Sinister Street

"I find I haven't any money with me," said Michael, looking at her.

"That doesn't matter. I've really quite enjoyed our little talk."

"But I'll send you some more," he promised.

"No, it doesn't matter. I haven't done anything to have you send your money for. I expect when you saw me in the light, you didn't think I was really quite your style. Of course, I've really come down. It's no use denying it. I'm _not_ what I was."

If she had robbed him, she wanted nothing more from him. If she had robbed him, it was because in the humility of her degradation she had feared to see him shrink from her in disgust.

"I shall send you some money for your boy," he said, in the darkness by the door.

"No, it doesn't matter."

"What's your name?"

"Well, I'm known here as Mrs. Smith." Doubtfully she whispered as the cold air came in through the open door: "I don't expect you'd care about giving me a kiss."

Michael had never known anything in his life so difficult to do, but he kissed her cold and flaccid cheek and hurried up the area steps.

When he stood again upon the pavement in the menace of the five black houses of Leppard Street, Michael felt that he never again could endure to return to them at night, nor ever again in the day perceive their fifty windows inscrutable as water. Yet he must walk for a while in the stinging northerly air before he went back to his rooms; he must try to rid himself of the oppression which now lay so heavily upon him; he must be braced even by this lugubrious night of Pimlico before he could encounter again the permeating fug of Leppard Street. He walked as far as the corner, and saw in silhouette upon the bridge a solitary policeman thudding his chest for warmth. In this abominable desert of lamps he should have seemed a symbol of comfort, but Michael with the knowledge of the power he wielded over the unfortunates beheld him now as the brutish servant of a dominating cla.s.s. He was, after all, very much like a dressed-up gorilla, as he stood there thudding his chest in the haggard lamplight.

Michael turned and went back to his rooms.

He stared at the picture of St. Ursula on the white wall, and suddenly in a fit of rage he plucked it from the hook and ground it face downward upon his writing-table. It seemed to him almost monstrous that anything so serene should be allowed any longer to exist. Immediately afterward he thought that his action had been melodramatic, and shamefacedly he put away the broken picture in a drawer.

Lily was in London: and Mrs. Smith was beneath him in this house. In twenty years Lily might be sunk in such a pit, unless he were quick to save her now. All through the night he kept waking up with the fancy that he could hear the rosary rattling in that den beneath; and every time he knew it was only the sound of the broken hasp on his window rattling in the wind.

CHAPTER VI

TINDERBOX LANE

Next morning, when he woke, Michael made up his mind to leave Leppard Street finally in the course

"Oh, I daresay I could make the rooms look all right," said Barnes. "But what about coal?"

"I shall pay for coal and light as well as the rent."

"I thought you'd find it a bit dismal here," said Barnes knowingly. "I wonder you've stuck it out as long as you have."

"After February," Michael said, "I may want to come to some other arrangement; but you can count on being here till then. Of course, you understand that when the three months are up, I shan't be able to allow you five pounds a week any longer."

"No, I never supposed you would," said Barnes, in a tone of resignation.

Michael hesitated whether to speak to him about Mrs. Smith or not: however, probably he was aware of her existence already, and it could do no harm to mention it.

"Did you know that there was a woman living down in the bas.e.m.e.nt here?"

he asked.

"I didn't know there was one here; but it's not a very rare occurrence in this part of London, nor any other part of London, if it comes to that."

"If you hear any row going on down there," said Michael, "you had better interfere at once."

"Who with?" Barnes inquired indignantly.

"With the row," said Michael. "If the woman is being badly treated on account of money she owes, you must let me know immediately."

"Well, I'm not in the old tear's secret, am I?" asked Barnes, in an injured tone. "You can't expect me to go routing about after every old fly-by-night stuck in a bas.e.m.e.nt."

"I'm particularly anxious to know that she is all right," Michael insisted.

"Oh well, of course, if she's a friend of yours, Fane, that's another matter. If it's any little thing to oblige you, why certainly I'll do it."

Michael said good-bye and left him in bed. Then he called in to see the Solutionist, who was also in bed.

"I've got a commission for you," said Michael.

The Solutionist's watery eyes brightened faintly.

"You're fond of animals, aren't you?" Michael went on. "I see you feeding your Belgian hares. Well, I'm interested in a cat who appreciated my point of view. I want you to see that this cat has a quart of milk left for her outside Mrs. Smith's door every morning. Mrs.

Smith lives in the bas.e.m.e.nt. You must explain to her that you are fond of animals; but you mustn't mention me. Here's a check for five pounds.

Spend half this on the cat and the other half on your rabbits."

The Solutionist held the check between his tremulous fingers.

"I couldn't cash this nowadays," he said helplessly. "And get a quart of milk for a cat? Why, the thing would burst."

"All right. I'll send you postal orders," said Michael. "Now I'm going away for a bit. Never mind if a quart is too much. I want that amount left every day. You'll do what I ask? And you'll promise not to say a word about me?"

The Solutionist promised, and Michael left him looking more completely puzzled than he had ever seen him.

Michael could not bring himself to the point either of going down into the bas.e.m.e.nt or of calling to Mrs. Cleghorne from the entrance to her cave; and as the bell-pull in his room had never been mended, he did not know how to reach her. The existence of Mrs. Smith had dreadfully complicated the mechanism of Number One. He ought to have made Barnes get out of bed and fetch her. By good luck Michael saw from his window the landlady standing at the top of the area steps. He ran out and asked her to come and speak to him.

"I see," she said. "Mr. Barnes is to have your rooms, and you're paying in advance up to February. Oh, and his coal and his gas as well? I see.

Well, that you can settle month by month. Through me? Oh, yes."

Mrs. Cleghorne was in a very good temper this morning. Michael could not help wondering if Mrs. Smith had paid some arrears of her rent.

"Do you think Mr. Cleghorne would go and fetch me a hansom?" Michael asked.

"He's still in his bed, but I'll go myself."

This cheerfulness was really extraordinary; and Michael was flattered.

Already he was beginning to feel some of the deference mixed with hate which throughout the underworld was felt toward landladies. Her condescension struck him with the sense of a peculiar favor, as if it were being bestowed from a superior height.