III
JOHN PRETTYMAN'S FOURTH DIMENSION
The sub-editor put his head round the glass door, and having blinked a moment to accustom himself to the murky smoke-laden atmosphere, discovered his quarry at the far end of the room and hailed him derisively. He did not come in further, however, because he was going out to dinner, and dinner meant almost more to him than a sensational crime or a world cataclysm.
"Drop it! Drop it, Young Saunders! We don't want 'em and we wont have 'em! They're a drug on the market. If you've nothing better to do you can write up an obituary notice. Try your hand on J. D. Prettyman. We'll want as much as we can squeeze out of the old devil—two columns—three columns—great national figure and all that—you know."
"But he's not dead," objected Young Saunders from out of the yellow gloom.
"He soon will be—in time for the next issue, please heaven. I don't know what we're going to fill up with if he doesn't. But I had the straight tip from his secretary—can't last another day. Now put your back into it, my boy. 'Tisn't often a cub like you gets the chance to spread himself over three columns"
He slammed the door and his laugh echoed with Mephistophelian glee down the stone passage.
"Oh, damn! Damn everything!" said Young Saunders.
He let his tip-tilted chair drop forward suddenly so that his grey head came into the dim circle of light, and the loose scraps of paper, littering the desk, rose up like a frightened flock of birds and fluttered down into the darkness. He did not bother to pick them up. For the first time in his life he believed the sub-editor, and for the first time in his life he knew that he was an old man.
But he had a conscience—a rigid sense of duty, and he got up at last and went painfully over to the long shelf above the fireplace. On it, ranged in martial order, stood a set of cardboard files. They were all there, from A to Z. Though he hated them in a vague way, Young Saunders was also rather proud of them. They represented his life's work. Nothing that he had tried to do had come so near completion. He liked it when the sub-editor pointed them out to some chance visitor.
"See these? Unique in Fleet Street, my dear fellow. You can't mention a living celebrity, from a champion house-breaker to Rockefeller, whose story isn't there, ready and waiting. Why, if you were to drop dead now, we'd have your whole criminal career in the press before you'd time to get cold. Try it. You'll see!"
It was one of the sub-editor's standing jokes.
But sometimes, and especially at night, it seemed to Young Saunders that the files had a ghoulish look. They stood there like a row of half-sinister, half-comic Fates, waiting passively for their hour and their victim. It was as though they knew that they had only to wait long enough.
Young Saunders took down the file marked "P" and carried it back to the light. It seemed that the initial was prolific of genius of various calibre, for John Daniel Prettyman lay deeply embedded in a mass of biography, some of it already crossed through neatly with blue pencil, indicating that so far as this world went there could be nothing more to add. Nevertheless, John Prettyman stood out conspicuously from among his fellows. Three whole pages had been dedicated to him, and the type danced with dates and honours and the long, pompous names of the great companies he had founded. There was really nothing to be done but tack on "We regret to announce," and fill out the facts with a little journalistic padding.
Young Saunders' sensitive, ink-stained finger ran down the list of John Prettyman's activities till it came to the last line and the blank space that waited to be filled. There it lingered wearily. He felt oddly tired and depressed. Usually he enjoyed writing the lives of great people. Their success comforted him for his own failure. It made life worth living and to some extent explicable. Nor was it the cynical cold-bloodedness of his task or the thought of its lonely subject battling for breath amidst his stupendous, useless wealth that troubled him. To Young Saunders, trained in the atmosphere of Fleet Street, such considerations were mawkish and unreasonable. It was rather that suddenly the whole thing had crumbled—turned to dust between his fingers. It was like handling a mummy or the husk of some once living thing whose essence had long since evaporated. Even the man's triumphs had become dull and senseless—no more worth struggling for than Young Saunders' daily bread. And yet to John Prettyman himself they must have been very splendid—they must have meant many hours of golden intoxication.
Young Saunders bent his tired head on his hand and brooded. He wondered which of John Prettyman's exploits best stood the final test of values—which act of harshness and trickery—and there must have been many behind that smooth, unbroken record—weighed heaviest on him in this last reckoning with life? The three printed pages gave him no answer. And suddenly it became clear to him that the biography which he had compiled so painfully and accurately was simply a sham—that all the biographies were shams and their facts mere trappings of a disguise. The reality was not what a man did but what he felt in the doing—joy or disillusionment, pride or shame. These things Young Saunders knew only of himself, who had no place in the cardboard files—about whom no one else wanted to know anything.
So that the one completed work of his life was at bottom more valueless than the unwanted verses lying in the dust on the floor.
"If only one knew the truth!" he thought wistfully. "If only for once one could write the truth!"
But then he remembered that John Prettyman might die any minute, and that they would want three columns about him for the next issue, and having chosen out, "It is with deep regret that we have to announce," as the most suitable of the various orthodox beginnings, sat forward and began to write.
It was eleven o'clock. The released stream of theatre-goers sent a mild backwash up the narrow street below, and amidst the mysterious yet familiar music of footfalls and rumbling traffic the opening of the glass door passed unheard. It was several minutes later that suddenly, for no reason that he knew of, Young Saunders looked back over his shoulder.
The figure standing by the empty fireplace was very small and still. It must have slipped across the uncarpeted floor as silently as a shadow, and even now as Young Saunders Judgment rallied from the first shock of astonishment, it remained dim and ethereal—a wraith, hovering on the borderland, that a breath might blow back into nothing. But presently it turned and lifted a white face. The face shone in the half darkness. It was so small that it seemed no bigger than a child's.
"I'm sorry"—Young Saunders began, and he did not know that he spoke in an undertone—"I didn't hear anyone come in. May I ask—is there anything I can do—were you sent up here?"
"I found my way. I used to work in this room—years ago."
The voice sounded afar off, yet clear and metallic, like the ringing of a distant bell. The stranger unwound the muffler from about his throat and placed the quaint, old-fashioned top-hat on the shelf beneath the files. He looked at the files long and intently. Young Saunders saw that his head was completely bald and curiously shaped. It was too big for the little face beneath. And though there was something macabre about it, it was also very real and unspiritual. It was like a polished skull that a ventriloquist had made to be his sinister plaything. It nodded to itself and tinkled in its distant, silvery voice. "I began these," it said. "It was my idea—one of my ideas. A lean finger pointed at the empty space. "'P'—aha—of course—'P'! So you write the obituary notices now, do you?"
