As now, although not senseless, a similar and very great amazement happened, directly after Mr Bowling remarked so very calmly:
‘I don’t think we need all this light,’ and a hand had gone to a switch.
Very large hands they were, noticed Mr Farthing, who was sitting in a forward position in the armchair, facing the velvet curtains.
He suddenly received an unbelievably astonishing, and smarting, smack on the back of the neck.
An enormous weight pressed his head right down into his crutch, and another rude hand inserted its suffocating self over his mouth and nose.
For an eternity of time, which was not really so long as a second, Mr Farthing told himself and his outraged body, that this truly astounding indignity was not and could not be real, he was imagining it.
But he also knew that it was real. It was very real indeed.
‘This man,’ he thought, ‘must be a maniac?’
He exerted all his considerable strength and shoved. He also put out two blind arms and got a good if strained grip on Mr Bowling’s calves. But he could not hold him there, the man was like a snake and had slipped still further behind him.
Mr Bowling was what he called piggy-back, sprawled across Mr Farthing’s huge shoulders, one hand still tightly about his mouth and nostrils, and the other, now, under his chin. He pulled steadily back, using his left knee as leverage.
Mr Farthing let out another nasal squeal, but was forced back, back, back.
He twisted, however, and gave a violent wrench; there was a loud noise of smashing glass and crockery.
Next door, Mr Cooker started.
Whenever Mr Cooker heard anything, he always thought it was guns. And he always liked to hurry to his door and go out into the passage. There might be somebody there to whom he could say:
‘Have the sirens gone? I thought I heard guns?’
He would then make a tremendous business of getting out a pink mattress and blankets, in preparation for sleeping in the passage all night. He was not nervous, but there were people to talk to, he adored the blitz.
He opened his door sharply and stood peering up and down. There was nobody about, but he heard another thump, either of guns, or of something falling over with a crash in Mr Bowling’s flat.
He went along and peered through Mr Bowling’s letter-box.
He saw a very dim light, as if only the fire was on, it was shining through the glazed inner door. He listened, thinking he heard the sound of heavy breathing.
Finally, however, he decided he was quite mistaken. It must have been guns.
He went all the way down to the lounge to ask.
No, it was not guns. But still, it had passed ten minutes.
He could go to bed reasonably soon.
He went back.
No sooner had he got back, but he thought he heard another sound of breaking glass, a window or something. He sat irritatedly chewing his nails. Life was very sickening. So many things went on, and you never knew what it was. He might be missing a murder! He gave a deep sigh and sat on the bed.
Mr Bowling gave a deep sigh and sat on the floor. He tried to get a better purchase, to rest his aching arms. Presently he managed to slide himself and Farthing nearer to the wall, where he got a good grip with his feet on the sofa-back. The sofa slid a little way and then very conveniently stopped. Farthing was like an old Spanish bull. He just wouldn’t die. Mr Bowling had two hands clasped about his ugly mouth, and he had his head bent well backwards so that, in an upside down manner, he could stare into the hatred and terror which those inverted eyes threw up at him. Mr Farthing’s hard work with his own two hands was beginning to die down a bit. There was a strong smell of sweat, and there was a filthy mess of blood. Mr Bowling had tumbled a nasty one against the corner of the table, and had cut the left temple open. Blood was everywhere. Mr Farthing’s legs writhed and twisted in agony. The pink colour of his mind had started to turn black. Very suddenly indeed, without having really enjoyed any consecutive or constructive thought at all, something in his pained vision threw a piece of black cloth; and his heavy body relaxed, limp.
After a little time, Mr Bowling got up and tottered into the bathroom.
CHAPTER XVIII
HE took off his jacket and turned on the cold tap. There was the cool sound of it trickling into the basin, and he bathed his cut head and thought: ‘Phew, I’m bally hot, what? If I have to do any more of these murders—which God forbid—I think I shall just wear a singlet and flannels. Shorts would really be best,’ he thought, soaping his immense biceps. He dried his face, but the cut was still bleeding, and was the swollen colour of a new bruise. He got a bit of cotton wool out of the little cupboard, and shoved it on, he was clumsy at such things. Then he found a bit of plaster. He had just washed and dried his hands again, and was doing up the cuff links which Queenie had given him—they were a ball and bat, very natty, done in flattened gold—when he heard a distinct sound in the passage behind him. He swung round. Like a half dead rat with only the petrified instinct to make a dash for it, broken limbs and all, Mr Farthing had come round again and was plunging silently to the door. He had reached the door by the exact time the old dog’s nose again sniffed him, and he let out that nasal squeal of his and started lashing out with both fists like a man in a nightmare. His baboon-like face was contorted with prayerful terror, mouth open like a haunted child, huge back thumping the door as he hit out. Mr Bowling felt extremely irritated. He had received two upper cuts, and a sock in the guts, so off his guard had he been—when before had the dead presumed to come to life? But he was an intelligent man, and always used his brain before he used anything else, and his mind slipped back to the old school quad, where the Sergeant Major had put him through his paces after O.T.C. ‘Keep out the left, my lad—and let ’im ’ave it with yer right … so!’ So—had always meant a sharp smack in the teeth for Mr Bowling, he now remembered, and he now remembered all sorts of little tips concerning the great art of boxing. It was, indeed, shadow boxing, for it was nearly dark in the hall, and he could only hit at the darkest parts, which were probably Mr Farthing. He hit hard and often, sometimes taking a sharp one back, nearly always below the belt.
