She lay in an ugly heap on the ground. I arranged her draperies and
straightened her. In her pocket was a purse--one which I had given her,
so I was only regaining my own--some letters in an envelope, which, I
guessed, were also mine, and a handkerchief. I knew that she was in the
habit of wearing a portrait of mine, which I had been ass enough to
give her, in a locket round her neck. Opening her dress at the
bosom--which I had a job in doing--I found the locket tied to a piece
of ribbon. Tearing it off, I put it, with the other things, into the
inside pocket of my overcoat. Not wishing to leave the body lying there
for the first passer-by to find in the morning, picking it up I carried
it a few feet along the hedge which bordered the railway embankment. On
the other side of this hedge shrubs were growing on the sloping banks.
Raising the body above my head, I threw it, as far as I could, among
these shrubs. I distinctly heard it fall. Then, immediately after, I
heard a sort of rustling--exactly the sort of rustling which the body
might have made had it been alive and was rising to its feet. I knew
well enough that it was not alive; I had taken care of that. But the
sound was, in one sense, so apposite, and, in another sense, so very
much the other way, that it filled me with an unreasoning panic terror.
I started off running across the open meadow as if I had been running
for my life.
I had meant to keep along the Brighton line to Three Bridges Station.
It was only when I struck the stile which leads to the footpath across
the Horsham line that I realised what an idiot I was. Then I pulled up,
and only then. I was in a muck of sweat. Sitting on the stile, I began
to mop myself with my pocket-handkerchief. I was exhausted--all of a
quiver. Something of my absurd attack of terror was with me still. I
actually thought that I had seen a face rise up from among the bushes
and stare at me--white in the moonlight. As I recalled my folly--even
though I was conscious it was folly--I shut my eyes and shivered.
As soon as I felt myself presentable and in a condition to move, I went
along the Horsham line into the station. I gained the platform
unobserved. I made at once for a refreshment-room. I was aware that it
was not the part of wisdom to expose myself too much, but I felt that I
must have a drink, even though directly after I was hanged. There being
two refreshment-rooms on the up platform, I had two drinks at each of
them.
The return half of my East Grinstead ticket was available to town from
there; so I had no concern on that account. As I came out of the second
refreshment-room, feeling that the stuff which they had sold me for
brandy had done me good, I tackled a porter about a train. The next,
and last, to London was at 10.20. Glancing at my watch, I found that it
was just past the hour.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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