"Yes," said Young Saunders.
"And you are an old man. In my day they gave the job to the office-cub. It was my job then. Any odd thing they wanted writing up they threw at me. No doubt it is different now—no doubt you are the editor himself!"
He made a jerky, satirical intonation.
"No," said Young Saunders simply. "I am just what you say you were. I have always been the same. As you say, I am an old man now, but I used to be young. They called me 'Young Saunders!' They do now. It's the office joke."
"No good, eh?"
"No good," Young Saunders admitted.
He did not know how he came to answer as he did. The stranger's sneer did not hurt or offend him. He seemed to have lost grip of things. Partly it was because of his weariness and sudden discouragement—partly it was because of the yellow murk which made everything—even his own personality—seem blurred and intangible. As well might a shadow feel anger against a shadow.
The stranger turned and came slowly towards him. He moved noiselessly and very cautiously, as though the strength of each movement had to be measured out. One of the loose scraps of paper still lay on the desk, and he flicked it with his thumb and forefinger.
"Poetry!" he jeered softly. "Poetry! Do they print poetry in the Argus these days?"
"No. Only in my spare time—for my own pleasure."
"In my spare time I did things that mattered. Between one obituary notice and another I founded a bogus company—for my own profit—I learnt how to cheat a fool in three languages. That's why I am—what I am. I knew what the world wanted."
"Poetry is as good as this at least," exclaimed Young Saunders bitterly. He beat a thin old fist on the cardboard file. "Poetry has a sort of truth—it comes out of a man's heart—but all this—this humbug—this lyings—my whole life long I've been writing lies."
"Lies are what people like best," the other answered unmoved—"pretty lies about dead men." He bent over Young Saunders' shoulder and laid his fleshless hand on John Prettyman's obituary notice. "My name is John Prettyman," he said.
Young Saunders started violently. For a moment he had a fantastic notion that John Prettyman was really dead—that they were both dead and that this scene was some grotesque afterglow of life. At least the face that gleamed close to his in the white circle of light was the face of a dead man. It had the little wizened look, the awful aloofness and impassivity of death. But the narrow eyes under the bony brows stabbed like knives out of darkness. "No—not yet," said John Prettyman softly—"not yet. To-morrow—perhaps—when I am ready. I am very ill—yes—very ill—I have something here—in my right side—but a man controls these things more than you could believe possible, Young Saunders. And I choose my time. Did my secretary tell you I could not last the night? Ah, well, he is in a hurry for the legacy I have not left him, poor fellow. Look out of the window if you don't believe me. There's my carriage waiting—and a nurse and a doctor—a Harley Street specialist, Young Saunders, biting his nails and praying to God no one ever hears of it. You see even professional etiquette can bend to certain persuasions." The long thin mouth that for an instant had lengthened out composed itself John Prettyman took up the three pages of his biography. "I knew that someone would be writing at this to-night," he said, "and I wanted to have a hand in it." He made a curt, authoritative gesture. "Light the fire. It is cold here—deadly cold. I seem to have no limbs left. After all—I am a dying man."
Young Saunders obeyed without answering. He trembled with a strange excitement. In this same room, where he had spent his life among phantoms, a reality had come to him. He knelt down and held a match to the ugly gas-fire; the flames leapt at him with a roar.
John Prettyman sat close to the warmth and spread out the three sheets of paper on his gaunt knees. His chin was deeply sunk, and the big leather chair swallowed up his little old body in shadow so that Young Saunders could see nothing but the shining, brutal-looking head, nodding to itself.
"'We deeply regret to announce,'" John Prettyman read out in a whisper. "Yes—lies—lies—of course—but what do you expect? The truth? And yet you won't like it—aha—I know your sort—you won't like it—you'd rather leave what you have written. You don't like truth any more than the rest of us—you poets. And here—here are facts enough—'John Daniel Prettyman, born 1887'—That's true—that's not a lie—what more do you want?"
"I should like to know what troubles you to-night," Young Saunders answered. He spoke breathlessly, with an eagerness that sat strangely on his shabby greyness. "Mr. Prettyman—you are an old man—dying, you say, and you have had a wonderful life—everything has gone well with you. And I am an old man, too—not very far from death either—and everything has gone badly with me. When my time comes I know what will weigh heaviest on me—my failure—my inadequacy—the years I have spent in this room—content to paint the husks of other men's lives. But you—what troubles you—now?"
"—'in poor circumstances,'" John Prettyman read on. His finger that travelled slowly across the page stopped for an instant, and he lifted a face puckered with the effort of remembrance "in a back alley in Seven Dials," he said. "There were no policemen in those days who would have dared come near my birthplace after dark. I can see now the men who skulked out of the doorways at night and skulked back again before morning—and the righting—and screaming" He tittered secretively, and his finger resumed its journey. And thereafter, at each interjection, the thin irony of his voice dropped to a crooning note of triumph. It was as though he hugged each memory passionately to himself—"'of honest but undistinguished parents.' That's curious, isn't it? For the law says I had no father. As to my mother—oh, she was honest, no doubt of that—we starved together often enough. And her profession was time-honoured—though she was no good at it. When she had had luck she used to take me round to the pub at the corner of our street and feed me up like a prince. She'd sit on the other side of the table with her glass of gin beside her—she never seemed to eat herself—laughing and encouraging me. 'Fill up, Johnny,' she'd say. 'You never know when you'll get another chance.' There was a queer, penetrating scent about her, and her face was always thick with paint and powder, so that I often wondered what it was like underneath. But I never knew. 'When you're a rich man we'll do this and that together, Johnny,' she used to say. 'We'll have a fine time then.' I think she knew I'd get on somehow—I think she lived for it—and did many queer things so that I should have a chance. But I cut away from her as soon as I could. She wasn't the sort of woman to drag up where I meant to go, and she knew it. When I began to rise she had the sense to leave me alone. She died a year after I was made director of the Orion Insurance Company—in a hospital. By dint of thrift and intelligence (I won a scholarship when I was twelve, and at night-time, after I'd finished with my books, I'd do a little book-making among my fellow guttersnipes, or pick a pocket or two to keep things going) I succeeded in obtaining a good education, and at the age of eighteen a position in the offices of the Argus. So they boast of that now, do they? Yes—I sat in that very chair and wrote up the lives of celebrated men who were likely to die soon. I began the files and put John Daniel Prettyman in the index. In his leisure hours he made himself master of three languages—and under an assumed name founded the East End Widows' Benevolent Fund. Didn't you know of that, Young Saunders? You don't mention it here. But it was a great scheme—it was the root idea of all my schemes, though not worked out to perfection. At the outbreak of the Great War he threw up his position and enlisted as a private in an infantry regiment—'serving with distinction through the campaigns of 1915-16.'"
