Beggar’s Choice (26 page)

“I don't know. It's for you.”

She put it into my hand, and I read my own name on the white paper wrapping.

“Where did you get it?” I asked.

“Aunt Willy gave it to me just as I was starting.”

“Miss Willy?”

“She said it came by post.”

“This hasn't been through the post,” I said.

Isobel turned her head and looked at me with wide, startled eyes. She opened her lips to speak but over her shoulder I saw the bus swing into sight, and I wasn't going to have her miss it for twenty mysterious packages. I slipped it into my pocket and stepped out into the road with my hand up.

XXXIV

When the bus was out of sight, I went back into Olding Crescent, keeping on the dark side of the road. I couldn't make out in the least what sort of game this was; but it was clear enough that Isobel and I were being used as pawns in it, and I'd a fancy to see if I couldn't knock the board over and start a game of my own—and in that game I should be king, and Isobel would be queen.

I was a bit above myself, and no wonder. It was three years since I had dreamed that I should ever tell Isobel what I felt about her, and even three years ago I never got as far as thinking what it would feel like to hear her say the things she had said to me tonight. It didn't seem possible; but if it was possible, then everything I had ever hoped for or dreamed about was possible too. I wanted to sing and shout. I wanted to do something difficult and dangerous. I felt as if I could tackle anybody or anything. I suppose I as really quite drunk with happiness.

I walked as far as the door in the wall, and there I stopped. My idea, if I had one, had been to hand about for a bit and see whether anything happened. The door in the wall struck me as being the sort of place where things might begin to happen.

Well, I waited. Times goes slowly when you are waiting in the dark. That breath of rain had cleared off. The wind had dropped. It was dead still, with not a leaf moving. I thought I should hear a footstep a long way off, but no footstep came. It seemed to get darker and stiller every moment. The sky seemed to be pressing down on the top of my head, and the houses opposite were like a lot of dead things.

I slipped my hand into my pocket and touched the packet which Isobel had brought. And when I touched it, I wanted to know what as inside it, and I wanted to know it so badly that I couldn't wait another minute. I was tired of waiting there now—I wanted to do something.

I crossed over on a long slant and made for the nearest lamp. It was pretty dim and dull. I stood right under it and opened the packet. First there was a sheet of white note-paper, and then there was one of those long match-boxes, the sort that you buy full of vestas. I didn't some how think it was full of vestas now.

The box was full of little paper packets done up like powders from a chemist. One of them had fallen. I stooped down and picked it up. It had initials on it: A—J—

I put it back in the box and picked up another. This one had initials too, printed like the other: J—S—

The others were all the same. The only thing that was different was the initials. There were a dozen packages. I opened one of them, and there was a white powder in it. I shut it up again and put it back in the box.

I began to have the strongest feeling that there was something beastly about the whole thing. I thought of Fay and her yarn about the man Fosicker, who had got her to peddle drugs for him. I thought about Isobel getting a telegram from me, and me getting a telegram from Isobel, when neither of us had sent a telegram at all, and it came over me with a rush that I was being an absolutely prize mutt to hang around and wait for trouble. I felt a solid conviction that trouble was coming, and it seemed to me that if I didn't want it to hit me like a cartload of bricks, I'd better vamoose.

I went straight back across the road and chucked the match-box over the wall. And then I made tracks for home.

It was a good bit past ten when I got in. All the landings were dark, because Mrs. Bell turns out the gas at ten o'clock. She puts candles in the hall as a rule, but I couldn't find mine, so I supposed she'd forgotten I was out. I didn't bother, because I know the way so well, and I went as softly as I could, because if she hears you and comes up, it's ten to one you don't get away under twenty minutes—“Riotous living,” and texts, and how her husband was always in bed at half-past nine, and what a steady young man her son was.

When I got up on to my landing, there was a light under my door. First I wondered whether I had left the gas on, and then I remembered going back from the top of the stairs to turn it out.

I walked up to the door and opened it.

