Jervis Fanshawe moved away from me to the head of the stairs; peered
over there down into the darkness below for a moment or two in silence.
Then he turned swiftly, and laid his hand on my arm, and without looking
at me began to pull me towards the stairs. "Come away," he
whispered--"come away!"
I was halfway down the stairs before I realized what he meant, or what
he thought. And then in a moment it flashed upon me that he knew in his
own mind that Murray Olivant was dead, and believed that I had killed
him. I had seen that thought growing in his mind when he had spoken to
me about what my feelings must have been when I had killed Gavin
Hockley; I knew now that the man was absolutely certain as to what had
happened, and that he had fastened the crime upon me. For a moment I
stopped on the stairs, and looked at him with a momentary feeling of
dismay in my heart--momentary only, because the next instant I realized
that this was, after all, the best thing that could happen. He might say
or do anything, so far as I was concerned; it would be like flogging a
dead man; my only dread had been that he might fasten the crime upon the
right pair of shoulders.
"Why do you stare at me like that?" I asked.
"Was I staring?" he asked, with that grin again stealing over his
features. "I was only thinking," he added; and then, dropping his voice
to a whisper, he asked, as he glanced up the stairs towards the door we
had left: "Tell me--does he sleep soundly?"
"I suppose so," I said hoarsely; and turned and went down the stairs,
with Fanshawe following. He spoke no further words; as I strode on
through the streets he came after me at a sort of trot--ever keeping a
little behind me and at my elbow.
Knowing what I knew, and guessing that he had put that fearful
interpretation upon my words, I found him presently to be a very ghost
of a man, coming along always with that soft footfall just behind me.
Once or twice I stopped on some pretext; but he always stopped too, and
would not be shaken off. And so at last we came to that lodging down by
the river, and were admitted by the girl Moggs. While we stood for a
moment in the little dingy passage of the house, the girl jerked her
head towards the stairs, and said, without looking at us--
"'E's up there."
Then she disappeared into her own quarters. I could not understand what
she meant; I was puzzling my brains to know who could possibly have
called upon us, or what fresh disaster this might mean, when I became
aware of a sudden change that had come over my companion. He was leaning
against the wall, mouthing and shivering, and plucking at his lips, and
staring towards the staircase. I looked back at him, and called--
"What's wrong with you? What are you afraid of?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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