"That, at any rate, was noble," said Young Saunders from out of the shadow.
John Prettyman turned his strange, sinister-looking head.
"There was no more to be got out of the Benevolent Fund," he answered. "The subscriptions were safe in a foreign bank. It was wiser—if not necessary, for they were a pauper crowd not likely to give trouble—to disappear. At that time the Army offered the best refuge—and I took refuge. That is all."
"Nevertheless you risked your life," said Young Saunders stubbornly.
John Prettyman's underlip stretched to an aloof contemptuous line.
"You seem to merit your nickname," he remarked with pale derision. "Your voice has the authentic thrill of youth. You think you can preserve your ideals and at the same time offer spiritual consolation to a dying, remorse-stricken old man! Tsch—you don't understand—you will not understand even when I tell you that I knew that I should neither be killed nor wounded—just as certainly as I knew that one day, when I had had enough of life I should let it go—as I shall let it go to-morrow, perhaps—at my own time. I tell you—a man controls these things—if he has only the will—the will to power as they had it in those days" He broke off. A sudden note of anger, of querulous protest sounded through his senile arrogance. His finger tapped with a kind of bitter accusation on the typed page. "And yet there is something here—here at this point—that frets me—frightens me—like a fatal silly slip in a long sum. I had forgotten it, but two nights ago it came back to me—and I can't rid myself of it. It has driven me out of a comfortable deathbed to—to unburden myself—to find some explanation—some sort of reassurance—coherence." He stopped and smoothed out the crumpled sheets of paper, and for a moment there was no sound but the thin, hardly drawn breath. But when he spoke again it was with a chill passionlessness. "I have heard of men," he said, "who, having some physical peculiarity, some abnormal defect or perfection—some interesting variation of a disease, leave their bodies to the doctors to be dissected—as I leave what you may please to call my soul—to you."
He seemed to grow smaller, to melt more completely into shadow. The papers fluttered off his knees, but he paid no heed to them. Thereafter he sat motionless, and to the listener it was as though the little bell-like voice came from a far distance.
"At first the men in my platoon laughed at me. In the end they were afraid. I am a shrunken old man now, but even in those days I was small and frail-looking—an unsoldierly figure enough, I daresay. To the great beefy countrymen—my so-called comrades—I was an object of ridicule and pity. They did not understand that the gutter breeds wire and quick wits, and that to me they were just children. And then, of course, there was my name—'little pretty-pretty man,' they called after me, and for weeks it kept them amused and good-tempered. And then they began to be puzzled—and a while after that, afraid. They had not much reasoning power between them, but, like animals, they knew instinctively that I had something that they had not—something that made me their master, even though I was in the ranks with them.
"Their drill, that kept them flustered and sweating for days together, was child's play to me. It has been an axiom of my life that whatever I did I would give my whole mind to it, and whilst the platoon was still forming fours I went on and mastered the most intricate details of modern soldiering. No drill sergeant had to speak to me twice. Even on route marches I used my intelligence, reserving my strength, balancing my equipment, experimenting with my step, so that I out-marched men of twice my muscle. Within a few weeks I was made corporal—for things moved quickly in those short-handed days—and then sergeant. They offered me a commission, but that I refused. I explained respectfully that I was not a gentleman and would be out of my element, and would be of more use where I was. My officers liked me for it—but they also were afraid. They were young fellows who had been given commissions because they came from Eton and Harrow and were supposed therefore to be born leaders of men. But I knew too much for them. In any crisis it was on me they would have to depend—from me they would have to take their orders. And beneath their boyish bearing of authority they were afraid.
"But long before I was made sergeant I had mastered every man in my platoon. I studied them as a clever doctor studies his patients—as a lion tamer the beasts he means to break. I found in each man his secret vice or weakness or shame, and played upon it till he was in my hands. Soldiers are of necessity gamblers, and the gambling spirit was strong among these men. I taught them enough stable lore to whet their appetites, and made their bets for them, and when they lost, lent them money to try their luck again. In the end there was not one who could afford to cross me.
"Yes, there was one man—a hulking giant of a fellow called Sunny Jim, because of his good-tempered cheeriness. But in drink he became a devil and a fool. He knew it and kept clear of temptation as a burnt child keeps clear of fire. For a time I could get no hold on him. He laughed at me long after the others had stopped laughing—and laughed at them for their cowardice. But one night I got him drinking, and on the way back to camp he confided to me something that he had done in civilian life which would have put a halter round his neck if it were known. It had been done in a fit of drunken fury. He boasted about it. But the next day he did not laugh at me any more. He went about like a cowed dog with his tail between his legs.
"They hated me—all of them. Their hatred smouldered ineffectually, because they had no wit to give it expression. Their only idea was brute force, and brute force against me was like a blunderbuss against an automatic. One night things came to a crisis. They taunted each other, till at last they plucked up courage and fell on me. They meant to beat the life out of me, but I shouted a word to Sunny Jim, and he turned on them like a mad beast and fought them off. He was very strong, but also there was something frantic about him. They never threatened me again.
"Sunny Jim had been the most popular man in the whole regiment. He became my shadow, my bodyguard, my thing, I have heard him crying to himself in the night like a lost child.
"We were sent out in March, 1915, and were in the trenches two weeks after we landed. My company was the smartest, best-disciplined company in the regiment. And yet, strangely enough, it showed up badly in the fighting. No disobedience—no bolting—but just apathy—a sort of stupor. And they were unlucky, too. Men were always getting killed—almost by accident—some piece of carelessness or stupidity—and the new drafts were just as bad. It was as though there was a sort of blight on us—in two months Sunny Jim and I were the only survivors of the original company. Yet we did amazing things together. Night after night we would go over the top with a handful of men trench-raiding or wiring—and whatever we set out to do we did—and more. The other men rarely came back, but we came back. I tell you, Young Saunders, a man can control these things. We became famous—we two—and before long I had the V.C. and Sunny Jim the D.C.M. Yet I know that once at least Sunny Jim tried to kill himself.
