharge his fantastic undertaking. The engine started miraculously. John cast off and the boat headed doggedly up against the tide, John peering anxiously from side to side at the rain-speckled water.
The engine roared and clattered; the boat vibrated, quivering all over; the oars and boathook rattled ceaselessly against the side of the boat—a hollow, monotonous rattle; the exhaust snorted rhythmically astern. The rain splashed and pattered on the engine and on the thwarts, and rolled with a luxurious swishing sound in the bottom. The flywheel of the engine revolved like a Catherine-wheel composed of water—water flying in brief tangents from the rim. John had come out without a hat, and his hair was matted and black; the river splashed on his neck and trickled slowly under his collar.
It was a heavy task, this, for one man with two hands to attempt, to shield the engine and himself with the same mackintosh, extending it like a wing with one arm over the flywheel, and to oil occasionally with an oilcan the mechanism of the pump, to regulate the oil-feed and the water-supply, and do all those little attentions without which the engine usually stopped; and at the same time to steer the boat, and look in the river for the floating body of a dead woman in a sack. It was madness. In that watery dusk his chances of seeing an obscure sack seemed ludicrously small. And what was he to do with it when he had found it? How should he dispose of it more effectually than it had been disposed of before? John did not know.
But the boat rattled and gurgled along, past the Island, and past the ferry, till they were level with the brewery, by the bend. The bend here made at one side a large stretch of slack water where the tide moved hardly at all. By the other bank the tide raced narrowly down. Here, John thought, was the place for his purpose. So for a long hour he steered the boat back and forth from bank to bank, peering intensely through the rain. Sometimes he saw a log or a basket or a broken bottle scurrying dimly past and chased it with a wild hope downstream. Once he made sure that he had found what he had sought—a light object floating high out of the water; this he followed halfway down the Island. And when he found it it was a dead cat—a light-coloured cat. “The yellow cat,” he thought. Once, as he headed obliquely across the river, boathook in hand, a black invisible police-boat shot surprisingly across his bows. A curse came out of the gloom and a lamp was flashed at him. The police-boat put about and worked back alongside; a heavy man in a cape asked him what the hell he was doing, charging about without a light. John might have asked the same question, but he was too frightened. He apologized and said he had let go of the rudder line to do something to the engine. The policemen went on again, growling.
Then the tugs began to come down, very comforting and friendly, their lights gliding mistily through the wet. John had to be careful then, and creep upstream along the bank while their long lines of barges swung ponderously round the corner. And how could he be sure that Emily was not slipping past him in midstream, as he did so? It was hopeless, this.
The wind got up—a chilly wind from the East. He was cold and clammy and terribly alone. The rain had crept under his shirt and up his sleeves; his trousers hung about his ankles, heavy with rain. He wanted to go home; he wanted to get out of the horrible wet boat; he was tired. But he had promised. Stephen was his best friend, and Stephen had appealed to him. He had done a bad thing, but he was still Stephen.
And he, John, was mixed up in it now. If Emily was found at Putney in the morning, his own story would have to be told. Not a good story, either, whatever his motives had been. What had his motives been? Margery Byrne, chiefly, of course. Well, she was still a motive—very much so.
But how futile the
