The House by the RiverHerbert, A. P. (Alan Patrick)
General
The House by the River
Herbert, A. P. (Alan Patrick)
London (England) -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction; Murder -- Fiction; Poets -- Fiction
He edged Emily close up against the gunwale, her extremities on a
couple of thwarts, her middle sagging down the side of the boat. He
looked quickly up the river and down the river and at Hammerton Terrace
and at the oil-mills below and at the empty towpath on the opposite
bank, all silent, all still. Stephen put a hand under the sack. Close by
a tiny fish leaped lightly from the river. Stephen saw the flash of its
belly, and took his hand away with a start. Then with a great heave
under Emily's middle, a violent pushing and lifting with feet and body
and arms, that set the sculls clattering and the boat precariously
rocking he got the body half over the gunwale, John perched anxiously on
the other side, striving to correct the already dangerous list. Stephen
struggled blasphemously with the infuriating sack. Somehow, somewhere it
was maddeningly entangled with something in the boat. Frantic tugging
and thrusting, irritable oaths, moved it not at all. John looked
fearfully behind him. A lighted omnibus was swimming through space,
perilously near ... Hammersmith Bridge. Stephen was kicking the body now
with a futile savagery.
"What the hell?" he said. "O God!"
John groped distantly with a hand in the dark. Then, "The anchor!" he
said--"the anchor's caught...." He heard a relieved "O Lord!" from
Stephen, "thought I'd put the anchor end over first"--and for the first
time made himself a petulant comment, "Why the devil didn't you?" It
was too much--this sort of thing. Then the shaggy end of the sack was
slithering quietly over the side, the anchor twinkled swiftly in the
moon, and the relieved boat rocked suddenly with a wild, delighted
levity. Emily was gone.
Peering back upstream, the two men saw a slowly expanding circle on the
black water. And there were a few bubbles. Emily was indeed gone.
Stephen sat in a limp posture of absolute exhaustion, his shoulders
hunched, his head on his hands, speechless.
John looked at his watch. It was a quarter-past ten--only about an hour
since Emily died. He stared incredulous at the faintly luminous hands.
Then he looked round; the boat seemed to be drifting very fast. On his
right were the boat-houses, a dark huddle of boats clinging to the rafts
in front of them. The boat-houses were next to the Bridge.
He looked back and up, with a new fear. The long span of the suspension
bridge hung almost above them. A bus rumbled ominously above. Two
persons were standing on the footpath against the parapet, looking down
at the boat. He could see the pale blobs of their faces. One of them had
a Panama hat.
The boat shot into the dark under the Bridge.
John leaned forward. "Stephen," he whispered--"Stephen." There was no
answer. John touched his knee. "Stephen."
A yellow face lifted slowly. "What is it?"
"There was some one watching on the Bridge ... two men."
Stephen sighed with a profound weariness.
"It can't be helped," he said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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