Part 45 (1/2)

As he walked he made plans. When he had drawn his money he would breakfast at a restaurant, he fixed upon Romanos', eggs and bacon and sausages, coffee and hot rolls would be the _menu_. Then he fell to wondering whether Romanos' would be open for breakfast, or whether it was of the type of restaurant that only serves luncheons and dinners. If it were, then he could breakfast at the Charing Cross Hotel.

These considerations led him a good distance on his way. Then the Mile End Road beguiled him, lying straight and foreign looking, and empty in the sunlight. The Barometer man's weather apparatus must have been at fault, for in all the sky there was not a cloud, nor the symptom of the coming of a cloud.

Away down near the docks, a clock over a public house pointed to half past seven, and he judged it time to return.

He came back. The Mile End Road was still deserted, the city round the bank was dest.i.tute of life, Fleet Street empty.

Pompeii lay not more utterly dead than this weird city of vast business palaces, and the Strand shewed nothing of life or almost nothing, every shop was shuttered though now it was close upon nine o'clock.

Something had happened to London, some blight had fallen on the inhabitants, death seemed everywhere, not seen but hinted at. Stray recollections of weird stories by H. G. Wells pa.s.sed through the mind of Jones. He recalled the city of London when the Martians had done with it, that city of death, and horror, and sunlight and silence.

Then of a sudden, as he neared the Law Courts, the appalling truth suddenly suggested itself to him.

He walked up to a policeman on point of duty at a corner, a policeman who seemed under the mesmerism of the general gloom and blight, a policeman who might have been the blue concrete core of negation.

”Say, officer,” said Jones, ”what day's to-day?”

”Sunday,” said the policeman.

CHAPTER x.x.x

A JUST MAN ANGERED

When things are piled one on top of another beyond a certain height, they generally come down with a crash.

That one word ”Sunday” was the last straw for Jones, sweeping away breakfast, bank and everything; coming on top of the events of the last twenty-four hours, it brought his mental complacency to ruin, ruin from which shot blazing jets of wrath.

Red rage filled him. He had been made game of, every man and everything was against him. Well, he would bite. He would strike. He would attack, careless of everything, heedless of everything.

A mesmerised looking taxi-cab, crawling along on the opposite side of the way, fortunately caught his eye.

”I'll make hay!” cried Jones, as he rushed across the street. He stopped the cab.

”10A, Carlton House Terrace,” he cried to the driver. He got in and shut the door with a bang.

He got out at Carlton House Terrace, ran up the steps of 10A, and rang the bell.

The door was opened by the man who had helped to eject Spicer. He did not seem in the least surprised to see Jones.

”Pay that taxi,” said Jones.

”Yes, my Lord,” replied the flunkey.

Jones turned to the breakfast-room. The faint smell of coffee met him at the door as he opened it. There were no servants in the room. Only a woman quietly breakfasting with the Life of St. Thomas a Kempis by her plate.

It was Venetia Birdbrook.

She half rose from her chair when she saw Jones. He shut the door. The sight of Venetia acted upon him almost as badly as the word ”Sunday” had done.