The Romance of His Life Part 23

But my second thought was for her. She might go clean out of her mind if she were suddenly confronted with him. What would it be best to do?

When he had put down Mrs. Curtis at Floor 7, and we were rumbling towards Floor 8, he volunteered, as we b.u.mped with violence against the roof that he was new to the work. I asked him what hours he came on and went off at. He said, "Heleven p.hem. to hate hay-hem." He did not recognise me--as, indeed, why should he?--but he looked more downcast and villainous than ever. It was evident that life had not gone well with him since he had been foreman at Brown and Prodgers.

"Lady's son from Horsetralia just arrived," he remarked conversationally, jerking his thumb towards the lower landing. "Took 'im up 'arf an hour ago."

I was surprised that Mr. Curtis should have already arrived, but in another moment I forgot all about it, for the first object that met my eyes as I opened my door was Aunt p.u.s.s.y in a state of great agitation, sitting fully dressed on my bed. It seemed that after we had started for the play she had stood a moment in the hall looking after us, and she had seen her murderer pa.s.s, and not only had he pa.s.sed, but he had exchanged a few words with the hall porter airing himself on the hotel steps.

"We must leave. We must leave to-morrow, Janet," she repeated, in an agony of terror. "I know he'll get in and kill me. That's why he spoke to the porter. Let's go and live at Margate. No, not Margate; it's too public. But I saw a little house at Southwold once; tumbling down it was, with no road up to it. Such a horrid place! We might go and live _there_. No one would ever think I should go there. Promise me you will take me away from London to-morrow, Janet."

I promised, I realised that we must go at once, and I calculated that if Aunt p.u.s.s.y, who always breakfasted in her room, only left it at ten o'clock to enter a cab to take her to the station it was impossible she should run across the new night porter, who went off duty several hours earlier. She must never know that he was actually in the house.

I tried to calm her, but dawn was already in the sky, or rather reflected on the tiles of our air-shaft, before she fell asleep, and I could go to my room and try to do the same.

I did it so effectually that it was nearly ten o'clock before I went down to breakfast, leaving Aunt p.u.s.s.y still slumbering.

While I drank my coffee I looked out the trains for Southwold, and noted down the name of a quiet hotel there, and then went to the manager's office to give up our rooms. When I got there a tired, angry young man, with a little bag, was interviewing the manager, who was eyeing him doubtfully, while a few paces away the hall porter, all gold braid and hair-oil and turned-out feet, was watching the scene.

"Surely Mrs. Curtis told you she was expecting me, her son," he was saying as I came up.

"Yes, sir," said the manager, civil but suspicious. "No doubt, sir. Mrs.

Curtis said as you were expected this morning, but, begging your pardon, you arrived last night, sir. Mr. Gregory Curtis arrived last night just after I retired for the evening."

"Impossible," said the young man, impatiently. "There is some mistake.

Take me to Mrs. Curtis's room at once."

The manager hesitated.

"This certainly is Mr. Gregory Curtis," I said, coming forward. "He is exactly like the photograph of her son which stands on Mrs. Curtis's table, and which I have seen scores of times."

The young man looked gratefully at me. And then, in a flash, as it were, we all took alarm.

"Then who _did_ you take up to my mother's rooms last night?" said her son. "And who took him up?"

"Not me, sir," said the hall porter promptly. "I was off duty. Clarke, the new night porter, must have took him up."

"Where _is_ Clarke?" asked the manager, seizing down a key from a peg on the wall.

"Gone to bed, sir. Not been gone five minutes."

"Bring him to me at once. And take this gentleman and me up in the lift first."

"This lady also," said Gregory, indicating me.

A horrible sense of guilt was stealing over me. Why hadn't I waited to see the fragile little old woman safely into her rooms?

The manager and Gregory did not speak. I dared not look at them. The lift came to a standstill, and in a moment the manager was out of it, and fitting his master key into the lock of No. 10, almost knocking over a can of hot water on the mat. The door opened, and we all went in.

