“It’s a good job you brought your overcoat, after all,” Elton remarked for the sake of saying something, and thereby avoiding the risk of exploding into undeniable laughter. The Hebrew made no reply—at least, no reply that lends itself to verbatim report—but staggered towards the hospitable overcoat, holding out his dripping arms. Having inducted him into the garment and buttoned him up, Elton hurried off to recover the umbrella (and, incidentally, to indulge himself in a broad grin), and, having secured it, angled with it for the smart billycock which was floating across the pool.
It was surprising what a change the last minute or two had wrought. The positions of the two men were now quite reversed. Despite his shabby clothing, Elton seemed to walk quite jauntily as compared with his shuddering companion who trotted by his side with short miserable steps, shrinking into the uttermost depths of his enveloping coat, like an alarmed winkle into its shell, puffing out his cheeks and anathematising the Universe in general as well as his chattering teeth would let him.
For some time they hurried along towards the slope by the jetty without exchanging any further remarks; then suddenly, Elton asked: “What are you going to do, Gordon? You can’t travel like that.”
“Can’t you lend me a change?” asked Gordon. Elton reflected. He had another suit, his best suit, which he had been careful to preserve in good condition for use on those occasions when a decent appearance was indispensable. He looked askance at the man by his side and something told him that the treasured suit would probably receive less careful treatment than it was accustomed to. Still the man couldn’t be allowed to go about in wet clothes.
“I’ve got a spare suit,” he said. “It isn’t quite up to your style, and may not be much of a fit, but I daresay you’ll be able to put up with it for an hour or two.”
“It’ll be dry anyhow,” mumbled Gordon, “so we won’t trouble about the style. How far is it to your rooms?”
The plural number was superfluous. Elton’s room was in a little ancient flint house at the bottom of a narrow close in the old quarter of the town. You reached it without any formal preliminaries of bell or knocker by simply letting yourself in by a street door, crossing a tiny room, opening the door of what looked like a narrow cupboard, and squeezing up a diminutive flight of stairs, which was unexpectedly exposed to view. By following this procedure, the two men reached a small bed-sitting-room; that is to say, it was a bed room, but by sitting down on the bed, you converted it into a sitting-room.
Gordon puffed out his cheeks and looked round distastefully.
“You might just ring for some hot water, old chappie,” he said.
Elton laughed aloud. “Ring!” he exclaimed. “Ring what? Your clothes are the only things that are likely to get wrung.”
“Well, then, sing out for the servant,” said Gordon.
Elton laughed again. “My dear fellow,” said he, “we don’t go in for servants. There is only my land lady and she never comes up here. She’s too fat to get up the stairs, and besides, she’s got a game leg. I look after my room myself. You’ll be all right if you have a good rub down.”
Gordon groaned, and emerged reluctantly from the depths of his overcoat, while Elton brought forth from the chest of drawers the promised suit and the necessary undergarments. One of these latter Gordon held up with a sour smile, as he regarded it with extreme disfavour.
“I shouldn’t think,” said he, “you need have been at the trouble of marking them so plainly. No one’s likely to want to run away with them.”
The undergarments certainly contrasted very unfavourably with the delicate garments which he was peeling off, excepting in one respect; they were dry; and that had to console him for the ignominious change.
The clothes fitted quite fairly, notwithstanding the difference between the figures of the two men; for while Gordon was a slender man grown fat, Elton was a broad man grown thin; which, in a way, averaged their superficial area.
Elton watched the process of investment and noted the caution with which Gordon smuggled the various articles from his own pockets into those of the borrowed garments without exposing them to view; heard the jingle of money; saw the sumptuous gold watch and massive chain transplanted and noted with interest the large leather wallet that came forth from the breast pocket of the wet coat. He got a better view of this from the fact that Gordon himself examined it narrowly, and even opened it to inspect its contents.
“Lucky that wasn’t an ordinary pocketbook.” he remarked. “If it had been, your receipt would have got wet, and so would one or two other little articles that wouldn’t have been improved by salt water. And, talking of the receipt, Tom, shall I hand it over now?”
“You can if you like,” said Elton; “but as I told you, I haven’t got the money”; on which Gordon muttered: “Pity, pity,” and thrust the wallet into his, or rather, Elton’s breast pocket.
A few minutes later, the two men came out together into the gathering darkness, and as they walked slowly up the close, Elton asked: “Are you going up to town tonight, Gordon?”
“How can I?” was the reply. “I can’t go without my clothes. No, I shall run over to Broadstairs. A client of mine keeps a boarding-house there. He’ll have to put me up for the night, and if you can get my clothes cleaned and dried I can come over for them tomorrow.”
These arrangements having been settled, the two men adjourned, at Gordon’s suggestion, for tea at one of the restaurants on the Front; and after that, again at Gordon’s suggestion, they set forth together along the cliff path that leads to Broadstairs by way of Kingsgate.