Mr Farthing was breathing, squealing and whimpering, and there was that fusion of, and outward manifestation of, breathless speech, which now and then sounded like … police? help? … murder? Mr Farthing’s one idea was to keep the man at a distance, he dreaded beyond all things the grip of those suffocating hands. He started to squeal again, but suddenly got a nasty one on the tip of the jaw, it sounded like—clak. It knocked the daylights out of him. Mr Bowling noticed the shadow which was Mr Farthing heel over somewhere, and he heard him fall. He had observed the sound clak too, with a certain amount of pride, and yet with the sensation that it was not the collision of his fist on the other’s jaw. It was another kind of clak, like something pretty tough snapping in two. He groped about and bent over Mr Farthing, who was huddled in the doorway to the bedroom. As he did so, somebody opened the letter-box, a blurred face peered through and a petulant voice said:
‘Who’s there? … Is anybody in there?’
Mr Cooker peered into the semi-darkness. There was this time a light in Mr Bowling’s bathroom, and although the bathroom door was half shut, a glimmer came through into the little hall. He was perfectly sure there was a burglar messing about in Bowling’s flat. All that thumping, and other peculiar sounds, and then sounds like somebody crying, or whatever it was.
Mr Cooker stood holding a blunderbuss which his father had used in the Crimea. It had two huge hammers, and they were at the ready. In a stern if quavery voice, he called through the letter-box:
‘Come along, the game’s up?’ forgetting that the door was firmly locked between him and his enemy. ‘Who is there, come along, now?’ he trembled. His little tassle shook over his forehead, and he looked like a peevish frog.
There was dead silence in Mr Bowling’s flat.
Mr Cooker decided to say throu
gh the letter-box:
‘I shall wait here until you give yourself up,’ but in reality to tiptoe downstairs to the manager.
This he did, taking his blunderbuss with him. He knew the manager didn’t like him, but burglars were burglars, and were tenants entitled to their protection, or were they not?
He went downstairs. The manager, however, was not to be found. He was doing the round of some of the flats. The porters all laughed at Mr Cooker, and looked slightly embarrassed, refusing firmly to be dragged upstairs.
‘You imagine things, sir,’ they sniggered, staring at his blunderbuss.
One of them told him that the manager was calling on Mr Bowling presently, in any case. ‘He’s doing the rounds now,’ he said.
Mr Cooker mouthed.
‘Lot of ignoramuses,’ he snapped.
‘Burglars can’t get in the flats, Mr Cooker,’ the head porter said comfortably. ‘Especially on the upstairs floors, where there’s a sheer drop on to the concrete! And the only person to use a pass key to the flats is the manager—Mr Clark!’
They all yawned at Mr Cooker, and sniggered when he stamped off upstairs again.
‘Poor old beggar,’ they sniggered.
Mr Bowling stepped over Mr Farthing—or, rather, the late Mr Farthing—whenever he went from his bedroom to the bathroom and back. He regretted to observe that Mr Farthing had died from a broken neck. Well, it made a change, but there was nothing to be depressed about, it was still murder, wasn’t it?
He had put on all the lights.
The sitting room was in an unholy mess, the table on its side, a tray of decanters and glasses in ruins on the floor, the standard lamp on its side and smashed, and a glass panel knocked out of the sitting room door.
He had suddenly remembered that Mr Clark, the manager, was calling on him this evening. It wouldn’t do to have the place so untidy. However, he did feel he must have some air, and he had still had nothing to eat. He really must tootle out and have a spot up at the Coach and Horses, a plate of beef, perhaps. He also really ought to pull himself together and take the little parcel to the address in Brook Green, it would soon be getting rather late.
He put on his overcoat and brown felt hat and turned out the lights. He stepped over the late Mr Farthing and went out, slamming the door. He then became aware that his neighbour was standing there, what was his name, holding a bally blunderbuss. He then realised who it must have been peering so inquisitively through the letter-box.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ exclaimed Mr Cooker, looking his astonishment. ‘Have you been in long?’ He stared at the plaster on Mr Bowling’s left temple.
‘In?’ queried Mr Bowling politely. ‘In where, old man?’