"It was in the spring of 1916 that the end came. In a big attack at dawn—an utter failure it proved—Jim and I were cut off, and took refuge in a shell crater. We were in the thick of our own barrage, and Jim was badly wounded almost immediately—something spinal, I think it must have been, for he was conscious, but quite helpless. The crater gave us practically no shelter. I dug myself in as well as I could, and covered myself with Jim's body. I told you—he was a big man.
"An hour afterwards the Germans counter-attacked, and I was taken prisoner. By that time Jim was dead.
"Fifty years ago, when I sat in that chair where you are sitting now, Young Saunders, I did not waste my brain writing poetry that no one wants to read. As you say in your admirable obituary notice, I made myself master of three languages, and German was one of them. I spoke German accurately before I went to the front, and I took every opportunity to converse with our prisoners and perfect my accent. So that I had no difficulty in ingratiating myself with my captors. I told them that I was of German descent on my mother's side—that I had been practically driven into the army by public opinion, and had surrendered as soon as I had the chance. I had torn off my V.C. ribbon and sergeant's stripes, so that they had no reason to suspect me. Also I told them the kind of things they wanted to hear about the English, and they treated me like a comrade.
"None of my fellow-prisoners could speak German. They only knew that I had influence with my guards, and were glad enough of what advantages I thought wise to obtain for them; for after all a man's country is where his business is, and one of these days I would go back to England and these men with me. I even let some of them into the secret of my conduct, and they thought me a devilish clever fellow to cheat the Germans like that. They thought it a good joke. And the Germans, knowing that my usefulness as a spy on the rest depended on the confidence I enjoyed, were careful not to favour me too publicly.
"Altogether it was difficult sometimes not to burst out laughing in all their faces.
"We were sent finally to a prison camp in a little town on the Rhine. The Germans understood how to use their prisoners. We worked. There was a jetty that needed rebuilding, and we were sent out in batches under guard to cut down the necessary timber from the woods that covered the riverside. At first the men stood out against it, thinking we were helping the enemy, but I over-persuaded them, and tempted them with the greater opportunity for escape, and an incipient revolt simmered down. If the Germans had ever doubted my sincerity they believed in me then. Kicks and curses never came my way. I saluted the officers like a born Prussian and the camp commandant smiled at me when he passed.
"Our guards were either old men of the Landsturm or young soldiers who had been wounded and had been put on light duty before going back to the front. Among the latter was my best friend. He was a little fellow, with a fair bullet head and round blue eyes, with an expression in them which I had often seen before among the German soldiers—a look of puzzlement and inexplicable distress. He mixed very little with his own comrades. It was as though he had some secret trouble which he dared not speak of—something of which he was ashamed. But it happened that he guarded my section when we went out to work, and sometimes when I was alone he would come up to me and talk to me. At first it was all very shy and tentative—like a wild animal learning to eat out of one's hand—but there was something desperate in the boy, and I humoured him, and little by little I won his confidence.
"It appeared that he had been badly wounded whilst fighting on the Western Front, but was almost recovered and expecting to be sent back.
"'And it will be for the last time,' he said. 'One couldn't come through that twice.' He stood there, his rifle slung over his shoulder, staring out across the river with God knows what horror in his round, stupid eyes. He seemed to wait for me to say something, but I went on sawing my log, and presently he came a step nearer. 'Is it true that the English kill their prisoners?' he whispered.
"I wanted to laugh. He was so clumsy—so obvious. But I had to be careful. After all, I couldn't be sure that he wasn't set to test me, and his innocence might be part of the disguise.
"'Sometimes,' I said; 'it depends.'
"He gave a deep sigh, and then, seeing that I had guessed what was in his mind, he frowned and drew himself up and began to march solemnly backwards and forwards among the other prisoners. He did not speak to me again that night But the next day he came back. It was as though something about me fascinated him against his will. I was working alone on some special job at the time, and he sat down on the trunk of one of the felled trees and watched me.
"'You're looking better every day,' I said to tease him.
"He nodded.
"'Yes; they'll be having me up before the doctors soon. They'll want to send me back, and I can't—I can't go.'
"I grinned at him, for 'can't' sounded funny under the circumstances, and he clasped his rough red hands together as though he were praying to me to understand. 'It's not for myself,' he stammered, 'I don't care—I'd as soon be out of it as not. It's for my mother's sake—my poor mother.'
"I laughed outright at that. It was so German—so snivelling.
"'My God, man,' I said, 'we've all got mothers.'
"'My mother's different,' he answered; 'my mother's not a good woman.' He said it like a child repeating a lesson, and he was trembling with shame and wretchedness and would not look at me. And yet he went on—I think his heart must have been bursting with it all—'She couldn't help it. She's had a hard time. They—someone treated her badly when she was young—and she's never had a chance since. Everyone's been against her—the police—everyone—dragging her down every time she tried to make a fresh start—and with a kid to feed and bring up—no—she hadn't a dog's chance—but she's been good to me. And I've go to go back—I've got to pull her out of it—if I don't she'll go down—down—if I'm killed she won't care.'
"'Each man for himself,' I said. And then for some reason or other I told him about Seven Dials and my mother and as much of my life as sounded pathetic and romantic. It amused me, and was good practice for my German. Listening to us you couldn't have told that I wasn't a South German like himself. And he listened to me with the great tears in his blue eyes.
"'My poor comrade!' he said.
"After that he shared his rations with me, and whenever I was working alone he would come and talk about his mother and his hopes and fears till I knew every corner of his simple soul And every day I felt the terror growing in him—it was like watching a rabbit in the toils of a huge, indifferent snake.
"And then the last day came. He was not on duty that morning, but he managed to speak to me for a minute through the barbed wire of our camp.
"'They've passed me,' he said. 'I'm to have ten days' leave and then—go back.' I could never have believed that such a round, stupid face could have betrayed so much. 'I'm to go by to-night's leave train,' he said. 'I'll come and say good-bye. Get somewhere alone if you can.'