“You may as well walk with me into Broadstairs,” said Gordon; “I’ll stand you the fare back by rail”; and to this Elton had agreed, not because he was desirous of the other man’s company, but because he still had some lingering hopes of being able to adjust the little difficulty respecting the instalment.
He did not, however, open the subject at once. Profoundly as he loathed and despised the human spider whom necessity made his associate for the moment, he exerted himself to keep up a current of amusing conversation. It was not easy; for Gordon, like most men whose attention is focussed on the mere acquirement of money, looked with a dull eye on the ordinary interests of life. His tastes in art he had already hinted at, and his other tastes lay much in the same direction. Money first, for its own sake, and then those coarser and more primitive gratifications that it was capable of purchasing. This was the horizon that bounded Mr. Solomon Gordon’s field of vision.
Nevertheless, they were well on their way before Elton alluded to the subject that was uppermost in both their minds.
“Look here, Gordon,” he said at length, “can’t you manage to give me a bit more time to pay up this instalment? It doesn’t seem quite fair to keep sending up the principal like this.”
“Well, dear boy,” replied Gordon, “it’s your own fault, you know. If you would only bear the dates in mind, it wouldn’t happen.”
“But,” pleaded Elton, “just consider what I’m paying you. I originally borrowed fifty pounds from you, and I’m now paying you eighty pounds a year in addition to the insurance premium. That’s close on a hundred a year; just about half that I manage to earn by slaving like a nigger. If you stick it up any farther you won’t leave me enough to keep body and soul together; which really means that I shan’t be able to pay you at all.”
There was a brief pause; then Gordon said dryly: “You talk about not paying, dear boy, as if you had forgotten about that promissory note.”
Elton set his teeth. His temper was rising rapidly. But he restrained himself.
“I should have a pretty poor memory if I had,” he replied, “considering the number of reminders you’ve given me.”
“You’ve needed them, Tom,” said the other. “I’ve never met a slacker man in keeping to his engagements.”
At this Elton lost his temper completely.
“That’s a damned lie!” he exclaimed, “and you know it, you infernal, dirt
y, blood-sucking parasite”
Gordon stopped dead.
“Look here, my friend,” said he; “none of that. If I’ve any of your damned sauce, I’ll give you a sound good hammering.”
“The deuce you will!” said Elton, whose fingers were itching, not for the first time, to take some recompense for all that he had suffered from the insatiable usurer. “Nothing’s preventing you now, you know, but I fancy cent. per cent. is more in your line than fighting.”
“Give me any more sauce and you’ll see,” said Gordon.
“Very well,” was the quiet rejoinder. “I have great pleasure in informing you that you are a human maw-worm. How does that suit you?”
For reply, Gordon threw down his overcoat and umbrella on the grass at the side of the path, and deliberately slapped Elton on the cheek.
The reply followed instantly in the form of a smart left-hander, which took effect on the bridge of the Hebrew’s rather prominent nose. Thus the battle was fairly started, and it proceeded with all the fury of accumulated hatred on the one side and sharp physical pain on the other. What little science there was appertamed to Elton, in spite of which, however, he had to give way to his heavier, better nourished and more excitable opponent. Regardless of the punishment he received, the infuriated Jew rushed at him and, by sheer weight of onslaught, drove him backward across the little green.
Suddenly, Elton, who knew the place by daylight, called out in alarm.
“Look out, Gordon! Get back, you fool!”
But Gordon, blind with fury, and taking this as attempt to escape, only pressed him harder. Elton’s pugnacity died out instantly in mortal terror. He shouted out another warning and as Gordon still pressed him, battering furiously, he did the only thing that was possible: he dropped to the ground. And then, in the twinkling of an eye came the catastrophe. Borne forward by his own momentum, Gordon stumbled over Elton’s prostrate body, staggered forward a few paces, and fell. Elton heard a muffled groan that faded quickly, and mingled with the sound of falling earth and stones. He sprang to his feet and looked round and saw that he was alone.
For some moments he was dazed by the suddenness of the awful thing that had happened. He crept timorously towards the unseen edge of the cliff, and listened.
There was no sound save the distant surge of the breakers, and the scream of an invisible sea-bird. It was useless to try to look over. Near as he was, he could not, even now, distinguish the edge of the cliff from the dark beach below. Suddenly he bethought him of a narrow cutting that led down from the cliff to the shore. Quickly crossing the green, and mechanically stooping to pick up Gordon’s overcoat and umbrella, he made his way to the head of the cutting and ran down the rough chalk roadway. At the bottom he turned to the right and, striding hurriedly over the smooth sand, peered into the darkness at the foot of the cliff.