Fay turned round to meet me with a scream. She had on a black dressing-gown and bright green pyjamas, and she had all my clothes out of the wardrobe and lying about in heaps. I felt pretty wild. They were all new clothes, and if there's a thing I hate, it's having my things messed about.

I said she screamed, but that's not quite correct. She turned round, and her mouth opened, but only a sort of a ghost of a scream came out of it. It was like watching some one scream in a film.

“What do you think you're doing?” I said pretty shortly.

Fay caught at the table. She looked ghastly.

“Oh!” she said. “You've got it on!”

“Talk sense!'” I said. “What are you doing in my room?”

She began to cry. She didn't make any noise about it; the tears just began to fall down her face, and her mouth kept moving as if she was trying to say something.

I came round the table and took her by the shoulder.

“Stop it!” I said. “You've no business here, and you know it. What are you doing with my clothes?”

She caught with both hands at the coat I was wearing. It was one of my new ones, a blue serge got out of the Z.10 money—Blake had made it rather well.

“I've been looking for it. I couldn't find it,” she said in a whisper.

I thought she'd gone right off her head, because what she was saying didn't make sense. She kept on saying it, too: “I tried to find it—I did try—but you've got it on.” I thought it was no good being angry if she wasn't right in her head, so I spoke as kindly as I could.

“Of course I've got it on! Now you buzz off to bed. It's most awfully late.”

She gave a start when I said that.

“It's not too late—not yet. Take it off! I've got my scissors—I brought them. Quick, Car—quick!”

And then, I suppose, she saw my face and tumbled to what I was thinking. She let go of me, and I could see her pulling herself together. She didn't look mad, but she looked desperate.

“I've only got a minute to tell you, and you
must
believe me! The police will be here in a minute.”

“The police!” I said.

I don't know why I believed it, but I did. I didn't think any more about her being mad. I suppose it was because she was so tremendously in earnest; and she was frightened, really frightened too.

“They're coming!” she said, and as she said it, there came the sound of heavy knocking on the front door.

A most dreadful look of fear passed over her face.

“Car—Car—
Car!”
she gasped.

I'm afraid I spoke roughly. I think I shook her.

“Look here—if you've got anything to say, say it!”

She spoke then in a whisper.

“It's the Queen Anne bow. It's sewn into the lining of your coat—the one you've got on!”

I said, “Nonsense!”

The knocking had stopped for a moment, but it began again. Fay went on speaking:

“I put it there—I sewed it in the coat you've got on. They'll find it and send you to prison. I did it because I was angry with you, and because of Isobel. If you'd spoken a kind word to me, I wouldn't have done it—but you didn't—and she said she'd get me sent to prison—”

I said, “What?”

Fay said, “She
did
say it—she
did!”

“What are you talking about.?
Who
are you talking about?”

“Miss Lang. She hates you. What have you done to make her hate you like that? She knows all about what Fosicker made me do. She gave me the bow and told me to sew it into your coat. She said she'd get me sent to prison if I didn't—but I wouldn't have done it if you'd said a single kind word.” She was crying all the time and twisting her fingers together. I didn't know she knew what she was saying.

I ran my hands over my coat, and sure enough there was something flat and hard between the lining and the hem.

Fay went on whispering and crying:

“I came up to take it out again—but you'd got the coat on. They'll send you to prison.”

I saw the whole thing in a flash of light. It takes time to write about it, but the flash didn't seem to take any time at all. If the police found the Queen Anne bow sewn into the lining of my coat, I could only clear myself by accusing Fay. If I wanted to keep Fay out of it, I'd got to get away before the police broke in.

The banging on the front door was loud enough to wake the dead. If it didn't wake Mrs. Bell in a minute or two, I imagined they would break in. I saw all that, and at the same moment I saw the trap-door which opens from my landing into the loft, and the ladder which Mrs. Bell kept in the corner of the attic.

I shook Fay really hard.

“Stop behaving like an idiot and help me! I'm going to get away through the loft. Pull yourself together!”

