Mr Hire's Engagement (15 page)

As she was leaving a bottle of milk outside a first-floor flat, the door opened and a man asked, razor in hand. 'Have they arrested him?'

'Not yet.'

The concierge called her as she came down again. She had spent a dreadful night, for she kept thinking her little girl had stopped breathing. Then she would switch on the light and see the child's congested face and dilated nostrils. She would switch off the light again and listen to the child's breathing before she dropped off to sleep, only to wake with a start a little later on and strain her ears in vain. She was pale. Her hair was all unkempt. 'Are they still there?' she asked pointing upstairs.

'I noticed the light was on.'

'Is it still raining?'

'No. But there's a wind.'

And Alice went on her round of the neighbouring houses, getting back to the dairy with a load of empty bottles just as the proprietress was taking down the shutters.

The inspector had just come down and was looking at her through the window, as though waiting for her.

'They're still there!' her employer said, just as the concierge had done.

The inspector was smiling and making signs that the dairy-girl could not understand. He was trying to explain that he had not been able to come to her room, but hoped for better luck next time. There was a stubble of beard on his cheeks. Suddenly the proprietor of the
bistro
came out, in the blue apron he always wore in the morning, and took the inspector back into the bar.

'You can turn the light off now,' called the dairy woman, from the back room.

It was practically daylight. Only the
bistro
and the trams still had their lights on. Émile could no doubt see Alice through the shop window, and as she watched, he ordered another coffee and rum.

Then the inspector came running back, found the dairy-girl on the doorstep, and called out as he went by:

'He's coming!'

'What is it?' shrilled the dairy woman.

'Mr. Hire's coming!'

The concierge appeared in the doorway, anxious-eyed, standing on tiptoe to look for Alice.

'I think they're going to arrest him! Just as I'm expecting the doctor!'

Doors were opening and shutting all over the house. The first-floor tenant was staring out into the street, in both directions.

'Is he really coming?'

'Georges, wait for me!' cried a voice from higher up.

And the butcher came out of the
bistro
, said something to a man who offered him a cigarette, and came towards the house with him, stopping a few steps from the door. The concierge looked anxiously at him.

'What is it?'

'They're going to arrest him!'

He himself stopped a van which was just going past, driven by a friend of his.

'Come and see what's going on!'

A woman came down, followed by another.

'Is it true?'

'What?'

'They've got proof. They've found the handbag. They're going to arrest him!'

From the doorway they could see one policeman waiting at the tram stop and another who seemed to be wanting to close the side-street.

'Alice! There's the floor to mop up.'

'Coming.'

She went back reluctantly, took a cloth from behind the back door, and plunged her hands into the cold water, which turned them scarlet. The inspector, who had gone up to speak to the superintendent, came down again at once.

'Don't collect here, please! There's nothing to see. Nothing at all!'

There were ten of them now, then twelve, and others were coming along from the
bistro
and elsewhere. Émile came up, smoking a cigarette, but he remained on the outskirts of the group, as though preferring not to be seen.

Drivers turned to look as they went past, wondering why the crowd had gathered when there was no sign of an accident. The policeman on point duty kept his eyes riveted on the house as he directed the traffic.

'Please, please!' cried the inspector, who could not get himself obeyed. 'You'll upset everything.'

The superintendent was alone in Mr. Hire's room. The handbag lay on the table. All that could be heard from here was the sound of cars on the road, and a woman yelling at her children because they were taking too long to get dressed.

'Move on, there! You're interfering with the work of the police.'

A tram drew up. The policeman watching at the tram-stop made a signal that everyone understood just as clearly as the inspector.

'Here he is!'

Alice was washing the doorstep and she went on swirling her floorcloth around on the blue stone.

XI

T
HE
inspector was running upstairs to warn his chief, when Mr. Hire was seen coming round the end of the tram. At this distance he looked tiny, all round and black, with his moustache making an inky line across his colourless face.

Two men were walking behind him, so close that they seemed to be supporting him on either side. And Mr. Hire's little legs were twinkling along as though to get away from them.

He had noticed the crowd. He could not have failed to notice it, for there were generally few people about at this time of day. He halted at the edge of the pavement. He was the only person waiting to cross, except for the two policemen at his heels, but the man on point duty blew his whistle and held out his baton to stop the line of traffic.

He came on. He was walking in a cloud, in some soft, impalpable, invisible substance. All he could see was the doorway of his house, and people standing round it, all staring in the same direction. All he could hear was the tread of the two men just behind him.

The crowd on the pavement had suddenly increased. People were coming from inside and from outside the house, men, women and even children, the latter being pushed to the back.

'Stay there, do you hear?'

And Mr. Hire went on and on; he was afraid to look into the dairy, but he saw Alice out of the corner of his eye, as she flicked her cloth around the doorstep. He swelled out his chest. He would make the position clear, now. One of his nostrils was blocked up by a cold and he was breathing with difficulty, but that did not matter.

The important thing was to get past, and there was a narrow space between the people and the door. All he need do was to hurry.

And hurry he did, for ten or fifteen paces. Then, suddenly, he saw a movement close beside him, and at the same time his bowler hat flew off his head, while the crowd began to titter.

Then he made a mistake. Instinctively, without thinking, he tried to pick up his hat. Whereupon someone's foot sent it rolling further and, as though by accident, also hit Mr. Hire in the face, muddying and bruising him.

This was a shock to both sides—a shock for Mr. Hire who, as he gathered himself together, turned bewildered eyes on the crowd; and a shock, or rather a signal, for the spectators.

Mr. Hire staggered, and almost touched a woman with his elbow. The nearest man made this an excuse to hit him back with a clenched fist.

The fist, as it met Mr. Hire's body, made a curious sound, an exciting sound, that made everybody want to hear it again.