"I nodded. It was easy enough for me to arrange. They trusted me, and in any case, hemmed in as we were by the town on one side and the river on the other, there was little chance to escape. I got a job chopping up billets near the water's edge, and it was there, towards dusk, that he found me. He was in full campaigning kit, and looked bigger and older, so that for a minute I hardly knew him. He stood close to me. I can see his solemn young face now, gazing at me from under the shadow of his helmet.
"'I am going to my mother,' he said. 'She has moved to Karlsruhe—only two hours from the Swiss frontier. I shall have ten days with her—and then—then I shan't go back. You understand? I've thought it all out. It will be easy—and when I've got work she'll follow and we'll start afresh—a new life.' He took my hand and clasped it, and I felt that for once he was as steady as a rock. 'You have been a good comrade,' he said. 'Pray for me.'
"'God help you!' I said.
"He turned away, and I swung up my hatchet, and he went down under it like a felled tree."
A smothered exclamation came out of the shadow where Young Saunders sat. John Prettyman drew himself up a little and he was smiling.
"Yes, that took nerve and a sure hand. But, you see, I, too, had thought things out. I had planned every detail, as a general plans out an offensive—I knew just where to hit and how long I must allow for every separate action—and, of course, I counted on my luck—if you like to call it that. No one came. In a quarter of an hour I was in my young German's uniform and in possession of his papers. I dragged his body down to the water's edge weighted it with an iron block and slipped it over without a splash. A minute or two later I heard the whistle sounding for the call up of the prisoners. I met some of them with their guards straggling back to camp. But no one spoke to me and it was almost night under the trees. The leave train was due in half-an-hour and I made straight for the station. Of course if any of my supposed comrades had been going on furlough at the same time, my position would have been dangerous, but as it happened my little Franz Sebold was the only one from the camp, and I had nothing else to fear.
"For five hours I lay stretched out on the floor of a crowded fourth-class carriage and slept. Yes, I slept quite soundly, though there was hardly room to move and the air was thick with tobacco smoke and the stench of filthy uniforms. My companions had come straight from the front. Some of them were slightly wounded, and lay huddled against the walls, moaning feverishly. The rest were silent and sullen-looking, and took no notice of me. It was like a cattle-truck packed with unhappy animals.
"At one station a guard with an under-officer in charge came to examine our papers. They flashed their lantern on to Franz Sebold's pass and gave it back to me with a grunt.
"'This ts Karlsruhe, sheepshead!'
"I tumbled out, cursing sleepily, and the under-officer came after me. I did not hurry. I yawned and stretched myself.
"'You're from the Bingen Prisoners' Camp,' he said; 'we've had word of an escaped prisoner. Know anything of it?'
"I stood stiffly at attention.
"'No, Herr Feldwebel. It must have happened after I left.'
"'Well, if they're all as sleepy there as you are!' he grumbled.
"But his own joke amused him and he hurried after the guard, laughing and slamming the doors as he went
"Yes, I have had proud moments in my life, but nothing has ever tasted better than that first day of my escape.
"The new Karlsruhe station was a showy, pretentious building, set well outside the town as though in expectation of some immense development which had never come. It was past three o'clock in the morning when I landed, and pelting with rain, so that I had a dismal walk before I struck a lonely policeman, who directed me to my destination. He seemed in a conversational mood, and I lingered for the pleasure of seeing how little he suspected me.
"'Your Frau Mutter might have chosen a better neighbourhood for herself,' he said gloomily. 'Lüttichstrasse is in the new quarter—and a bad quarter it is too. Before all this Karlsruhe was a self-respecting town where a decent citizen could live peacefully; but now—now what has it become? God knows! Na—it's no joke, this war!'
"'The accursed English!' I said.
"'Ah, the accursed English!' he agreed more cheerfully.
"I said 'Good-night and tramped on my way through the soaking darkness. Even with his directions it was no easy matter to find the Lüttichstrasse. It lay on the far side of the town amidst a maze of black, glowering factories, and unpaved streets, thick in mire. But at least there were people here whom I could question—workpeople whose gaunt faces peered at me through the dim lamplight like tormented spirits from another world—and at last one woman offered to be my guide.
"'The Frau Sebokl is my neighbour,' she explained. 'She is a new-comer, but I heard to-day that she is expecting her son. You are her son, are you not?'
"'Yes,' I said.
"'She will be glad. She has been waiting all day and night Look—her lamp is still burning.'
"It was true. A light shone from the lower window of the squalid little house before which we stood, and though there were other lights in the street, this seemed to me different from the rest Yes, it had a look of great patience—of indomitable patience. It made me smile to myself to think of that for which it waited—of little Franz Sebold lying on his mud-bed.
"The woman left me and I knocked, and a voice cried out shrilly, and a minute later the door flew open. It was dark in the narrow passage. I could only feel something that clung to me—something warm, yet hard and tense—like a frantic animal—that smelt sickly sweet. The door slammed to, and we remained like that, clinging to one another. I could not shake her off—I don't know that I even tried. I was not moved, you understand, but it seemed to me best to let the first force of the storm break, for there was a frightening element in that joy, and though human passion is often ridiculous yet I had learned not to despise it I know that it can destroy the best laid plans. So I let her cry and laugh against my shoulders.
"'Oh, Franz!' she whispered. 'My little Franz!'
"Then, after a while, she took me by the hand and led me into the room where the light burned, and there we confronted one another. No, though I tell you I was not moved, I have not forgotten her face even now. For, you understand, it was what you would call an evil face—a horrible face. I don't know how old she was. Her hair was a hard gold and her cheeks were painted a crude rose colour, but she seemed to me as old as death. Little cruel, calculating eyes she had, and a red mouth like a horrid flower.
"And yet, I felt that she had tried desperately to tone herself down—to seem less what she was.
"And she stood there, gaping at me, with the tears drying amidst the paint and powder, and a look of terror in her eyes.
"'My God!' she muttered. 'My God—who are you?'
"'A friend,' I answered; 'your son's friend.' She seemed to totter and I caught hold of her, and again I was aware of that cloud of pungent sweetness that hung about her. For a moment I could think of nothing else. 'Your son sent me to you,' I said. 'I have a message'
"'Is he safe?' she asked.
"'Yes, quite safe. They'll not send him to the front again. He's out of their clutches for good and all.' I let her sink on to one of the hard chairs with which the room was furnished, and taking out Franz Sebold's papers threw them down on to the table. 'Your son gave me these so that you should have no doubts. Here are your letters to him. And his leave-ticket. I came on that. I am a deserter too—you can trust me.'