Soon there loomed up against the murky sky the shadowy form of the little headland on which he and Gordon had stood; and, almost at the same moment, there grew out of the darkness of the beach a darker spot amidst a constellation of smaller spots of white. As he drew nearer the dark spot took shape; a horrid shape with sprawling limbs and a head strangely awry. He stepped forward, trembling, and spoke the name that the thing had borne. He grasped the flabby hand, and laid his fingers on the wrist; but it only told him the same tale as did that strangely misplaced head. The body lay face downwards, and he had not the courage to turn it over; but that his enemy was dead he had not the faintest doubt. He stood up amidst the litter of fallen chalk and earth and looked down at the horrible, motionless thing, wondering numbly and vaguely what he should do. Should he go and seek assistance? The answer to that came in another question. How came that body to be lying on the beach? And what answer should he give to the inevitable questions? And swiftly there grew up in his mind, born of the horror of the thing that was, a yet greater horror of the thing that might be.
A minute later, a panic-stricken man stole with stealthy swiftness up the narrow cutting and set forth towards Margate, stopping anon to listen, and stealing away off the path into the darkness, to enter the town by the inland road.
Little sleep was there that night for Elton in his room in the old flint house. The dead man’s clothes, which greeted him on his arrival, hanging limply on the towel-horse where he had left them, haunted him through the night. In the darkness, the sour smell of damp cloth assailed him with an endless reminder of their presence, and after each brief doze, he would start up in alarm and hastily light his candle; only to throw its flickering light on those dank, drowned-looking vestments. His thoughts, half-controlled, as night thoughts are, flitted erratically from the unhappy past to the unstable present, and thence to the incalculable future. Once he lighted the candle specially to look at his watch to see if the tide had yet crept up to that solitary figure on the beach; nor could he rest again until the time of high water was well past. And all through these wanderings of his thoughts there came, recurring like a horrible refrain, the question what would happen when the body was found? Could he be connected with it and, if so, would he be charged with murder? At last he fell asleep and slumbered on until the landlady thumped at the staircase door to announce that she had brought his breakfast.
As soon as he was dressed he went out. Not, how ever, until he had stuffed Gordon’s still damp clothes and boots, the cumbrous overcoat and the smart billy-cock hat into his trunk, and put the umbrella into the darkest corner of the cupboard. Not that anyone ever came up to the room, but that, already, he was possessed with the uneasy secretiveness of the criminal. He went straight down to the beach; with what purpose he could hardly have said, but an irresistible impulse drove him thither to see if it was there. He went down by the jetty and struck out eastward over the smooth sand, looking about him with dreadful expectation for some small crowd or hurrying messenger. From the foot of the cliffs, over the rocks to the distant line of breakers, his eye roved with eager dread, and still he hurried eastward, always drawing nearer to the place that he feared to look on. As he left the town behind, so he left behind the one or two idlers on the beach, and when he turned Foreness Point he lost sight of the last of them and went forward alone. It was less than half an hour later that the fatal head land opened out beyond Whiteness.
Not a soul had he met along that solitary beach, and though, once or twice, he had started at the sight of some mass of drift wood or heap of seaweed, the dreadful thing that he was seeking had not yet appeared. He passed the opening of the cutting and approached the headland, breathing fast and looking about him fearfully. Already he could see the larger lumps of chalk that had fallen, and looking up, he saw a clean, white patch at the summit of the cliff. But still there was no sign of the corpse. He walked on more slowly now, considering whether it could have drifted out to sea, or whether he should find it in the next bay. And then, rounding the head land, he came in sight of a black hole at the cliff foot, the entrance to a deep cave. He approached yet more slowly, sweeping his eye round the little bay, and looking apprehensively at the cavity before him. Suppose the thing should have washed in there. It was quite possible. Many things did wash into that cave, for he had once visited it and had been astonished at the quantity of seaweed and jetsam that had accumulated within it. But it was an uncomfortable thought. It would be doubly horrible to meet the awful thing in the dim twilight of the cavern. And yet, the black archway seemed to draw him on, step by step, until he stood at the portal and looked in. It was an eerie place, chilly and damp, the clammy walls and roof stained green and purple and black with encrusting lichens. At one time, Elton had been told, it used to be haunted by smugglers, and then communicated with an underground passage; and the old smuggler’s lookout still remained; a narrow tunnel, high up the cliff, looking out into Kingsgate Bay; and even some vestiges of the rude steps that led up to the lookout platform could still be traced, and were not impossible to climb. Indeed, Elton had, at his last visit, climbed to the platform and looked out through the spy-hole. He
recalled the circumstance now, as he stood, peering nervously into the darkness, and straining his eyes to see what jetsam the ocean had brought since then.
At first he could see nothing but the smooth sand near the opening; then, as his eyes grew more accustomed to the gloom, he could make out the great heap of seaweed on the floor of the cave. Insensibly, he crept in, with his eyes riveted on the weedy mass and, as he left the daylight behind him, so did the twilight of the cave grow clearer. His feet left the firm sand and trod the springy mass of weed, and in the silence of the cave he could now hear plainly the rain-like patter of the leaping sand-hoppers. He stopped for a moment to listen to the unfamiliar sound, and still the gloom of the cave grew lighter to his more accustomed eyes.
The First R. Austin Freeman Megapack: 27 Mystery Tales of Dr. Thorndyke & Others Page 184