Five Tales | Page 9

a minister of religion once."
Laurence held out a shilling. But the man shook his head.
"Keep your money," he said. "I've got more than you to-day, I daresay.
But thank you for taking a little interest. That's worth more than money
to a man that's down."
"You're right."
"Yes," the rusty voice went on; "I'd as soon die as go on living as I do.

And now I've lost my self-respect. Often wondered how long a starving
man could go without losing his self-respect. Not so very long. You
take my word for that." And without the slightest change in the
monotony of that creaking voice he added:
"Did you read of the murder? Just here. I've been looking at the place."
The words: 'So have I!' leaped up to Laurence's lips; he choked them
down with a sort of terror.
"I wish you better luck," he said. "Goodnight!" and hurried away. A
sort of ghastly laughter was forcing its way up in his throat. Was
everyone talking of the murder he had committed? Even the very
scarecrows?

III
There are some natures so constituted that, due to be hung at ten o'clock,
they will play chess at eight. Such men invariably rise. They make
especially good bishops, editors, judges, impresarios, Prime ministers,
money-lenders, and generals; in fact, fill with exceptional credit any
position of power over their fellow-men. They have spiritual cold
storage, in which are preserved their nervous systems. In such men
there is little or none of that fluid sense and continuity of feeling known
under those vague terms, speculation, poetry, philosophy. Men of facts
and of decision switching imagination on and off at will, subordinating
sentiment to reason... one does not think of them when watching wind
ripple over cornfields, or swallows flying.
Keith Darrant had need for being of that breed during his dinner at the
Tellassons. It was just eleven when he issued from the big house in
Portland Place and refrained from taking a cab. He wanted to walk that
he might better think. What crude and wanton irony there was in his
situation! To have been made father-confessor to a murderer, he- -well
on towards a judgeship! With his contempt for the kind of weakness
which landed men in such abysses, he felt it all so sordid, so
"impossible," that he could hardly bring his mind to bear on it at all.
And yet he must, because of two powerful instincts--self- preservation
and blood-loyalty.
The wind had still the sapping softness of the afternoon, but rain had
held off so far. It was warm, and he unbuttoned his fur overcoat. The
nature of his thoughts deepened the dark austerity of his face, whose

thin, well-cut lips were always pressing together, as if, by meeting, to
dispose of each thought as it came up. He moved along the crowded
pavements glumly. That air of festive conspiracy which drops with the
darkness on to lighted streets, galled him. He turned off on a darker
route.
This ghastly business! Convinced of its reality, he yet could not see it.
The thing existed in his mind, not as a picture, but as a piece of
irrefutable evidence. Larry had not meant to do it, of course. But it was
murder, all the same. Men like Larry--weak, impulsive, sentimental,
introspective creatures--did they ever mean what they did? This man,
this Walenn, was, by all accounts, better dead than alive; no need to
waste a thought on him! But, crime--the ugliness--Justice unsatisfied!
Crime concealed--and his own share in the concealment! And
yet--brother to brother! Surely no one could demand action from him!
It was only a question of what he was going to advise Larry to do. To
keep silent, and disappear? Had that a chance of success? Perhaps if the
answers to his questions had been correct. But this girl! Suppose the
dead man's relationship to her were ferreted out, could she be relied on
not to endanger Larry? These women were all the same, unstable as
water, emotional, shiftless pests of society. Then, too, a crime
untracked, dogging all his brother's after life; a secret following him
wherever he might vanish to; hanging over him, watching for some
drunken moment, to slip out of his lips. It was bad to think of. A clean
breast of it? But his heart twitched within him. "Brother of Mr. Keith
Darrant, the wellknown King's Counsel"--visiting a woman of the town,
strangling with his bare hands the woman's husband! No intention to
murder, but--a dead man! A dead man carried out of the house, laid
under a dark archway! Provocation! Recommended to mercy--penal
servitude for life! Was that the advice he was going to give Larry
to-morrow morning?
And he had a sudden vision of shaven men with clay-coloured features,