"She clawed the letters over like a hungry vulture.
"'And Franz?' she whispered. 'Franz?'
"'In Switzerland,' I said. I held myself with a sort of sturdy reticence as though I were ashamed of my own emotion. 'We both had had enough of it out there. A friend got hold of a forged passport, and I gave it to your son. It was the safer way, you see. He'll be across the frontier by now. As soon as the storm blows over he'll write and send for you'
"She looked up at me. The film of terror was clearing from her eyes and they were hard and very penetrating.
"'And you?' she asked
"I shrugged my shoulders.
"'I took Franz's pass. It enabled me to bring you news of him—and I am nearer the frontier than I was. I must make a dash for it.'
"'It is a great risk,' she said. 'Many have been caught. Why—why did you give up your best chance?'
"'Your son and I are friends,' I mumbled, 'We fought side by side. And besides, I have no one—no one who cares'
"I gathered up the papers and made as if to go. Oh, it was like a play—every word and movement thought out and calculated. And she took the cue as though she had been taught the part.
"'They won't look for you here,' she said. 'They won't look for Franz till his leave expires. By then you may have a better chance than now. I am a stranger here. No one will know that you are not my son' She stood up and there was real colour in her cheeks, a sort of sullen, eager flush. 'You are my Franz's friend—you—you have risked your life for him—and you see how I have prepared—I shall be alone—if you would stay' And then as I stared at her in pretended astonishment, the hard sneering look which must have been most natural to her came back into her face. 'You know, perhaps, the sort of women I am,' she said. 'Perhaps you'd rather be shot than be found here'
"At that I laughed genuinely enough.
"'If you think that, Mütterchen' I said. And I swung off Franz Sebold's knapsack and stacked his rifle in the corner and let her carry his soaking greatcoat to the stove. Yes, it was queer to watch her. Human beings have always interested me—their strangeness is like a riddle with no answer. This woman was evil. Body and soul she was corrupt—worm-eaten to the heart. And yet I saw her rub her painted cheek furtively against my coat-sleeve because some time or other Franz Sebold might have touched it (more than she knew), and when I seated myself at Franz Sebold's place at the table her eyes grew dull again with the pain of seeing me there and her laugh was a poor thing.
"'In heaven's name, eat it up!' she said 'or I'll have the police on me for hoarding.'
"She must have hoarded and scraped and starved and stolen to make that feast. After prison fare I can tell you it tasted good, and I doubt if anyone in Germany could have fared better. And she sat on the other side of the table with a glass of something or other at her elbow and watched me. In repose her face fell into the lines which her life had carved for her. It grew more utterly evil I thought to myself: 'If she attracts any man living, it is just because there is not a vice and not a foul corner of human nature which she does not know and understand.' Afterwards I remembered my own thought.
"At first we were both silent. Though I could feel her eyes on me, I ate like a man obsessed by hunger, and presently she began to talk—to ask questions. And I answered easily enough. It was not for nothing I had worked Franz Sebold's soul dry on those long days in the forest. I knew everything that his friend should know—his past life and his tastes and his hopes and fears. I laughed a little as though struck by a sudden humourous thought
"'How cross poor Franz will feel when he hears about this supper!' I chuckled. 'He was always telling me about your Apfelkuchen. He said there was no one in Baden could make it like you do'
"After that her eyes dropped. I think she forgot me for a time. She sat there sipping the colourless drink beside her, staring at nothing. Only once she looked up to ask me what time Franz's train would cross the frontier, and when I had told I saw how she watched the clock on the shelf like a wolf.
"Presently she got up and lit a candle and opened a door leading into an inner room. She stood on the threshold with the light lifted above her head and peered into the darkness, and I think that again she forgot me.
"'You will be tired,' she said at last, 'and glad to rest You can sleep here. This is Franz's room. You see—I have kept it for him.'
"She motioned me to pass her, and then I saw what she meant. The sitting-room was like herself—tawdry, with a veneer that barely covered dirt and hideousness. But this little room was white and very clean and almost empty—just a chair and table with a wash-bowl, and a truckle bed, and a crucifix on the wall. I noticed the crucifix. It seemed that once this woman had believed in something.
"'Franz's room,' she said to herself. 'Franz's room' And then she looked me straight in the face. 'Do you think he is safe now?' she asked. 'Do you think that I shall ever see him again?'
"'I am sure that he is safe,' I answered.
"She stood there, hesitating, trembling a little. I could see her red mouth quiver with the effort to say what was in her mind—or to withhold it—heaven knows, and then, suddenly, roughly, she seized my hand and kissed it and was gone.
"The next morning the sun shone. I had slept well and late, but when I went into the sitting-room she was waiting for me. In the full light the room looked shabbier—more dissolute—and she herself seemed at once unreal and yet vivid, like a dream of vice that follows one into one's waking hours.
"'You and I have got to pretend that we are very happy,' she said. 'We must seem to be making the most of this time together. Fortunately I have saved a little—I—I shan't need to work whilst my son is with me.' And then she laughed.
"But before everything I meant to make my plans. I knew now that I could count on her to do whatever lay in her power, at whatever cost, but her power was obviously limited. Finally we arranged that two days before my leave expired I should make a trip to the German side of Bale, officially on a farewell visit to a relative of hers there who would provide me with civilian clothes and give me what hints he could as to evading the frontier guards. If I got across—I told her—Franz and I were to meet and send word to her, and then she was to follow. I saw the light flash into her face at that.
"Yes, it was a strange day—strange as any of the days that followed. To avoid the curiosity of neighbours, perhaps because both of us were tormented with uncertainty, we took a tram out to the Durlacher Turm, and climbed through a belt of trees to the orchards that ran along the ridge of the hills down to the Rhine valley. It was spring time, and the fruit trees floated like white clouds against the green. I had never seen fruit trees like that before. They do not grow in Seven Dials nor yet in Fleet Street nor on battlefields, and in these places I had spent my life. They troubled me. I do not know why, but for the first time in my life I was afraid—not of discovery, but of something vaguer than that—more terrible.
