As they were going up, he said kindly1, "Are you sure you are wise in doing this? I fear—I fear the worst, Mrs. Winslow!"
With dry lips she muttered, "Yes, so do I. But I would rather come all the same. I'll wait outside the door."
Poor Katty! She was telling herself that it was surely impossible—impossible that Godfrey Pavely should be dead.
Though his vitality2 had always been low, he had been intensely individual. His self-importance, his egoism, his lack of interest in anything but himself, Katty, and the little world where he played so important a part—all that had made him a forceful personality, especially to this woman who had possessed3 whatever he had had of heart and passionate4 feeling. She had felt of late as if he were indeed part of the warp5 and woof of her life, and deep in her scheming mind had grown a kind of superstitious6 belief that sooner or later their lives would become one.
The thought that he might be lying dead in this great new building filled her with a sort of sick horror. There seemed something at once so futile7 and so hideously8 cruel about so stupid an accident as that described in the Portuguese9 financier's letter.
[Pg 243] They stepped out on to a top landing, from which branched off several narrow corridors. The agent led the way down one of these. "Room No. 18? This must be it—this is it! Look, there are the two keyholes!"
The younger and the brawnier of the two plainclothes detectives came forward. "If you'll just stand aside, gentlemen, for a minute or two, we'll soon get this door open. It's quite an easy matter."
He opened his unobtrusive-looking, comparatively small bag. There was a sound of wrenching10 wood and metal, and then the door swung backwards11 into the room together with a thick green velvet12 curtain fixed13 along the top of the door on a hinged rod.
A flood of wintry sunshine, thrown by the blinking now setting sun of a London January afternoon, streamed into the dark passage, and Sir Angus Kinross strode forward into the room, Lord St. Amant immediately behind him.
Katty shrank back and then placed herself by the wall of the passage. She put her hand over her eyes, as if to shut out a dreadful sight, yet all there was to see was an open door through which came a shaft14 of pallid15 wintry afternoon light.
For a space of perhaps thirty seconds, Sir Angus's trained eyes and mind took in what he supposed to be every detail of the oblong room overlooking the now bare tree tops of the Green Park. He noted16 that the office furniture was extremely good—first-rate of its kind. Also that the most prominent thing in the room was an American roll-top desk of an exceptionally large size.
[Pg 244] Placed at right angles right across the office, this desk concealed17 nearly half the room.
In the corner behind the door was a coat stand, on which there hung a heavy, fur-lined coat, and a silk hat. On the floor was a thick carpet. The only unbroken space of wall was covered by a huge diagram map of what looked like a piece of sea shore.
One peculiar18 fact also attracted the attention of the Commissioner19 of Police. Both the windows overlooking the Park were wide open, fixed securely back as far as they would go: and on the window seats, comfortably, nay20 luxuriously21, padded, and upholstered in green velvet, there now lay a thick layer of grime, the effect of the fog and rain of the last fortnight. As they stood within the door, in spite of those widely opened windows, there gradually stole on the senses of the four men there, a very curious odour, an odour which struck each of them as horribly significant.
Yet another thing Sir Angus noted in that quick, initial glance; this was that the blind of the narrow window which gave on to the street side of Duke House was drawn22 down, casting one half of the room in deep shadow.
He turned, and addressing Lord St. Amant in a very low voice, almost in a whisper, he said: "I think we shall find what we have come to seek over there, behind that desk."
Walking forward, he edged round by the side of the big piece of walnut23 wood furniture.
Then he started back, and exclaimed under his breath, "Good God! How horrible!"
He had thought to see a body lying at full length [Pg 245] on the carpet, but what he did see, sitting upright at the desk, was a stark24, immobile figure, of which the head, partly blown away, was sunk forward on the breast....
Great care had been taken to wedge the dead man securely back in the arm-chair, and a cursory25 glance, in the dim light in which that part of the room was cast, would have given an impression of sleep, not of death.
He beckoned26 to Lord St. Amant. "Come over here," he whispered, "you needn't go any nearer. Do you recognise that as being the body of Godfrey Pavely?"
And Lord St. Amant, hastening forward, stared with a mixture of curiosity and horror at the still figure, and answered, "Yes. I—I think there's no doubt about it's being Pavely."
