Kill The Toff

to stop it. Gas was the best way. Once he got used to the smell it would be easy and peaceful. He’d drop off to sleep, that was all.

Sleep itself would be worth while. He had slept so little of late, moving furtively from place to place, haunted by his fear as well as hunted by unknown men. Had “they” known every one of his hiding-places? Until the note had come he had believed that he was fooling them but his brief respite may have been part of their damnable cat-and-mouse game. That didn’t greatly matter now that he had made his decision.

The best way to disappear was to die . . .

He began to stuff the dusty flock round the side of the door and lost himself in the task. It wasn’t difficult but would take longer than he had hoped; pity he hadn’t some cotton-wool or adhesive tape. He almost forgot why he was doing it. The feeling of relief from unbearable tension remained, bringing with it a sense not far from exhilaration.

Now and again the dust made him sneeze.

*     *     *

In the rest of that house and outside, the people of the East End of London went about their daily round. Women hurried along dingy streets to tiny shops, traffic grumbled along the wide, sprawling main roads, smoke rose sluggishly from countless chimneys and added to the gloom of the early Spring day.

*     *     *

Judith Lome sat over the drawing-board, wishing drearily that her drawings would come right. She had been both wishing and trying for hours. They weren’t right and it was useless to take these sketches to an editor who knew exactly what he wanted. Judith also knew that; and usually she could satisfy him without great difficulty but these were just so much waste-paper. Her fingers seemed stiff and the pencil wouldn’t run smoothly, because every time she drew a man’s face, the man looked like Jim. She couldn’t get away from

Jim. These were to be illustrations for a story in a woman’s magazine—a story with a superfine hero and a double-dyed villain—and she couldn’t make a face look heroic or villainous; only like Jim.

The light was dull and that didn’t help but if the light were perfect she wouldn’t be able to do much better. She’d fought against admitting it but, since Jim had disappeared, something of her had gone. It was chiefly her power of concentration. She didn’t think she would get it back until she knew what had happened; even if it proved to be the worst and he was dead.

She dropped her pencil and stood up. Jim’s framed photograph, with the back towards her, stood on one side of her desk. She picked it up and he smiled at her. That smile had done something to her from the first time she had seen it. It had gaiety, vitality—life. Zest for life had been the common bond between her and Jim from the beginning of their friendship. The friendship had grown swiftly, become much deeper and swept them away till they were wildly in love.

There had been five glorious months of planning and preparation, of learning each other’s foibles, deciding when to marry, where to live and how. They’d been so crazy that they had decided how many children to have, what sex and what they should be called. They’d even made up a silly doggerel about them, each last line ending:

. .. with Charles, Peter and Anne!

and they’d sung it to the catchy tune of Peggy O’Neil, one or the other of them strumming on the old piano which was out of tune and had two broken wires. On the piano, in its rosewood case, was another picture of Jim— like the picture which the police had taken away.

Jim wasn’t a murderer.

No man who could laugh and sing and play the fool, be so earnest and grave one moment and full of gaiety the next, could kill a man in cold blood. Downstairs the front door banged.

It always banged when Jim came but, of late, her heart hadn’t jumped on hearing it and she hadn’t waited for a few sickening minutes to see whether he had returned. He wouldn’t return; she had to make up her mind to that. But—there were still dreams. Or memories which had turned into dreams.

She would seem to hear him running up the stairs and humming Peggy O’Neil, waiting until her hand was at the door and then bursting out: “With Charles, Peter and Anne” Then he would grab her by the waist and lift her—a trick-hold he had perfected, for she was no feather-weight. He would carry her over to the window, demanding to know what she’d been doing with her time that day and had she earned enough to keep him in idle luxury for another week?

And there had been the times when he had walked up slowly and soberly and been earnest and solemn, hugging her tightly, and saying: “Sorry, I’m a bit low to-day. What a mess the world’s in! Got me down rather, so I’ve come for some cheering up.”

After a while they’d think of Charles, Peter and Anne—a panacea for all the moods of gloom.

It was twenty-nine days since she had seen him.

On the first she had been worried and puzzled; on the second, frantic; on the third, horrified. For the police had come and asked a great number of questions about him and taken away a few oddments he’d left in the two- roomed flat, including a copy of the photograph. They hadn’t told her why they’d come but they had left a man in the street to watch. Next day his photograph had appeared on the front page of all the newspapers. James Arden Mellor whom the police wish to interview in connection with the Nelson Street Murder. Day after day paragraphs had appeared about him and the fact that he’d disappeared. But after a while he stopped being news and the police stopped watching her and following her about.

Her friends and acquaintances, landlady and neighbours, no longer looked at her curiously or sympathetically or maliciously. Lite went on much as it had before she had met him. But she had changed—she was older, there were times when she felt careworn and thought she looked haggard. At twenty-five! She was in love with a man she might never see again, whom the world believed to be a murderer, but—

He wasn’t a murderer; it was fantastic nonsense and she wouldn’t pay heed to the evidence, damning though it was. She—

She caught sight of something at the foot of the door. It hadn’t been there a moment before. It looked like a