"We were quite alone. At first we hardly spoke. But gradually her thoughts seemed to break from her against her will, and always it was of Franz she spoke—of Franz lying somewhere on his mud bed in the distant river. But it was not Franz or the river which we could see winding through the plain—that troubled me—only the fruit trees. It was strange how much I thought of them—how I think of them even now—after all these years—yes—they were like snow—like snow after the first strong sunshine—white patches of snow lingering on the hillside.
"As she talked she seemed to grow more real—more human. She did not mince along as she had done in the town or peer furtively out of the corners of her eyes. She walked freely with lifted head. And it was always 'When Franz and I did this,' 'When Franz and I do that,' till I forgot that he was dead and believed that one day we should all meet together and celebrate our release—Yes, I made plans with her. I helped her to get work—honest work, you understand, so that she should not be a burden to Franz in his new life. I helped to build up their new home.
"'And you must come and live with us till you have a home of your own,' she said proudly. (Oh, I could see her grow stout and matronly and respectable before my eyes. The paint and powder and cheap finery were, after all, just a masquerade.) 'You will be like a second son to me' And then she stopped, and I could see that the dream had faded and that she remembered. 'Do you mind my saying that?' she asked timidly.
"'Why should I mind?' I answered.
"We came home together through the dusk, and I began to tell her of my own life. I set my birthplace in a German gutter, and my career in a German city where I guessed she had never been, but otherwise I changed nothing—pretended nothing. I told her what I meant to make of my life and how it was to be done. A sort of fever of excitement came over me—I had always been reticent and secretive—from fear of ridicule or betrayal—and it was like strong wine to me to talk freely—to show myself without lies or sham to another human being, who would neither ridicule nor betray nor condemn. In the mud where we two came from there is no morality. Men judge each other by one standard—by their submersion or survival She had gone under, but I was to survive, at all costs. I needed no other justification. I remember telling her about the Widows' Fund, and she weighed the scheme, and appreciated it as I did.
"'Yes, it's fine to succeed like that,' she said. We had come out from among the trees, and in a few minutes we should be back again in the narrow Durlacher streets. But where we stood it was very still. The dusk wrapped a sort of grey veil about her so that she was not Franz Sebold's mother—but just any woman—any woman who for that moment I fancied in her place. 'And I think you will always succeed,' she said. 'I think that God will bless you.'
"She said that—to me. Because I had saved her son, as she thought. That was enough to reconcile me with God—if he existed.
"And yet I did not laugh.
"Yes, that was a strange day, but not the strangest of them all.
"At night we went to the big Picture Palace in the Kaiserstrasse and saw the Kaiser and all his glittering staff and streams of English prisoners. Among the prisoners I recognised some of my old comrades, and I had a strange rush of feeling—half of exultation in my own escape—half of anger, so that I wanted to stand up and taunt the hissing, jibing crowd—insult them, make fun of them. My anger frightened me so that I sat with closed eyes and clenched fists till the lights went up. I was glad when we were in the street again. I distrusted myself. I was like a man who feels that he is on the verge of an epileptic seizure.
"Franz Sebold's mother walked close at my side. She wore a thick veil, over her painted face, and men looked after her and at me and smiled furtively. She looked back at them from under her lowered eyelids. But once we were out of the hot, jostling crowd I heard her moaning to herself.
"'I am a bad woman. Oh, my God, I am a bad woman!'
"'No worse than thousands who sell themselves in marriage,' I retorted. 'In your way you are more honest—if you care for honesty.'
"'No,' she answered scornfully. 'I've not been honest. I've cheated and ruined other people besides myself. I had no pity.'
"'What does all that matter anyhow?' I interrupted. 'I'm not your judge. My own mother was no better.'
"And then she laid her hard, clutching hand on my arm.
"'And you will go back to her, won't you, when you are rich and famous?' she whispered, and it was as though she pleaded with me for herself. 'Promise that you will go back. Yes, yes; it is true what you say—we are not worse than others. But we are unhappy like others—we love like others—you must go back.'
"But I was too afraid even to think of what I said.
"'No,' I muttered. 'Each man for himself or we all go under. She's too far gone. I can't drag her up with me, If she cares for me she'll be glad to let me go—with her hanging round my neck I should have no chance.'
"I stopped then. She walked on quietly, but I saw her face under the lamplight. And I thought of a rat I had once seen—dying in the teeth of a snare.
"That night I did not sleep. I could not stay quiet in that bare white room. It seemed to me that I was going to be delirious, and that I must get away at once before it was too late. I dressed and went into the sitting-room. I don't know what I wanted there. The door opposite me stood ajar, and I could see a strip of light shining. I knocked and went in. It was a wretched place, littered with cheap, tarnished rubbish—sticky with that overpowering scent which seemed to haunt me like a ghost. Franz Sebold's mother lay crumpled up on the frowsy bed. Her hair had fallen down, and I could see where the dye had begun to wear away, and the paint had run into a grotesque smear. She did not look at me. She just turned her face to the wall.
"I sat beside her. I held her hand. I held it all through that night. All through that night we did not speak to each other once.
"I had still five days before Franz Sebold's leave came to an end, but I knew that now I must make my dash for the frontier at once. I did not think clearly about it—it was like someone walking at my elbow, warning me. But I did not go. I did not even talk of going. A strange silence fell upon us two. We went about together, and I could see that she was brooding over something, but she gave me no sign of what was in her mind. Then one night—suddenly—she began to talk to me of her own life. Just as I had done to her she talked to me. Without reserve or shame or regret she took up each incident and looked at it—as one might pick up an old half-forgotten garment that one is going to throw away for ever. And yet—though I knew that she withheld nothing—it was not to my judgment that she appealed.
"When it was all done she stretched her bony, cruel-looking hands to the firelight.
"'My little Franz!' she whispered 'My little Franz!'
"And so the last night came. The train to Bale which we had decided on did not leave till eleven o'clock, and as though neither of us could face the stillness of the house we went out together. It was one of those evenings that sometimes break the stormy monotony of early spring—warm and soft as summer—and to celebrate some real or imagined victory a military band was giving a concert in the Stadtgarten. There seemed nothing better for us to do than to go and listen. As we waited at the gates to pay our entrance money, Franz Sebold's mother read out an official notice—pasted against the wall. The military authorities offered a thousand marks' reward for the capture of any spy or escaped prisoner of war—they threatened an accomplice with punishments varying between penal servitude and death.
"I saw Franz Sebold's mother smile wistfully to herself.
