Part 15 (1/2)

”Well, darling, when Miss Madvig came-” He faltered, stopped, a grey-faced man who s.h.i.+vered before the look in his wife's eyes and put his hands over his face again.

V.

Eloise Mathews and Ned Beaumont were alone in the large ground-floor room, sitting, in chairs a few feet apart, with the fireplace in front of them. She was bent forward, looking with tragic eyes at the last burning log. His legs were crossed. One of his arms was hooked over the back of his chair. He smoked a cigar and watched her surrept.i.tiously.

The stairs creaked and her husband came half-way down them. He was fully clothed except that he had taken off his collar. His necktie, partially loosened, hung outside his vest. He said: ”Darling, won't you come to bed? It's midnight.”

She did not move.

He said: ”Mr. Beaumont, will you-?”

Ned Beaumont, when his name was spoken, turned his face towards the man on the stairs, a face cruelly placid. When Mathews's voice broke, Ned Beaumont returned his attention to his cigar and Mathews's wife.

After a little while Mathews went upstairs again.

Eloise Mathews spoke without taking her gaze from the fire. ”There is some whisky in the chest. Will you get it?”

”Surely.” He found the whisky and brought it to her, then found some gla.s.ses. ”Straight?” he asked.

She nodded. Her round b.r.e.a.s.t.s were moving the red silk of her dress irregularly with her breathing.

He poured two large drinks.

She did not look up from the fire until he had put one gla.s.s in her hand. When she looked up she smiled, crookedly, twisting her heavily rouged exquisite thin lips sidewise. Her eyes, reflecting red light from the fire, were too bright.

He smiled down at her.

She lifted her gla.s.s and said, cooing: ”To my husband!”

Ned Beaumont said, ”No,” casually and tossed the contents of his gla.s.s into the fireplace, where it sputtered and threw dancing flames up.

She laughed in delight and jumped to her feet. ”Pour another,” she ordered.

He picked the bottle up from the floor and refilled his gla.s.s.

She lifted hers high over her head. ”To you!”

They drank. She shuddered.

”Better take something with it or after it,” he suggested.

She shook her head. ”I want it that way.” She put a hand on his arm and turned her back to the fire, standing close beside him. ”Let's bring that bench over here.”

”That's an idea,” he agreed.

They moved the chairs from in front of the fireplace and brought the bench there, he carrying one end, she the other. The bench was broad, low, backless.

”Now turn off the lights,” she said.

He did so. When he returned to the bench she was sitting on it pouring whisky into their gla.s.ses.

”To you, this time,” he said and they drank and she shuddered.

He sat beside her. They were rosy in the glow from the fireplace.

The stairs creaked and her husband came down them. He halted on the bottom step and said: ”Please, darling!”

She whispered in Ned Beaumont's ear, savagely: ”Throw something at him.”

Ned Beaumont chuckled.

She picked up the whisky-bottle and said: ”Where's your gla.s.s?”

While she was filling their gla.s.ses Mathews went upstairs.

She gave Ned Beaumont his gla.s.s and touched it with her own. Her eyes were wild in the red glow. A lock of dark hair had come loose and was down across her brow. She breathed through her mouth, panting softly. ”To us!” she said.

They drank. She let her empty gla.s.s fall and came into his arms. Her mouth was to his when she shuddered. The fallen gla.s.s broken noisily on the wooden floor. Ned Beaumont's eyes were narrow, crafty. Hers were shut tight.

They had not moved when the stairs creaked. Ned Beaumont did not move then. She tightened her thin arms around him. He could not see the stairs. Both of them were breathing heavily now.

Then the stairs creaked again and, shortly afterwards, they drew their heads apart, though they kept their arms about one another. Ned Beaumont looked at the stairs. n.o.body was there.

Eloise Mathews slid her hand up the back of his head, running her fingers through his hair, digging her nails into his scalp. Her eyes were not now altogether closed. They were laughing dark slits. ”Life's like that,” she said in a small bitter mocking voice, leaning back on the bench, drawing him with her, drawing his mouth to hers.

They were in that position when they heard the shot.

Ned Beaumont was out of her arms and on his feet immediately. ”His room?” he asked sharply.

She blinked at him in dumb terror.

”His room?” he repeated.

She moved a feeble hand. ”In front,” she said thickly.

He ran to the stairs and went up in long leaps. At the head of the stairs he came face to face with the apish Jeff, dressed except for his shoes, blinking sleep out of his swollen eyes. Jeff put a hand to his hip, put the other hand out to stop Ned Beaumont, and growled: ”Now what's all this?”

Ned avoided the outstretched hand, slid past it, and drove his left fist into the apish muzzle. Jeff staggered back snarling. Ned Beaumont sprang past him and ran towards the front of the building. O'Rory came out of another room and ran behind him.

From downstairs came Mrs. Mathews's scream.

Ned Beaumont flung a door open and stopped. Mathews lay on his back on the bedroom-floor under a lamp. His mouth was open and a little blood had trickled from it. One of his arms was thrown out across the floor. The other lay on his chest. Over against the wall, where the outstretched arm seemed to be pointing at it, was a dark revolver. On a table by the window was a bottle of ink-its stopper upside down beside it-a pen, and a sheet of paper. A chair stood close to the table, facing it.

Shad O'Rory pushed past Ned Beaumont and knelt beside the man on the floor. While he was there Ned Beaumont, behind him, swiftly glanced at the paper on the table, then thrust it into his pocket.

Jeff came in, followed by Rusty, naked.

O'Rory stood up and spread his hands apart in a little gesture of finality. ”Shot himself through the roof of the mouth,” he said. ”Finis.”

Ned Beaumont turned and went out of the room. In the hall he met Opal Madvig.