SEVEN MEN’S SINS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 69, Issue 158, 16 April 1949, Page 7

SEVEN MEN’S SINS

By Stuart Martin ■'

Serial Story ij

U upyrigtU)

CHAPTER XVIII. TQRK ATTEMPTS SUICIDE Tork made pantomimic gestures to his wife and dashed into the bedroom. He flung his soiled clothes under the bed, and stepped out to the fire escape, drawing the door close behind him. His wife watched his movements, then went to answer the knocking. A man stood on the landing. “You know me, Mrs Tork?’? “Of course I know you,” she answered. “You’re the plain-clothes cop that has been following me long enough.” “I’ve been asked to bring you along to the Yard.” “What for?” i “I can’t explain. \I was just asked to bring you. Some information wanted.”

They went out together in a few minutes, and George Tork heard the key turn in the lock once more. He remained on the fire-escape for some time before re-entering the flat; and as he lay there he observed far below pedestrians walking along the side street, and once he caught sight of a policeman’s helmet. The sight of that helmet aroused him from his contemplation of the street scene. He pushed the shutters back and scrambled inwards, closed the shutters again, and relit the candle which his wife had extinguished. The first thing he saw on the table was a pound-note which his wife had left. It was folded up and under the candlestick, showing that she had laid it there for him.

He put the note into - his pocket, pulled a cap over his head, and walked through to the kitchenette. He walked to look out of the window of that apartment 'from which he could see the main street.

But almost as soon as he had put his head near the glass he drew it back. A man was standing on the pavement opposite the window, and Tork knew him at once. He Was a plain-clothes man from Scotland Yard —the man who had arrested him on the bridge up the Thames. Tork went back to the other room and extinguished the candle, then opened the shutters and again went out on to the fire-escape.. He stopped at once.

The policeman he had already observed had been joined by another. They were standing opposite the back entrance to the block of flats.

A sudden cramp seemed to seize Tork’s heart. His path was blocked both ways. The law had drawn its net tight, and was waiting for him to come out —or go in! He crawled back into the room, and sat down to think. •

They had him If he appeared. ,He Was cornered. Despair entered him. A White sickness came over him'. As he stood in the room he became aware of something else. His wife had taken away the few shopping parcels she had brought home. There was practically no food in the flat. He had only a few matches. He lit one, and looked to see if there was any coal in the box in which coal was usually kept. There was none. He had only a cigarette or two left. He sat staring at the sky.

Presently he began to shiver. He was cold. Misery gnawed at him. He turned into bed and tried to sleep. He dozed on and off,. waking up every now and then with a start. He dreamed that his pursuers liad him. More than once he cried out in agony. The hangman’s rope was appearing as a mirage, a threat to his disordered brain. “They won’t hang me!” he cried. "I’ll not let them hang me!” This fear of hanging had been haunting him all the time. He had started out to cheat the hangman. He dozed and awoke for a long time. All day. All night. The next dawn came, but he lay still, not sure whether he ought to get up. At length, When he could lie no longer, he arose, but took off his boots so that the tenants below should not hear him moving about as he

paced to and fro like a caged beast. His hunger would drive him out, if nothing else did- And every time he went to the windows, both back and front, he saw plain-clothes men or uniformed men down in the streets. They were there, watching and ' waiting. They had numbers on their side. One relay would relieve another. He was alone, isolated, penned, an animal in its burrow. If Only he had had a weapon, but he had no weapon. He wandered from room to kitchenette and back again, aimlessly, restlessly. He might have been a creature at the Zoo. And then, suddenly, he found that he was crying. But the fit gave place to rage, to mad anger and hate. _ He behaved like a madman.' The strain of his escape, his vigil, were telling on him. He felt worn out and exhausted. And with the exhaustion came a dulling of his feelings, an inability to experience the torture he had recently felt. It was in the greyness of the evening that he peered out of the windows for the last time. The watchers were still tliGrG • That was the end. He was at his last gasp. But he grinned as he faced the end. He would escape them yet. They would not hang him. He would cheat the rope yet. He ran into the bedroom and pulled the covers off the bed and laid them down on the floor next to the gas cooker in the kitchenette. He had found a way out of his misery. He opened the door of the cooker, drew a blanket over Jxim so that the fumes would not escape; and he

turned on the tap. , He closed his eyes, and gave a sigh of satisfaction. At last he could sleep without fear of disturbance. He smelled the puff of gas, the atmosphere of gas, that was all about him. He was so weary that he fell asleep quickly, utterly fatigued. The world drifted rapidly away. x What was that? A crash and a glare of blinding light! A hand was on his shoulder, and men were beside him. He blinked in the light. A voice was speaking. George Tork was jerked to his feet, and gazed owlishly at him as the detective went through his pockets and garments as if seeking something. But at last he was satisfied Turk’s possessions were trivial and personal. “You’re puzzled, Tork, aren’t you? But then you didn’t know that the gas in that cooker was finished —turned off because your wife couldn’t pay.” Then to the other men:

“Put the handcuffs on him, and take him to the cells. Who can cheat the hangman?” .