"Perhaps you'd better go and tell Mrs. Winslow. Get her away as quick as you can. I must telephone at once for one of our doctors."
Lord St. Amant turned without a word, and made his way through the still open door into the queer, rather dark passage.
Katty's face was still full of the strain and anguish27 of suspense28, but she knew the truth by now. Had nothing been found, some one would have come rushing out at once to tell her so. Three or four minutes had elapsed since she had heard the sudden hush29, the ominous30 silence, which had fallen over them all, in there.
Her lips formed the words: "Then—they've found him?"
And Lord St. Amant nodded gravely. "It looks as if that Portuguese chap had told the simple truth."
"The moment that I read the letter this morning I [Pg 246] knew that it was true," she muttered. Then, "I suppose I'd better go away now? They don't want me here."
She began walking towards the lift, and Lord St. Amant, following, felt very sorry for her. "Look here," he said earnestly, "I'm sure you don't wish to go straight back to poor Laura Pavely? Why should you? 'Twould only rack you. I suppose——" He stopped a moment, and she looked up at him questioningly.
"Yes, Lord St. Amant—what is it you suppose?"
Katty spoke31 in a cold, hard voice—all her small affectations had fallen away from her.
"I suppose," he said, "that Laura knew very little of your friendship with poor Godfrey Pavely?"
And she answered, again in that hard, cold voice, "Yes, Laura did know, I think, almost everything there was to know. She didn't care—she didn't mind. Laura has no feeling."
As he made no reply to that, she went on, rather breathlessly, and with sudden passion, "You think that I'm unfair—you think that Laura really cares because she looked so shocked and miserable32 this morning? But that's just what she was—shocked, nothing else. What is a piece of terrible, terrible bad luck for me, is good—very good luck for Laura!"
There was such concentrated bitterness in her tone that Lord St. Amant felt repelled—repelled as well as sorry.
But all he said was: "Would you like to go back to my rooms for an hour or two? They're quite near here."
"No, I'd rather face Laura now, at once. After all, [Pg 247] I shall have to see her some time. I'm bound to be her nearest neighbour for a while, at any rate."
Late that same night the awful news was broken to Mrs. Tropenell by her son. He had sent a message saying he would be down by the last train, and she had sat up for him, knowing nothing, yet aware that something had happened that morning which had sent Laura and Katty hurrying up to town.
Perhaps because the news he told was so unexpected, so strange, and to them both of such vital moment, the few minutes which followed Oliver's return remained stamped, as if branded with white hot iron, on the tablets of Mrs. Tropenell's memory.
When she heard his firm, hurried footsteps outside, she ran to let him in, and at once, as he came into the house, he said in a harsh, cold voice: "Godfrey Pavely is dead, mother. A foreigner with whom he had entered into business relations shot him by accident. The man wrote to Laura a confession33 of what he had done. She got the letter this morning, took it up to London to the police—the best thing she could do—and Pavely's body was found at the place indicated, a business office."
As Oliver spoke, in quick, jerky sentences, he was taking off his greatcoat, and hanging up his hat.
She waited till he had done, and then only said: "I've got a little supper ready for you, darling. I sent the servants off to bed, so I'm alone downstairs."
Oliver sighed, a long, tired sigh of relief—relief that his mother had asked no tiresome34, supplementary35 questions. And she saw the look of strain, and of desperate [Pg 248] fatigue36, smooth itself away, as he followed her into their peaceful dining-room.
She sat with him, and so far commanded her nerves as to remain silent while he ate with a kind of hungry eagerness which astonished her.
He turned to her at last, and for the first time smiled a rather wry37 smile. "I was very hungry! This is my first meal to-day, and I seem to have lived in the train. I was up at York—we thought there was a clue there. I think I told you that over the telephone? Then I came back."
She broke in gently, "To be met with this awful news, Oliver?"
He looked at her rather strangely, and nodded.
"Have you seen Laura?" she ventured.
"Yes, just for a moment. But, mother? She's horribly unhappy. I—I expected her to be glad."
"Oliver!"
There was a tone of horror, more, of reprobation38, in Mrs. Tropenell's low voice.
