What should he do? He thought of this as he continued to walk eastwards. He did not know what he expected to find in that direction, but the vista ahead, he had seen, was more friendly with a larger crowd. The crowd, somehow, looked helpful. He wanted to get into it. One more does not seem to matter so much when the crowd is large. Nobody looked at him. This steadied him still more. He did not want to be looked at.
Something ought to be done. Should he telephone to Mrs. Perriam? “Is that Mrs. Perriam? I have just killed your husband. I couldn’t help it.” Seemed rather silly. She might be upset.
Was there anything he could do? He considered that, and continued his easterly drift. Perhaps there was nothing he could do. Now and again the image of that yawning policeman came before him, to be instantly expunged. That fellow would not understand; he didn’t know Perriams, and never saw the boss with his arm up, bullying, and that look on his big flushed face. The look wasn’t on his face now. Where had it gone? No good trying to produce it in evidence. The little things which really count can never be shown in evidence. They do the trick, and then they vanish.
Nobody could help Perriam now. He ought not to have died like that. Too idiotic. A man who could die so easily should have kept quiet. Bad as a swindle. He would never have believed it. Anyone would think the heart was just waiting for an excuse to stop. Heavens, you couldn’t stop a decent heart like that.
Had he really hit his chief? He did not remember doing it. He could not recall the feel of the contact. The violent old fool just dropped. Poor old fellow. A pity he waited till that telephone bell rang. Perriam would be alive now if he hadn’t. It was odd that he couldn’t remember the blow. But that wouldn’t do. No good, that. Either he hit the man, or else God knocked him out. Perhaps a bit of both. All the same to the police. Easy for God to prove an alibi.
He found himself by the stalls of Aldgate. There was a distraction of hissing naphtha flares, and illuminated trams which interlaced on many tracks like short lengths of lighted streets on the move; and a confused slow tide of faces, masks that were vacant, foreign, indifferent, which expected nothing. They seemed to be upborne on shadows. They went slowly past, bobbing on the surface of nothing, and had no names, and were going nowhere. Each face had but a brief existence by the favour of a chance light, and then was gone.
That made the matter worse. It was meaningless. The faces just glanced once, and then went out. Eyes in a never-ending stream, that came into existence with one look of indifference as they passed into a light, and then were done. He went into a tavern to get out of it. There were many eyes floating past, a ceaseless drift of stares.
His thoughts would not stop, and yet they did not help him. Perhaps the morning would help him. It would be all cut and dried by then. No escape. He could stand up to it then. But to what? What would there be? Only the usual cold and compelling logic of the old confusion, and those eyes all round looking on indifferently.
He was not sure what he wanted in a public-house. A brisk potman appeared to know what, and served him. The potman had a squint. That was a good squint. It made the chap seem polite. He sat on a bench near a tough who was thumping a table with a heavy hand to emphasise a matter which had to be whispered, though huskily, to a companion who listened with his eyes shut, while sucking a pipe. “I arst yer. What would you ’ave done?” The lean man did not open his eyes. He nodded his head solemnly.
The talker glanced furtively at Jimmy beside him, who was gazing in evident abstraction at a glass globe in its haze of tobacco smoke. The man had no collar, and he eased his thick moist neck from a constricting shirt-band with a finger, and grimaced in impatient discomfort. “I’d ’ad enough of the bitch. Too much of it. But that stopped her jaw. An’ there you are, Bill. I shan’t turn up in the mornin’.”
The other fellow removed his pipe. “Police know?” he asked.
Jimmy moved instantly at that word to look at them. The tough felt his movement, and swung sharply upon him with his great hands clenched on the greasy knees of his trousers. He contemplated Jimmy with lowering insolence in silence, head thrust forward, for some seconds.
“ ’Ere, you—you with the whiskers. You listening to us? Know anything? By cripes, you shift your ear, or it’ll get thick.”
Jimmy felt a change of thought. It went over him with a glow of pleasure. He smiled kindly at the tough. Good, good, that fellow was a weight.
“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Alarmed!” The big fellow inclined his head to his friend. “ ’Ear ’im, Bill? Arsts me if I’m alarmed.” His face came round with decision. “Don’t you wait ’ere any longer than you must, whiskers. This pub is unhealthy. Understand what I mean? You got anything else to do, go and do it.”
The distraction grew still more pleasing, though Jimmy thought it might be better to go. Yet not too soon. He maintained his friendly smile, and took a drink.
“Plenty
