Читать книгу The Evil That Men Do - M.P. Shiel - Страница 6

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Down the long hill trudges Hartwell, his eyes bent upon the ground in gloomy reverie, and now this thought occurs to him whether, on the strength of the resemblance between him and Drayton, it might not be a good thing to turn back and beg a shilling of the rich man. He had never begged before—but hunger and weariness grow pressing—

He regrets the idea, but it recurs, and he is again considering it, his eyes on the ground, when he strikes upon something, and his walk is brought to a stoppage. What is it? a cart lying across the road, no horse, no driver. It lies tilted, like a stranded ship, one of the wheels is off.

It is the manure cart of the laborer who left "The Anchor," fuddled, when Drayton and McCalmont entered it. We said that they should overtake them, and they did; we said that he should overtake them again, and he has, while they dine at Aylsham; but they shall overtake him again—or, at least, his cart.

"But the dolt!" thinks Hartwell, "to leave the cart in the middle of the road this dark night!"

At the breakdown the driver has unspanned, mounted the horse with all its hames and trailing harness, and gone on to his farm near Marsham to seek help, for he cannot move the cart: and he has gone at a walk, happy, singing, and full of hot spiced ale.

Hartwell walks round the cart, lingering, thinking what to do. He decides to return to Aylsham, and tell some one. But as he turns to climb, he hears, he sees—with an alarm which quickly grows into horror. There is a humming song somewhere, then two dragon eyes quick coming, and above the dragon eyes two little adder eyes, clear cut, in the darkness—the glowing ends of two cigars. At 25 miles an hour they come. Hartwell forgets his vow to do no good.

"Stop!" he howls, waving, red-faced, running a little up. He implores as for his own life, "Danger! Stop!"

But in vain. If they hear, they do not understand, nor heed. There is no time. Drayton has fuddled himself at dinner that he may forget what lies in the gutter behind "The Anchor." On hums the motor, and suddenly Hartwell is no more shouting to save others, but skedaddling to save his own skin—down again to the cart—beyond it—like one pelting from pestilence. Nor does he stop till he hears behind him the shock—a bumping hubbub, then a rattling and throbbing—and his eye-corner catches sight of a sheet of flame vanishing like lightning flash into the dark.

Then all is still—all but the wind. Drayton has gone to meet Letty Barnes.

It was the high side of the tilted cart that had been turned to the motor, but even so, McCalmont has been shot clean over it, a long way, like an arrow; and when Hartwell turns back toward the scene of the ruin, it is upon McCalmont that he first comes. He finds that the dead man's head has made quite a hole in the ground, and his neck is obviously broken. Everything can be seen, for the car has ignited in one spot, and yonder on the road and in the roadside field are several flames dodging about from the rain, as petroleum does on contact with water.

Going on to the cart, Harwell finds it bottom upward, some fifteen feet from where it stood before. It has been turned over and over, and half of its substance is matchwood. The motor is still jammed into it, and looks shorter, tilted sideways, and twisted. The two lights are gone, the font tires burst, and everything in front of the steering pillar and dash board is a chaos of dripping debris.

Drayton's body is still in the car, but no longer on the front seat. He is lying in an ungainly pose across the back seat, with one foot up on the back of the front seat. Little more remains of his face than the beard; unlike McCalmont, he has dived head foremost against the cart, and been tossed by it like a ball.

"Dead as two nails—" mutters Hartwell.

He himself is rather dazed—the calamity here is so pitiful. He walks a little to and fro, not knowing what to do. Thinking that the driver of the cart may come, he peers along the road, trotting a little this way and that—. No driver comes. All is solitude and aglow from the jumping fires. Some night bird flies across between the Lombardy poplars that line the road. On the east is a stretch of bracken, with a pond, on the west a hilly field, with a rick on the top, just discernible. Some minutes pass. Hartwell, waiting, shivers with cold.

The next definite thought borne on his head is this: that he, for his part, will not fail of bed and board this night, that there is money, watches, on these dead men and it is an ill wind that blows no one any good—

He does not delay. He, too, as we said of Drayton, is a man of action. He approaches Drayton to despoil him and now he thinks: "this is the one that is my twin—"

But at that thought he stops and turns as white as McCalmont yonder. His teeth chatter as at some blast of Arctic cold. For a time he is like one struck into stone, then he is pacing curiously this way and that, bent sideways, one hand pressed into his pocket, the other shouldering his stick. He has invented—

And all of a sudden he is in a passion of haste, a storm of action. He is in the car, not yet well ignited, on the back seat beside Drayton, undressing him; and quick and keen is the work. He has off collar and tie—coat—throws off the braces, shirt, vest, and now the boots—they are laced—pitifully slow. Now he whips off the trousers, drawers. The earnest labor of his bosom is hoarser than the storm, but the dead limbs are still limp, and lend themselves readily to that tugging and hustling. All is well, that wild glance discerns no one on the road. The dead man is naked, the clothes lie in a heap on the seat.

In some seconds now Hartwell himself is naked to the waist and in two minutes he has on the dead man's vest and shirt, collar and tie. Then, ceasing to dress himself, he dresses Drayton in his own rags. His hands, all that he touches, are smeared—so much the better.

He returns to his own dressing again, tosses off his nether garments, puts on Drayton's, then dresses Drayton in his own rags. In proportion, as he becomes Drayton, so Drayton becomes he. Finally he puts on Drayton's socks, boots, ring, gloves, and Drayton has on his. He does not use Drayton's hat: he will do without a hat. He casts his own cap, stick, and bundle away.

Now he leaves the car, drags out the dead man, and places him on the ground under the front wheels of the motor, between motor and cart. It will seem to the world that McCalmont and an unknown tramp have been killed in the accident, but that Drayton has escaped. Hartwell will be Drayton.

He stands a little, recovering wind. The work is done. No one comes along the road. After a time he starts to trudge back up the hill, bareheaded, but warm and rich, toward Aylsham, a new man, in a wildly new world, with a new name. But what name? That will be well: there are papers in the dead man's pocket. He feels first in the lower coat pockets—that warm coat—but there he finds only some shreds of paper, the shreds of the letter which Letty Barnes wrote to Lady Methwold against Drayton. But in the trouser are a bunch of keys, in the breast pockets many papers that will be well about the name and other things. He feels his strength, he knows that he is sagacious, trusts in himself at bottom—

And as to the purse? That is well also. It contains two sovereigns, and five bank notes. He will feast to-night—he will say that the accident has made him hungry afresh. He vaguely wonders if one can get champagne in Aylsham, and by the time he is half way up the hill that has become a care to him, he is not for the moment in a condition of sanity. He wheels on all the whirlwinds—

He thinks that if he only had Bobby with him, that would intensify the pleasure...to see him eat and eat—But he stops short at another thought. "Starting from to-night," he has said, "I will serve you—only cloy me—" His fingers touch his brow. But it soon passes! He laughs audibly: he is not a child.

Moving on again, it occurs to him that it might be well to have a bruise somewhere. With a stone he strikes his forehead, a good hard blow which he hardly feels. And now he laughs again—a laugh cynical, defiant, triumphant; then immediately his teeth beat together with ague. But he pulls himself together, proceeds up the hill, and is soon in Aylsham.

So began the drama of love and pain, which we have to tell.