THE DEATH SILENCE

Evening Star, Issue 20989, 31 December 1931, Page 10

THE DEATH SILENCE

[By A. Weight Fox.]

i'On an Embankment seat, at something past midnight, Geoffrey Reid sat shivering, with his head bent to the rain that was blowing from the river in a blinding, swirling mist. The broad stretch of road behind him was bare of pedestrians, but now and again a taxi shot by with a derisive hoot, and once he roused 1 himself to watch the last tram, as, blazing with light and warmth, it clanged its way along the wet rails. . „ , . Rain hung like a pall over the dark, turgid river, and the wet pavement reflected the impaired brilliance or the electric lights in a way that seemed only to accentuate the chill dreariness of the night. He dragged the collar or his shabby coat close about his neck, and cursed softly to himself. His glance wandered in the direction of Blackfriars, _ attracted by a glaring whisky sign blinking green and red in the darkness, and a grim smile touched his lips. “What a world!” he muttered. “ How many poor devils have to sit here in a living torment and watch that night after night, I wonder? Couldn’t be in a better place to mb it into ’em.” . ~ ~ He was not referring to himself, but to the blear-eyed, bedraggled husks of humanity whose sole object in lire is to beg sufficient coppers to make themselves drunk. There were a full dozen of them within five hundred yards, although he had the seat on which he sat to himself. He stirred restlessly, and with the smile still on bis Ups—-there was something of ia cvnic about him—looked into the black void of the river, listening to its whispering as it surged and eddied below the parapet. He was quite young, and, shaven and in other clothes, not at all bad-looking. A spendthrift father, who had died leaving him penniless, and a ’Varsity training which had unfitted him for the sterner side of life were responsible for his present sorry state; with better luck he might have made a fine man, for there was both grit and intelligence in him. But once a man touches mud it is much easier for him to sink than to rise. .. , . A policeman, his oil cape glistening with the rain, paused and regarded him with a stolid, but not unsympathetic frown* “Tried the Salvation Army, cully?” he asked. , , Geoffrey Reid lifted 1 his head and answered laconically: “ Full up.” “Haven’t you any money? “Twopence,” the young man admitted with a faint smile. ‘ But I m saving it until morning for something to cat. I’d he glad if you’d let me stay here for a quarter of an hour or so, constable. I’ll promise not to go *°He off abruptly and stared at the policeman’s retreating hack; then down at the coppers winch the surprisingly tender-hearted man in blue had forced into his hand. A little, half-ashamed laugh trembled on his liP “By George!” he said. “ If ever I can repay that.” . Some of the hardness went from his face, and he resumed his contemplation of the river with eyes from which *all the resentment had faded. He did not look up “when presently a footstep halted just behind him, and did not move until a hand was laid upon his shoulder, I hen he looked round. The newcomer was a man or about forty, his face thin and pallid, marked with dark shadows under eyes that shone with an unnatural brightness. He was in evening dress, but the long fawn overcoat he wore over it was unbuttoned to the rain. Reid stared at him and stiffened, sensing a club man in that stage of inebriation which leads to sentiment and impertinent curiosity. The man, however, spoke clearly enough. , , . “ Want a job?” he asked. Reid elevated his eyebrows. “ It depends,” he answered shortly. The man came round and sat down beside him. They had the seat to themselves. For a moment their eyes met in a measuring, half-challenging glance; and then the stranger spoke. “ It’s nothing wrong,” he said. His voice was not unpleasant; a. cultured, rather musical voice, and he smiled with disarming friendliness. He leaned forward and laid hs hand on Reid’s arm, and there was something protective, comforting in the movement. “ Why, you’re soaking wet,” he said. “Look here, suppose you come round to mv flat? It’s quite near; only just across the Strand—Juniper Mansions, We can talk the matter over in .comfort there, and I can give you a drink and, if you like, a shakedown for the night. Will you come?” Reid rose to his feet with alacrity. “Won’t I?” he said, and laughed grimly. “I’d walk barefoot through hell to-night, I think, to get out of this.” , , X They crossed the road, went up in© Savoy Hill, and plunged into a maze of streets behind the Strand. Reid shuffled along without paying much attention to where they were going ; his heels were chafed, he was dog-tired and infernally hungry. These little items gave him sufficient food for thought, and his benefactor, apparently revolving something in his mind, made no attempt at conversation. They came "to a halt before a - small block of flats in a quiet street, and here, with an injunction to wait, his companion left him for a moment, ile earn© back presently and beckoned him inside They went up the stairs together, treading softly, for the entire building seemed wrapped in. sleep; there was not another soul visible, not a sound to break the all-enveloping quiet. On the first landing the man opened a door and motioned his guest inside; then closed and looked it quickly and stood with his back to it, bis breath coming in little sobbing gasps ns though he had been running hard. Reid looked at him in amazement. A bead of perspiration was standing out upon his forehead, and his eyes burned like coals in his white face. He looked in imminent danger of collapse. With a shaking hand he indicated a chair, and Reid sank into it gratefully, too worn out almost to care a hang for anything. The man still waited by the door, seeming to listen. “Don’t mind me,” he said perkily. “I shall be all right in a minute. It’s my nerves; they’re in a rotten state.’ He went across the room to the aidehoard and took from it a decanter and a couple of glasses. With the almost forgotten musical tinkle in his ears, Reid looked about him and heaved a sigh of appreciation. The ordered beauty of the room, the scent of the Malmaison roses in a Sevres bowl on the polished oak table, the warm fire blazing on the hearth, the electric light—everything about the place stood for gaiety and brightness after the wretched night outside and the heart-aching misery of the Embankment. His host slid the decanter and a glass along the table towards him. “Help yourself,” he “Will you have soda or Apollinaris?” “Soda, please.” The other turned for a syphon, then stopped abruptly, staring at the door of the inner room as though he heard