The room was dark, and as the manager went hastily forward to draw the curtain his foot struck against something and he drew back with an exclamation. I, who was nearest the door, turned on the electric light.

Mrs. Curtis was lying with outstretched arms on her face on the floor.

Her widow's cap had fallen off, revealing on the crown of the head a dark stain. Her small hands, waxen white, were spread out as if in mild deprecation. There were no rings on them. The despatch box on the dressing table had been broken open, and the jewel cases lay scattered on the floor.

After a moment of stupor, Gregory and I raised the little figure and laid it on the bed. It was obvious that there was nothing to be done.

As we did so the door opened and the day porter dragged in the new lift man, holding him strongly by the arm.

They both looked at the dead woman on the bed. And then the lift man began to shake as with an ague, and his face became as ashen as hers.

"You saw her last alive," said the manager, "and you took up the party to her room last night."

The lift man was speechless. The drops stood on his forehead. He looked the image of guilt.

And as we stood staring at him Aunt p.u.s.s.y ambled in in her dressing-gown, with her comb in her hand, having probably left something in the room she had only yesterday vacated.

Her eyes fell first on the dead body, and then on the lift man.

I expected her to scream or faint, but she did neither. She seemed frozen. Then she raised a steady comb and pointed it at the lift man.

"He is her murderer," she said solemnly. "He meant to murder me. He told me so a year ago. He has followed me here to do it. But he did not know I had changed my rooms, and he has killed her instead."

I don't know what happened after that, for I was entirely taken up with Aunt p.u.s.s.y. I put my hand over her mouth, and hustled her back to her rooms.

"He will be hanged now," she said over and over again throughout that awful day. "He is _certain_ to be hanged, and when he is really dead I shall feel safe. Then I shall take a house, and you shall have a motor, and anything you like, Janet. He's in prison now, isn't he?"

"Yes, poor creature. He is under arrest. A policeman has taken him away."

"Safe in prison now, and hanged very soon. I shan't be easy otherwise.

And then I shall sleep peacefully in my bed."

She was better than she had been for the last year. She ate and slept, and seemed to have taken a new lease of life. She was absolutely callous about Mrs. Curtis's death, and suggested that half-a-guinea was quite enough to give for a wreath.

"If you're thinking of the number of times she gave us tea," she said, "it could not possibly, with tea as cheap as it is now--Harrod's own only one and seven--come to more than eight and six." And she opened her "Daily Mail" and pored over it. She had of late ceased to take in any paper, but now she took in the "Daily Mail" and the "Evening Standard,"

and read the police news with avidity, looking for the trial of "her murderer."

Mark and I went to the funeral, and he was very low all the way home. He was really distressed about Mrs. Curtis and Gregory, but of course he would not allow it, and accounted for his depression by saying that he had been attending the _wrong_ funeral. He said he did not actually blame Clarke (the lift man), for he had shown good intentions, but the man was evidently a procrastinator and a bungler, who had deceived the confidence he (Mark) had reposed in him, and on whom no one could place reliance. Such men, he averred, were better hanged and out of the way.

When I got back to our rooms I found Aunt p.u.s.s.y leaning back in her armchair near the window, with the "Evening Standard" spread out on her knee. A large heading caught my eye:

"SENSATIONAL ARREST OF THE MURDERER OF MRS. CURTIS."

"RELEASE OF CLARKE."

It had caught Aunt p.u.s.s.y's eye too. And her sheer terror had been too much for her. She would never be frightened any more. She had had her last shock. She was dead.

A month later Mark came to see me in the evening. We did not seem to have much to say to each other, perhaps because we were to be married next day. But I presently discovered that he was suffering from a suppressed communication.

"Out with it," I said. "You've got a wife and five small children at Peckham. There is still time to counter-order the motor and the wedding and the s.h.i.+lling cigars and--me."