Part 16 (2/2)

”Oh!” I said.

I don't know that I specially wanted him. It's a little wearing, the company of a chap like that. You never know what he's going to let you in for next. But, as this didn't seem to occur to him, I didn't say anything. If he really liked catching the last train down, a three-mile walk, and then sharing a double-bedded room at a poor sort of alehouse (which was my own programme), he was welcome. We walked a little farther; then I told him the time of the train and left him.

He turned up at Euston, a little after twelve. We went down together. It was getting on for one when we left the station at the other end, and then we began the tramp across the Weald to the inn. A little to my surprise (for I had begun to expect unaccountable behaviour from him) we reached the inn without Rooum having dodged about changing places with me, or having fallen cowering under a gorse-bush, or anything of that kind. Our talk, too, was about work, not molecules and osmosis.

The inn was only a roadside beerhouse--I have forgotten its name--and all its sleeping accomodation was the one double-bedded room. Over the head of my own bed the ceiling was cut away, following the roof-line; and the wallpaper was perfectly shocking--faded bouquets that made V's and A's, interlacing everywhere. The other bed was made up, and lay across the room.

I think I only spoke once while we were making ready for bed, and that was when Rooum took from his black hand-bag a brush and a torn nightgown.

”That's what you always carry about, is it?” I remarked; and Rooum grunted something: Yes ... never knew where you'd be next ... no harm, was it? We tumbled into bed.

But, for all the lateness of the hour, I wasn't sleepy; so from my own bag I took a book, set the candle on the end of the mantel, and began to read. Mark you, I don't say I was much better informed for the reading I did, for I was watching the V's on the wallpaper mostly--that, and wondering what was wrong with the man in the other bed who had fallen down at a touch in the subway. He was already asleep.

Now I don't know whether I can make the next clear to you. I'm quite certain he was sound asleep, so that it wasn't just the fact that he spoke. Even that is a little unpleasant, I always think, any sort of sleep-talking; but it's a very queer sort of sensation when a man actually answers a question that's put to him, knowing nothing whatever about it in the morning. Perhaps I ought not to have put that question; having put it, I did the next best thing afterwards, as you'll see in a moment ... but let me tell you.

He'd been asleep perhaps an hour, and I woolgathering about the wallpaper, when suddenly, in a far more clear and loud voice than he ever used when awake, he said:

_”What the devil is it prevents me seeing him, then?”_

That startled me, rather, for the second time that evening; and I really think I had spoken before I had fully realised what was happening.

”From seeing whom?” I said, sitting up in bed.

”Whom?... You're not attending. The fellow I'm telling you about, who runs after me,” he answered--answered perfectly plainly.

I could see his head there on the pillow, black and white, and his eyes were closed. He made a slight movement with his arm, but that did not wake him. Then it came to me, with a sort of start, what was happening. I slipped half out of bed. Would he--would he?--answer another question?... I risked it, breathlessly:

”Have you any idea who he is?”

Well, that too he answered.

”Who he is? The Runner?... Don't be silly. _Who else should it be?_”

With every nerve in me tingling, I tried again.

”What happens, then, when he catches you?”

This time, I really don't know whether his words were an answer or not; they were these:

”To hear him catching you up ... and then padding away ahead again! All right, all right ... but I guess it's weakening him a bit, too....”

Without noticing it, I had got out of bed, and had advanced quite to the middle of the floor.

”What did you say his name was?” I breathed.

But that was a dead failure. He muttered brokenly for a moment, gave a deep troubled sigh, and then began to snore loudly and regularly.

I made my way back to bed; but I a.s.sure you that before I did so I filled my basin with water, dipped my face into it, and then set the candlestick afloat in it, leaving the candle burning. I thought I'd like to have a light.... It had burned down by morning. Rooum, I remember, remarked on the silly practice of reading in bed.

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