something, a nameless terror in his eyes. He recovered himself with au effort. “You will be thinking me an awful fool,” he apologised with a laugh. “My nerves are all to pieces. I don’t like doctors, but I’m afraid I shall have to see one; or else I shall bo ending up in a lunatic asylum.” He mopped his forehead, and, sitting down somewhat sheepishly, took a cigarette case from his pocket. “Have one?” ho asked, and handed it to Reid, who took a cigarette, lighted it, and regarded him imperturbably through a fragrant cloud of smoke. There was a short silence, broken only by the ticking of a clock upon the mantelpiece. “Did you ask mo to come hero just for company ” demanded Reid suddenly. The man started violently. “Er—not exactly,” he stammered, and laughed; but his face paled as he said it. “Hardly that, my dear fellow.” , , . Now that he could study him closely, there was something about the man that Reid did not like. He was good-looking in a way that would appeal to women, but there was a curious shiftiness in his eyes, and he was obviously in a blue funk that not even a plea of “nerves” could excuse in a man. His thin, white fingers were heating a devil’s tattoo on the table in front of him, restlessly, without intermission, and he had a trick of turning his head with a queer, bird-like movement as though he were listening for something—and was in a deadly fear of hearing it. Reid’s lip curled. “What do you want me for. then? he asked bluntly. Clumsily avoiding the question, his host rose and went to the window, and drawing aside the heavy crimson curtains, looked out into the night. “It’s stopped raining,” he said. ‘•'Look hero,” said Reid impatiently, hut with a growing uneasiness, rising to his feet. “Stop this farce, or else let me get outside. I don’t like mysteries.”

He broke off in utter bewilderment as the other swung suddenly round and clutched at him desperately, his face white as chalk, his teeth chattering. His eyes, with that uncanny horror back in them, were fixed on the door of the inner room. “Hush!” he whispered hoarsely. “Did you hear it?” There was stark, staring terror in his face; and Reid released himself determinedly. “ Hear what?” he said. “ Look here, my man, you’re in a bad way. Hadn’t I better try to get bold of a doctor?” He might have been speaking to a stone for all the notice the other took of him. Still shaking and trembling in every-limb, his fixed, horror-stricken gaze never wavering from the door of the inner room, he stood like a man in a world of his own, peopled with ghosts and spirits of evil. The expression on his face was ghastly. Reid fought against a sensation of physical nausea. “Look here,” he said firmly. 1 think you’re mad. But before 1 go, just to satisfy myself, I’m going to have a look into that room.”

“No— The other made to stop him, but Reid handed him off easily and flung the door open. He stopped on the threshold with a cry of horror. The room was a bedroom—a dainty place of pink and silver, of silken curtains ; and there were roses everywhere. The scent of them was oppressive. But it was a scene of wild disorder. There were piles of clothing thrown about the floor, and drawers had been ransacked and their contents emptied out. _ A broken jewel case lay on the soft thick carpet, a few rings and a diamond pendant just against it. And lying across tho bed was the dead body of a woman. She was in evening dress, and her bare throat showed the cruel marks of tho cord with which she had been strangled, and which even then hung slackly about her neck. She was dead. He swung round like an avenging fury. “You devil—he cried. Tho man, with an odd, sardonic laugh, was opening the window, and all at once, while Reid stood transfixed in bewilderment, ho leaned out and. began frantically to blow a police whistle. Reid rushed forward, only to fall back before a levelled revolver. The man seemed to havo lost all his fear now, and when he spoke his voice was quiet and unemotional. In the big moment that was to mean life or death for him his nerve had come back. “Stand away!” he ordered. “You hound!” Reid gritted between clenched teeth. “So that’s your game, is it? You mean to pitch a cock and bull yarn about disturbing me in the act of rifling the place, I suppose. Oh, you’re a cute devil!” He took a step forward and laughed, heedless alike of the revolver and. the cruel glitter in the other’s eyes. “ But you’re just not cute enough! . . . I know enough ot medicine to know that poor girl’s been dead some hours at least. It hadn’t been raining when she was murdered, and I’m drenched to tho skin. And 1 can. account for all my movements up to .half an hour ago. There’s a Salvation Army man, a coffee-stall keeper, and a policeman who spoke to me only a couple of minutes before you did. who can all swear to me. How’s that for the complete alibi, you clever devil?” . . . . , A mad exultation blazed in him, and with an oath the white-faced man m evening dress threw up his arm. “ But I don’t intend to let you live to establish it,” he said. The trigger clicked, and there was a report like the cracking of a nut, as Reid dodged and closed with him. They lurched, panting, backwards and forwards. And then the door crashed open, and Reid, wresting the revolver away, threw kis man. heavily) and turned to meet the rush of an inspector and a couple of constables. “Appearances are against mo,” he panted, pressing his hand tightly over a little dark stain on his sleeve which showed where the bullet had grazed him. “But my defence is in there.” He nodded towards the door of the inner room where his witness lay in tho silence that was death.