‘In your flat, sir …?’
‘Yes, rather!’
‘Well, sir, you must forgive my seeming inquisitiveness, but the fact is I thought I heard noises, and …!’
Mr Bowling interrupted. He was rather charming.
He touched Mr Cooker’s shoulder and laughed ruefully.
‘I thought I heard noises myself, sir! And when I was having a look round, I fell and banged my jolly old head on the corner of the table!’
He walked away, his laugh trailing away with him to the lifts. Mr Cooker called:
‘But, dear me, sir, we should continue searching, this burglar may be on your balcony, or …? I shall speak to Mr Clark, sir,’ he promised.
‘Don’t bother,’ called Mr Bowling. ‘I’ll speak to him myself when I get back. I shan’t be long.’ He went down in one of the lifts and thought: ‘I think a rather interesting little plan might be to pick up Mr Clark when I get back, and we could enter the flat together. What would a jury think of that? It would make the trial interesting, what? And with my blood on both our suits, and this cut on the head—I should hardly be likely to get away with it?’ He stood in the lift, going down, down, his left hand on the little parcel in his pocket for Miss Mason. He went along to Notting Hill Gate to eat, had some draught beer and walked down the hill again to Brook Green. He found Number Sixty-six as a London clock was distantly chiming ten.
He stood in the darkness and put on a Gold Flake. The night was excitingly cold, it was as if a man had stepped out of a cold bath into the moonlight. There was a brand new moon, and it was like the light from a blowlamp, so vivid was it, you needed an eye shield.
Number Sixty-six looked like some kind of house turned hostelry for girls. The front door had a brass plate which was in the shadows and impossible to read. The front door was wide upon. There was a night light back in the hall, on a table which held flowers of some kind, it was too dark to see. When he reviewed this moment later, Mr Bowling told himself that he did have an intuition concerning the greatness of this moment; but then, one often did that—afterwards?
He found an old fashioned bell-pull and gave it a tug.
It came away in his hand.
He tossed away his cigarette and laughed lightly. ‘Struth, what? Good old England!’ he thought, ‘Jolly old front doors wide upon, and bells coming away in your hand!’ He hesitated. Then he took the little parcel out of his pocket and stepped gingerly inside, it was a polite sort of movement, such as the Englishman makes when he is anxious to do a good turn, but on no account wants to be mistaken for an intruder, that would be dreadful. There wasn’t a soul about. He saw a door, and decided to give a little knock.
This he did, gingerly.
‘Come in,’ a feminine voice said placidly.
Mr Bowling felt very intrusive, and was nervous in case he should be thought impertinent, and in case he should frighten the lady, whoever she was.
He opened the door, mouth and brain shaped to say instantly and politely: ‘I say, I’m most frightfully sorry, and all that sort of thing? I couldn’t make anyone hear, and I want to leave something for a Miss Mason?’
Then something very suddenly and swiftly happened to him: or, not to him, Bowling—but to the soul within him, and the Bowling who had been born a thousand thousand years before, telling him in a flash to prepare himself to receive the shocking knowledge, that, with God, all things were possible, and all things were in His Good Time.
The first thing his eyes settled on in the room was a crucifix standing between two candles.
And the second thing, a woman sitting by a coal fire, sewing.
Although she was ugly, he knew instantly that he had dragged his weary footsteps to the top of a very long and very steep hill. He had known her before, in some other day; or he had not known her ever before. It didn’t really matter which. This was the woman he loved. Instantly his brain knew the very first great panic of his life. He realised, to the terrible depths, his great and awful mistake: he had been impatient, seeking to make his own time; whereas, the sordid world here belonged to God’s Good Time. Too late, too late, a frightened whisper touched his brain, which had begun to burn like a fever. On the wall, it said: ‘Whosoever shall seek to save his life—shall lose it’; and, of course, conversely was also the case. He felt a hundred years old, and he stood looking down at her in fear.
She seemed very placid. She wasn’t a bit frightened, and she said she was Miss Mason. Her voice wasn’t pretty, but it had a quality which excited the senses of Mr Bowling by the depths of kindness and understanding there. It was a lonely voice, and yet a contented voice in a spiritual sense. He stood like a small boy in front of her; fascinated. His brain-voice told him: ‘You never thought falling in love would be like this, did you, Bowling! Yet how positive is all the world that love comes in just a single flash, like the stroke of a knife—it was born before, you see!’ And cynical laughter flooded his nerves.
His voice had gone dry.
He stood holding his brown felt hat. His brain was already clearing, and the matter of love had slipped down to its proper place—the heart. He could feel it thumping.
Increasingly frightened, his drugged brain thought now:
‘What have I done? Is it really too late?… What if Mr Clark enters the fla
t and finds …? That old idiot next door will probably tell him?’
Mr Bowling Buys a Newspaper Page 16