I waited before I tried the street door, thinking of the countless times I had come here—and knowing I should never come again. At last I lifted the latch. The door was not locked.
I paused in the passage, then shut the door silently and went up the steep narrow stairs.
She had insisted on giving me a key, although I had no use for it, as I always telephoned before visiting her. Then I forgot all about the key and decided to smoke a cigarette. I lit a match—and saw that the door of the flat was half-open.
Evidently she was not alone, so it would be useless to go in. I could not have said why it would be useless, but had no doubt about it.
I went nearer.
No sound of voices. Silence! Then I noticed a thin line of light under the bedroom door. She was awake! Instantly I realised that I had counted on her being asleep.
I went into the hall.
Several minutes passed.
Suddenly, a clock near me struck four. Each stroke sounded like a shattering explosion. I was certain the whole street would be roused. Then—silence. Silence so profound that I could hear the ticking of my watch.
I went into her bedroom.
The light by the side of the bed, and the one over the dressing-table, were both on. Her clothes hung over the back of a chair. Evidently she had fallen asleep while waiting for someone, because she was lying on the bed in a nightdress and negligée. The book she had been reading had fallen to the floor. A small electric fire was burning.
I stood at the foot of the bed. For the first time, I looked at her without desire. Had she altered, or did sleep transform her? The chestnut hair was more beautiful than my memories of it: I had forgotten that her eyelashes were so long. Was this the Carol who had fired sexual imagination? This child? It was impossible! And yet, if she woke, would anything exist but her slender seductive body?
Hatred flamed through me and I turned away.
Then I noticed that, since my last visit, a painting of mine which she had mysteriously acquired had been brought into this room. It was a study of a river scene in Devonshire. Formerly, it had hung in the sitting-room. She had told me that Antony Lawless had given it to her, but I did not know if it were true and had never mentioned the subject to him. Why had she brought it into this room? It was maddening that she possessed it! She knew nothing about the Max Arnold who had painted it!
While I looked round, it again occurred to me that someone with taste must have advised her about decoration, because the white painted walls and the green furniture transformed the common-place room. Perhaps Lawless had given her some hints, but I did not know, because his relations with her have always been a mystery, especially as I was certain they were not lovers.
Suddenly, I knew why I had come here! Knew with absolute certainty—without the least shiver of fear. Yes, of course, that was why I had come here to-night!
I felt freer now that I knew. I discovered that, unconsciously, I had known for a long time it would end like this. It could only end like this.
I turned and looked at her, in much the same way as a prisoner looks at his cell for the last time.
There was a dagger on the mantelpiece—a relic of a fancy-dress ball, but a real dagger none the less. I had often handled it.
I picked it up, felt the point, then buried it in her heart.
She gave a choking gasp, writhed convulsively—and fell back on the pillow.
It did not occur to me that I was a murderer. She was dead—and I was looking at her. My emotions were not involved. It all seemed nothing to do with me.
I did not hurry to get away. I went to the chair and stared at her clothes. I picked up her vest, her stockings, her dress. Each had an anonymous air. Once, they had been uniquely hers; now they were anyone’s.
I left the room exactly as I had found it; went slowly down the steep stairs; then out into the street.
I did not stop to listen, and I did not care whether I met anyone or not. As I walked through the alley, I lit a cigarette. If anything, the fog was thicker. I passed no one and heard nothing.
When I got back to the flat, I had a drink, undressed, and went to bed.
Then a voice, which was Carol’s, and not Carol’s, whispered:
“Max! . . . Max.”
And then I woke. . . .
That was the dream.
Chapter Two
DISCOVERY
That was the dream—and I re-lived it again in the expectation that it would lose its mesmeric quality, but the effect was the reverse and I eventually decided that it would continue to haunt me so long as I remained alone, in the flat.
I crossed to the window, then looked out.
Even the weather made the grotesque seem the real—fog distorted houses, streets, passers-by. The ghost of the familiar confronted me, not the solid contours of the normal. The sound of the traffic was unsubstantial; footsteps echoed eerily; the still-born day had the aspect of a dream.
I went out just before noon and walked rapidly towards Hyde Park Corner. The vigorous movement had a tranquillising effect and before long the everyday world was real enough, despite the shrouding fog. When I reached Hyde Park Corner, visibility had improved and, as I began to walk towards Piccadilly, the terror I had felt on waking seemed far-away and ridiculous. By the time I got to the Ritz, the only survival of the dream was the exhilarating certainty that my relations with Carol had ended.
I bought a midday paper, put it in my pocket, then walked on towards the Circus, having decided to have a drink at a café before lunching at the Oasis.
Owing to illness, I had not been to the Oasis Club for some time. It had been damaged by raids, and the war had swept members far and wide, but it still retained its essential character. It had been founded about fifty years ago and the chief qualification for membership was unorthodoxy or, preferably, originality. The Nomination Committee had consistently applied this somewhat difficult principle of selection, with the result that the Oasis was a unique institution. In one way, the war had enhanced its attraction because there was always a chance that you would run into a friend you had not seen for years. A member had said that the club resembled the next world in this respect. Although I belonged to several clubs, the Oasis was my favourite and I looked forward to lunching there after an absence of many weeks.
The fog was thicker at Piccadilly Circus. You could not see more than a hundred yards. The cosmopolitan throng on the damp pavements had a refugee dejection, while the bewildered expression of several American soldiers showed that they had arrived only recently and were encountering fog for the first time.
I stopped outside the London Pavilion, took the midday paper from my pocket, then glanced at the headlines.
The Russians were near Budapest. The Allies would be able to use Antwerp in a few days. A quarter of Holland was under water. V 2’s falling in Southern England. The war had reached its sixth year. Europe was still writing its epitaph in its own blood.
I glanced at the Stop Press.
I began to tremble so violently that I had difficulty in rereading the sentence.
Norton. Yes, that was the surname, but—but——
Front page! That’s what it said! Front page!
Early this morning a young woman was found stabbed in a flat at Mitre Street, Chelsea. There was no evidence of robbery and no sign of a struggle. An unusual feature of the case is that the door of the flat was open and the street door unlocked. The police are investigating.