I didn't know whether she was going to be any use or not. If she wasn't, I was done. I got the ladder into position, and the trap-door open. Fay stood leaning against the door of my room, shivering and watching me. I climbed into the loft and called to her.

“Put the ladder back in the attic and shut the door! Put out the light in my room and shut that door too! Then go down to your own room and get into bed! Do you hear?”

She said “Yes”—or I thought she did—it was all mixed up with catching her breath and crying.

I couldn't afford to wait, because I could hear Mrs. Bell coming up the basement stairs, so I said “Look sharp!” and I shut down the trap-door and pulled an old tin box full of books over it.

The loft ran all across the middle of the house. There was a skylight at one end of it. I got it open and crawled out on to the wet, cold slope of the roof.

XXXV

I shut the skylight behind me. I was on a steepish slope which ran down to meet the next house. I slid down into the trough between the two houses. It was dark, but not quite dark. I could see the edge of the roof, and I could see above me the twin skylight to the one I had just come out of. It wasn't so easy to climb up as it had been to slide down, and when I got there, the window was bolted on the inside—at least I suppose it was bolted, for I couldn't get it to budge. I slid down again into the trough and went and looked over the edge. There was a nasty long drop to the street. The knocking had stopped. That meant that the police were in the house—talking to Mrs. Bell, perhaps searching my room, perhaps finding the ladder still propped against the trap-door.

I went to the back of the house and looked over there. If Fay had kept her head and put the ladder away, and if I hadn't been seen letting myself into the house, they might just go away after searching my room. There were too many ifs. They had probably had a man watching for me to come home. I couldn't risk staying where I was, and there was only one way of getting anywhere else, and that was over the ridge of the roof. I didn't like the idea a bit, but I liked it better than being caught with the Queen Anne bow on me.

I crawled to the ridge and slid down on the other side. Two more slopes, and two more skylights, and both of them bolted. I made up my mind to go on. If I found an open skylight, I might be able to get away; and if I didn't, I should at any rate be getting farther away from the police.

I didn't know how many roofs I crossed. I got pretty good at it, but it made me wild to think of the damage I was doing to my clothes. I should think I had put about a dozen houses behind me, when I made up my mind to take a breather and review the situation. I thought I should be quite safe, because I didn't see the police getting across those roof-tops without making a most almighty row, so I sat down in the gutter and took stock.

I was out of breath and dirty, wet about the hands, and slimy about the knees, but I was feeling a good deal bucked—I don't know why, but I was. I had no business to be bucked, with a stolen heirloom sewn into my coat and the police hot on my trail; but from the moment Isobel kissed me I didn't feel as if anything could ever hurt me again. I felt as if I could take anything on and make a success of it.

My head was most extraordinarily clear. I went over what Fay had said. Anna was behind this little trick with the Queen Anne bow. And then something hit me right between the eyes. The package—the package that Isobel had brought—the long matchbox with its little separate packets done up in white paper and initialed—where did that come in? I felt perfectly certain that it came in somewhere, and I thought I saw Anna behind that too.

My thoughts began to nose round that package like terriers round a rat-hole. I certainly smelt a rat. I thought I had done a pretty good piece of work when I chucked the match-box over the wall in Olding Crescent. All the things Fay had said about peddling cocaine came back to me. If those white paper packets contained cocaine, and information had been given to the police, I might have found myself pretty well up to my neck in the soup.
Because
if the information concerned unlawful drugs, they'd search me and they'd find not only a boxful of neat little packets of white powder, but also a valuable piece of stolen jewelry; and if the information concerned my uncle's stolen heirloom, they'd not only get that, but a dozen or so dollops of cocaine as well. And either way, I was for it; for if, on the one hand, I cleared myself by accusing Fay, who had planted me with the bow, I couldn't wouldn't and shouldn't in any conceivable circumstances involve Isobel by admitting that she'd ever been within a hundred miles of handling that beastly package of cocaine. I thanked Heaven for Fay's attack of conscience, and for my own feeling that a match boxful of mysterious packets was not the sort of thing to carry about.