第28章

Near him, her black form merged in the night, like a figure half chiselled out of a block of black stone.It was impossible to say what she knew, how deep she was involved with policemen and Embassies.But if she wanted to get away, it was not for him to object.He was anxious to be off himself.

He felt that the business, the shop so strangely familiar to chief inspectors and members of foreign Embassies, was not the place for him.That must be dropped.But there was the rest.These savings.The money!

`You must hide me till the morning somewhere,' she said in a dismayed voice.

`Fact is, my dear, I can't take you where I live.I share the room with a friend.'

He was somewhat dismayed himself.In the morning the blessed tecs will be out in all the stations, no doubt.And if they once got hold of her, for one reason or another she would be lost to him indeed.

`But you must.Don't you care for me at all - at all? What are you thinking of?'

She said this violently, but she let her clasped hands fall in discouragement.

There was a silence, while the mist fell, and darkness reigned undisturbed over Brett Place.Not a soul, not even the vagabond, lawless, and amorous soul of a cat, came near the man and the woman facing each other.

`It would be possible perhaps to find a safe lodging somewhere,' Ossipon spoke at last.`But the truth is, my dear, I have not enough money to go and try with - only a few pence.We revolutionists are not rich.'

He had fifteen shillings in his pocket.He added:

`And there's the journey before us, too - first thing in the morning at that.'

She did not move, made no sound, and Comrade Ossipon's heart sank a little.Apparently she had no suggestion to offer.Suddenly she clutched at her breast, as if she had felt a sharp pain there.

`But I have,' she gasped.`I have the money.I have enough money.Tom!

Let us go from here.'

`How much have you got?' he inquired, without stirring to her tug; for he was a cautious man.

`I have the money, I tell you.All the money.

`What do you mean by it? All the money there was in the bank, or what?'

he asked, incredulously, but ready not to be surprised at anything in the way of luck.

`Yes, yes!' she said nervously.`All there was.I've it all.'

`How on earth did you manage to get hold of it already?' he marvelled.

`He gave it to me,' she murmured, suddenly subdued and trembling.Comrade Ossipon put down his rising surprise with a firm hand.

`Why, then - we are saved,' he uttered slowly.

She leaned forward, and sank against his breast.He welcomed her there.

She had all the money.Her hat was in the way of very marked effusion;her veil, too.He was adequate in his manifestations, but no more.She received them without resistance and without abandonment, passively, as if only half-sensible.She freed herself from his lax embrace without difficulty.

`You will save me, Tom,' she broke out, recoiling, but still keeping her hold on him by the two lapels of his damp coat.`Save me.Hide me.

Don't let them have me.You must kill me first.I couldn't do it myself - I couldn't, I couldn't - not even for what I am afraid of.'

She was confoundedly bizarre, he thought.She was beginning to inspire him with an indefinite uneasiness.He said surlily, for he was busy with important thoughts:

`What the devil are you afraid of?'

`Haven't you guessed what I was driven to do!' cried the woman.Distracted by the vividness of her dreadful apprehensions, her head ringing with forceful words, that kept the horror of her position before her mind, she had imagined her incoherence to be clearness itself.She had no conscience of how little she had audibly said in the disjointed phrases completed only in her thought.

She had felt the relief of a full confession, and she gave a special meaning to every sentence spoken by Comrade Ossipon, whose knowledge did not in the least resemble her own.`Haven't you guessed what I was driven to do!'

Her voice fell.`You needn't be long in guessing then what I am afraid of,' she continued in a bitter and sombre murmur.`I won't have it.I won't.

I won't.I won't.You must promise to kill me first!' She shook the lapels of his coat.`It must never be!'

He assured her curtly that no promises on his part were necessary, but he took good care not to contradict her inset terms, because he had had much to do with excited women, and he was inclined in general to let his experience guide his conduct in preference to applying his sagacity to each special case.His sagacity in this case was busy in other directions.

Women's words fell into water, but the shortcomings of time-tables remained.

The insular nature of Great Britain obtruded itself upon his notice in an odious form.`Might just as well be put under lock and key every night,'

he thought irritably, as nonplussed as though he had a wall to scale with the woman on his back.Suddenly he slapped his forehead.He had by dint of cudgelling his brains just thought of the Southampton - St Malo service.

The boat left about midnight.There was a train at 10.30.He became cheery and ready to act.

`From Waterloo.Plenty of time.We are all right after all...What's the matter now? This isn't the way,' he protested.

Mrs Verloc, having hooked her arm into his, was trying to drag him into Brett Street again.

`I've forgotten to shut the shop door as I went out,' she whispered, terribly agitated.

The shop and all that was in it had ceased to interest Comrade Ossipon.

He knew how to limit his desires.He was on the point of saying `What of that? Let it be,' but he refrained.He disliked argument about trifles.

He even mended his pace considerably on the thought that she might have left the money in the drawer.But his willingness lagged behind her feverish impatience.

The shop seemed to be quite dark at first.The door stood ajar.Mrs Verloc, leaning against the front, grasped out:

`Nobody has been in.Look! The light - the light in the parlour.'

Ossipon, stretching his head forward, saw a faint gleam in the darkness of the shop.

`There is,' he said.

`I forgot it.' Mrs Verloc's voice came from behind her veil faintly.