He had lost his balance, his sense of direction. He stood on tiptoe, because they were nearly all taller than he, and protected his face with one bent arm.

'Here! Let him alone!' said a policeman.

But there were at least thirty people barring the way. Mr. Hire was pushed against the stone door-jamb. A stone hit him on the hand, drawing blood. A sharp kick caught his shin.

A clamour began to rise from the crowd, while he still hid his face from it with the black sleeve of his overcoat.

He could see nothing. He moved backwards simply because he was driven, by fists or by feet. He felt the panels of the door against his hand, the flagstone of the passage beneath his feet.

He began running as fast as his legs would carry him, leapt up the stairs and tried to push a half-open door, which was slammed in his face.

The clamour followed him. People were coming up behind him, and he ran on and on panting, and wild-eyed. The walls, the banisters, the doors looked unfamiliar. He was hunting for a way out, and had lost count of the storeys he had climbed.

A door opened and he did not even recognize it as his own. A man tried to bar the way, but he got past his legs, he could not have said how. He went up and up, amid unknown surroundings. He had never been so far up. An old woman was leaning over the landing above, trembling, and clasped her hands together.

He thrust past her, and in at her door. The stairs did not go any higher. There was a cooking-stove, a table, an unmade bed.

'Kill him!'

They were shouting that. They were yelling all kinds of things. There was a general hubbub, through which one loud voice tried to make itself heard:

'Let him alone! Leave this to the police!'

Then he did something he would never have attempted in cold blood. Above his head, in the sloping ceiling, there was a skylight. He caught hold of the edge and hung on. The zinc rim cut into his hands, but he kicked about, swung his legs, hooked one of them over the edge of the skylight. He was out on the roof at the very moment when the first pursuers rushed into the attic, where the old woman was yelling blue murder.

It was a weird roof! He opened wide his eyes. He was afraid. Some of the tiles were dry, others still wet. They all sloped down horribly, and nothing could be seen except a stretch of waste ground, far away, beyond the edge of the roof.

He balanced there for a longish moment, arms outstretched, eyes wild. A hand reached up through the skylight and tried to grab his leg. Did he draw away? In any case he gave a start, fell forward, slipped, slid, and caught with both hands at something that swayed.

Then, with all the strength he could muster, he uttered a cry that was no longer human, a cry that tore his throat. His feet, his whole body, were dangling in space. His hands were hurting. There was a pull on his arms.

He moved his feet. He was trying to find a hold. And his feet met nothing, his body hung inert, his arms felt as though they would break.

He did not scream again. He held his breath. He looked at the brick wall close against him, and at the zinc cornice just above, on which his fingers were cutting themselves.

The cornice was giving way! It was bending! It had dropped about a quarter of an inch. And voices could be heard above—from the skylight, no doubt.

There were no more threats. The voices were low, anxious.

The whole thing was going to break! He dared not look down again. And his hands were so damp that they would slip any moment now. His blood seemed to have frozen. He could not move. He could only see his hands, his own hands, whose swollen veins made them unrecognizable, and the breath he drew in was like fire.

To get a better view, they had crossed over to the waste plot opposite, and cars were still passing along the road, between them and the house. They could see the steeply sloping roof with its patches of wet tiles, the faces at the skylight, and even the head and shoulders of a uniformed policeman, just emerging from it.

The new, brick front of the house was smooth, without a single projection. A long strip of cornice had given way under Mr. Hire's weight and was sagging like a garland, with his body hanging in the middle, so stiff, now, that he might have been dead.

The superintendent was one of the group he had not even seen. The policeman, up above, signalled to his chief, who waved his arm in a negative gesture.

The policeman could not possibly get down without slipping in his turn onto the cornice which would then give way completely.

There must be a lot of coming and going inside the house. There was an active group in the old woman's attic, another on the waste plot.

One car stopped, its driver catching sight of the black form hanging in space. Others car followed suit.

'Go and call the fire brigade,' ordered the superintendent.

A window opened just below the body. Mr. Hire must have seen a man within six feet of him, but the man could do nothing and just said to him, for what it was worth:

'Hold on!'

They had found a rope somewhere. The policeman, assisted by the plumber who had called the previous day, was lowering it down the roof. The superintendent was directing him from afar:

'Left! ... A bit more! . . . No, not so much. That's it!'

And the rope, writhing like a snake, reached the cornice and swept past Mr. Hire's face. But he did not grasp it. Perhaps he was afraid to let go? Did he feel he could not hang on with one hand, even for a second?

At the cross-roads, life had come to a standstill. The road was blocked with cars. The policeman was staring upwards like everyone else, and now and then some far-distant driver, who did not know, sounded his horn impatiently.

All the same, the whole thing only looked, from above, like a few black patches, a few compact groups, with some scattered individuals moving about in the space between them.

'Is the fire brigade coming?'

'In three minutes.'

The pavement, below Mr. Hire, was empty.

The doctor, who had just arrived, was waiting at the corner of the street, where the concierge had joined him.

'Would anyone ever have expected that!'

Alice was standing on the waste ground, a couple of yards from the inspector, who risked a smile at her from time to time.

'Ah! . . .' gasped the crowd, as Mr. Hire's overcoat worked up on the back of his neck. It looked as though he would let go. They saw him shudder, draw up a little, then relax. Sometimes his legs, swung apart then his knees pressed together convulsively, and all the time the rope was hanging about four inches from his nose.

They could not see his face: only his back and his legs, above all, his legs, which were never still, which groped desperately to find a foothold.

Close to Alice, too, stood Émile, his hands in his pockets, his face sickly and cold. She gazed at him, but he did not notice her. His eyes were burning. His neck was stiff with staring upwards, while she was looking round at the bystanders. Someone began giving figures. 'The house is seventy feet high.'