"'With a thousand marks I shouldn't be a burden,' she said. 'I could start afresh.'
"And then, as she spoke, a thought came to me—a thought so mad, so wild that I drove my nails into the palms of my hands in terror.
"I said nothing. We sat together at a round table in the shadow of the gaunt trees and drank our coffee and watched the people go past under the flaring gas jets. I tried to exult over the narrow-waisted dandified officers who brushed against me. I whispered to myself, 'You pompous fools—if you only knew who touched you.' But I was like a man acting a part, before his own soul. Beneath it all everything crumbled and grew black—it seemed as though my very will were slipping through my fingers.
"Suddenly the band began to play. We could not see the musicians, but all around us the people stood still—like a crowd of silent shadows. I did not know what it was they played. It was something slow and very sad. I hated it—I hated it so that I wanted to jump and shout to them to stop—to play something that would make a man's blood grow hot in his veins. I wanted to make fun of it.
"'This sentimental, drivelling stuff!' I said aloud.
"And I looked at Franz Sebold's mother, but she had not heard. Her hands in the white cotton gloves lay tightly clasped on her lap, and she was crying. The tears rolled quietly down her cheeks. They seemed to come from a bottomless source, and as they fell they washed away the paint and powder, so that at last I saw her as she was—old and tired and pitiful. She made no sound. I do not think she knew she was crying—or where she was. But presently she looked at me, and we got up and went away together in silence as we had come."
And now John Daniel Prettyman sat forward with his marble hands clasped on the arms of his chair and the firelight on his face. Death seemed to sink back from him like an ebbing tide. There was living fear in the eyes that frowned passionately on their last picture. He spoke faster—more clearly—rushing to his climax.
"And so we came back to the three rooms in the squalid house. My train started in an hour. By midnight I should be at the frontier—by daybreak, if my luck held, in safety. But what I had to do I did mechanically—because my will had been set in a certain course, without consciousness, without purpose. I was like a man who sets out on a journey and is overtaken by some devastating sickness. Though his goal may stand for his life's happiness, he forgets it. Nothing matters to him but the moment's misery and the question, 'What shall I do next?' I tried to realise that the next few hours might hold liberty for me—to picture my return to England and the hero's part I meant to play there. It was all dead—unreal—meaningless. What mattered was in this room—between this woman and me—now.
"I watched her in silence as she went about her last preparations. She was not crying any more. I do not think she was a woman who had ever cried much—and I knew, somehow, that she would never cry again—that all the tears she had were gone.
"She put food in my haversack and a little paper packet, and her hand rested on it for a moment.
"'For Franz,' she said—'for Franz.'
"I put on Franz Sebold's helmet.
"'You must give it him yourself,' I said between my teeth.
"'I shall never see Franz again,' she answered. She stood very still—looking at me—not seeing me. I slipped into my harness. I took Franz Sebold's rifle from its corner. The sweat ran down my limbs. My bones seemed to turn to water. 'Tell Franz that I have gone away,' she said. 'Tell him that I am a bad woman—that I never really cared—even for him.' A contraction passed over her face, leaving it with a kind of awful smile. 'I have thought over what you said,' she went on—'and about myself and I know that it is all quite true. I'm too far gone—too rotten—not worth saving—I should only drag Franz down with me—and even I can love enough—to be glad to let him go. They—they have offered me a place in a German café in Brussels—and advanced money—it is there in the packet—for Franz—and I'm going. I shan't come back.'
"And then suddenly—it seemed to me—I came to the edge of a precipice—and something unseen—outside myself—thrust me forward—over the brink. I heard myself speaking:—
"'There was only one thing Franz cared for—he didn't care whether he lived or died—not for himself—it was for your sake—you were all he thought about—you and your salvation. He wanted you to be good—he believed in you. He knew what you'd been through. Yes—he was afraid to die—haunted by the fear of death, because then there would be no one to help you—because then you would go down—not caring. If you fail him now, everything that he lived for and dreamed of will have gone for nothing. He prayed for you. I know you were his first and last thought. In his way he died to save you.
"'Dead!' she whispered, 'dead!'
"'Yes,' I said. 'I was a prisoner of war in his camp. I killed him.'
"I could not see her at first. I was blind with tears. A frightful anguish lifted from me. A hand that had been crushing my throat let go its hold, and I drew my breath with a relief so exquisite that it was sheer happiness—almost beatitude. I knew vaguely that I was lost, but death or freedom meant nothing—my plans—my ambitions—just nothing. It was as though in a moment I had broken through into a new world—with new values—and all that had mattered most to me were just broken toys.
"Then when my eyes cleared I saw her face. And it was not evil. It was full of horror—but also of God knows what pity—what knowledge and understanding of human sin and wretchedness.
"And I dropped on my knees and hid my face against her and cried and cried.
"So we remained. I don't know for how long. I don't know what passed in her—or in me. We did not speak to one another. But presently she lifted me to my feet. She held the door open.
"And as I stumbled past her she made the sign of the Cross over me."
John Prettyman dropped forward. He seemed suddenly to sink to a grey heap like a fire that has burnt itself out.
"It frightens me," he whispered. "It frightens me."
But at last he stood up. He pointed to the three sheets of paper lying on the floor. "Tell them," he said, "tell them that all that I have done since—all the enterprises which they praise me for are rotten—clever frauds meant to last as long as I did, which will crumble together, when I am dead, like a pack of cards. I have no more need of them. I am proud to think how I have cheated people who counted themselves cunning men and women of the world. Let them know it. I shall bring no libel action. It will be a great chance for you—perhaps afterwards people may even read your poetry. But this—this other thing"—it seemed to Young Saunders, listening from the shadow that now the little distant bell was growing fainter—tolling itself into silence—"this other thing is different—outside the plan of my life—against my beliefs—my purpose—some thing inexplicable—irreconcilable—beyond reason—beyond understanding."
"Perhaps—to-morrow—you will understand," said Young Saunders.
There was no answer. Lost in his own thoughts, Young Saunders did not hear the closing of the glass door. When he looked up the room was empty, and it seemed to him that he had dreamed.
But there was the chair drawn up close to the fire and the three scattered sheets of John Prettyman's obituary notice. And as he listened the quiet street woke to the echo of horses' hoofs and the rumble of a carriage rolling out towards the great thoroughfare beyond.