“Kill?” he heard the woman whisper, and the awe with which she spoke the word gave him the most rapturous sensation of power. “Guess I wouldn’t like to quarrel with you, then, young feller.”
He liked the way she called him “young feller”; he was fifty-seven and his hair beneath the dye was an already silvering grey. He laughed loudly and put his huge hand on her shoulder — it always marked a stage when you first touched a woman. And she winced, too — how delightful that was! “My dear, you never need have any fear of me. Never in my life have I raised my hand to a woman. But, by God, if it was a man I was up against—”
“What would you do?” she breathed in an eager whisper, her dark eyes smouldering.
“Do?” He took a gulp of whisky to gain inspiration. “What would I do? I think I’d better not tell you, m’dear. Not nice for a lady to know about.”
Suddenly her attitude changed. She began to laugh at him — mockingly — as formerly she had laughed at her husband. She was drunk, of course — quite drunk. “Go on, young feller — but I don’t believe you! You can brag about all you would do all right — so can anybody. But I’ll bet you never have done anything!”
“Haven’t I?” He leered down at her with a sharp half-angry light in his eyes. He could not endure to be jeered at — but she looked damnably pretty over it, he had to admit. God — she was a fine little creature. If only... But he had to nerve himself for the mental effort of answering her. “That shows how little you know of me,” he said. “I’m not a boaster. I don’t go round telling everybody what I’ve done. I’ve done things, as a matter of fact, that nobody would believe.”
“An’ I’m not surprised, either. We ain’t all fools, even if we do buy your sugar-and-soap pills!”
He was angry then — furiously angry, and the crowd’s laugh, for the first time directed against himself, stung him in his weakest spot. “My good woman,” he said, carefully controlling himself. “Like all women, you’re damned unreasonable. You want to know too much. Nevertheless, I’ll tell you — if you want to know, and if you don’t believe it, I can’t help it — it’s the truth, anyway. I’ve not lived the life of a lounge-lizard. I’ve seen the world. I’ve lived with the raw, naked elementals of life.” (Another of his stock phrases.) “I’ve had to fight. I’ve had to kill. Up the Orinoco River, when I was attacked by Indians with poisoned darts, I put three of them to sleep with my bare fists and nothing else!”
“Oh, out there — that don’t count. Anythin’ can happen in them sort o’ places. It’s over here that matters to most of us. An’ if you was to kill a man in England with nothin’ but your bare fists, you’d be copped by the police the next day and sent to swing within three months.”
“Perhaps,” he answered cautiously. “Perhaps not.” He was glad that the little man was preparing for another of his plaintive interventions. He heard him say: “She’s right, mister — if you don’t mind me sayin’ so. A feller with your strength might easily kill a chap, but the trouble begins afterwards when the cops are out agin you.”
So the little man was turning on him, too? Ah, well, he knew how to deal with him. A little heavy sarcasm. “Cops, eh? So you’re afraid of them, are you?”
“I daresay I might be, mister, if I’d done a murder.”
“Murder! Murder? Who in the name of ten thousand devils was talking about murder?” For the moment his heart stopped beating — then raced on faster than ever as his brain came to the rescue. Murder?... Very well, if they wanted to talk about it, he’d show them. He said, with studied insolence in voice and manner, “Oh, you would be afraid, naturally, whether you’d done a murder or not. You were born that way.”
He waited for the general laugh and then continued, gathering impetus: “But let me tell you, sir, that the Man who is sure of Himself — the Man, that is, who is a Man in the fullest sense of the word” (he had used that phrase before, but no matter) — “that Man, I say, is not afraid of the police or of anything or anybody in the whole world!” He paused impressively, enjoying the echoes of his voice.
“You mean, mister, that a man oughter be able to do a murder an’ not be found out?”
“I mean, sir, that a man ought to be Successful. That’s my creed — my rule of life. If he commits murder, it ought to be a successful murder. And the successful murder isn’t found out.”
“You think it possible, then, mister?”
“Possible? Of course it’s possible. Everything in this world is possible to the Man who knows his job. What do you suppose happens when a fellow pulls off a really well-planned affair?”
“You think the police don’t get him?”
“My good man, the police aren’t even called in. Nobody dreams of ’em. The Verdict is Accident, maybe, or perhaps even Suicide. I tell you, sir, the battle is half lost when the word murder is first mentioned.”
“ ’Alf lost? You mean ’alf won, mister?”
“Won? No — lost, of course. Oh, well, looking at it from the police point of view, naturally...” He signalled for another drink. “Bah — the police — what are they? They ain’t got an idea in their heads, most of ’em.”
“Ah, but mister, they gets ’old of ideas, some’ow. It’s a queer thing, the way they gets ’old of clues an’ things. Now my cousin’s brother-in-law’s at Scotland Yard, and ’e tells me some o’ the things that goes on.”
“And you believe him, of course. You would. Naturally what a policeman says about himself is very pleasant to hear. But all the time they know — they all know from experience — that the well-planned crime is never found out!”
He stopped, rather wondering what he had been talking about. He was being pretty eloquent, anyhow — he could see how closely he had seized on the attention of the whole room. Ah, yes, the question of crime and being found out — funny sort of argument to have, but taproom conversations did lead up to queer things. He took a gulp of neat whisky and added, “Yes, sir, there are men walking the streets of this country to-day, respected and worthy citizens, who, if the truth were known, would be queuing up for the scaffold. If the truth were known, mark you. But it isn’t. And it never will be. The affair was well planned.”
“Though they say, mister, that somethin’ always gives you away.”
“Not if you’ve a ha’porth of brains,” he snapped, contemptuously. “Of course, if you haven’t, you’d better lead a respectable life.” He laughed loudly and finished his glass. Strange how he had been driven to lecture a barparlour on such a topic! “Same again, George,” he muttered.
The woman was smiling at him provokingly. “Seems to me, then, young fellow, that if I ever want to kill anybody I’d better come to you for advice?”
She was still half-mocking him, but he could see the light of admiration winning through again. It exhilarated him, made him want to renew his conquest to the full. “Well, m’dear, it’s not for me to say — but I guess I can give most people good advice about most things.”