Oliver Tropenell was staring straight before him. "Surely one would have expected her to be glad that the suspense was over? And now I ask myself——" and indeed he looked as if he was speaking to himself and not to her—"if it would have been better for Laura if that—that fellow had been left to rot there till he had been discovered, two months, three months, perchance four months hence."
"My dear," she said painfully, "what do you mean exactly? I don't understand."
"Pavely's body was found in an empty office, and if the man who shot him hadn't written to Laura—well, [Pg 249] of course the body would have remained there till it had occurred to some one to force open the door of the room, and that might not have happened for months."
"I'm very glad that Laura was told now," said Mrs. Tropenell firmly. "The suspense was telling on her far more than I should have expected it to do. Katty, too, became a very difficult element in the situation. I don't think there's much doubt that poor Katty was very fond of Godfrey."
He muttered: "Mean little loves, mean little lives, mean little souls—they were well matched!"
Then he got up.
"Well, mother, I must be off to bed now, as I have to get up early and go into Pewsbury. Laura, who's staying on in town, asked me to come down and tell those whom it concerned, the truth. She wants you to tell Alice. I said I thought you'd have the child here for a while."
"Certainly I will. She's been here all to-day, poor little girl."
"Do you really think she's to be pitied, mother?"
She hesitated, but his stern face compelled an answer.
"I don't think that Godfrey would have got on with Alice later on—when she grew to woman's estate. But now, yes, I do think the child's to be deeply pitied. It will be a painful, a terrible memory—that her father died like that."
"I can't see it! A quiet, merciful death, mother—one that many a man might envy." He waited a few moments, then went on: "Of course there will be an [Pg 250] inquest, and I fear Laura will almost certainly have to give evidence, in order to prove the receipt of that—that peculiar letter."
"Have you got a copy of the letter?" asked Mrs. Tropenell rather eagerly.
Her son shook his head. "No, the police took possession of it. But I've seen it of course."
They were both standing39 up now. He went to the door, and held it open for her. And then, with his eyes bent40 on her face, he asked her a question which perhaps was not as strange as it sounded, between those two who were so much to one another, and who thought they understood each other so well.
"Mother," he said slowly, "I want to ask you a question.... How long in England does an unloving widow mourn?"
"A decent woman, under normal conditions, mourns at least a year," she answered, and a little colour came into her face. Then, out of her great love for him, she forced herself to add, "But that does not bar out a measure of friendship, Oliver. Give Laura time to become accustomed to the new conditions of her life."
"How long, mother?"
"Give her till next Christmas, my dear."
"I will."
He put his arms round her. "Mother!" he exclaimed, "I love you the better for my loving Laura. Do you realise that?"
"I will believe it if you tell me so, Oliver."
He strode off, hastened up the staircase without looking round again, and she, waiting below, covered her face with her hands. A terrible sense of loneliness swept over and engulfed41 her; for the first time there was added a pang42 of regret that she had not joined her life to that of the affectionate hedonist who had been her true, devoted43 friend for so long.
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1
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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2
vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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3
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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4
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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5
warp
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| vt.弄歪，使翘曲，使不正常，歪曲，使有偏见 | |
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6
superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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7
futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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8
hideously
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| adv.可怕地，非常讨厌地 | |
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9
Portuguese
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| n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语 | |
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10
wrenching
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| n.修截苗根，苗木铲根（铲根时苗木不起土或部分起土）v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的现在分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
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11
backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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12
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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13
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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14
shaft
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| n.(工具的)柄，杆状物 | |
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15
pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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16
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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18
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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19
commissioner
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| n.（政府厅、局、处等部门）专员，长官，委员 | |
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20
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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21
luxuriously
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| adv.奢侈地，豪华地 | |
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22
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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23
walnut
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| n.胡桃，胡桃木，胡桃色，茶色 | |
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24
stark
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| adj.荒凉的；严酷的；完全的；adv.完全地 | |
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cursory
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| adj.粗略的；草率的；匆促的 | |
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26
beckoned
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| v.（用头或手的动作）示意，召唤( beckon的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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27
anguish
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| n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦，烦恼 | |
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28
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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29
hush
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| int.嘘，别出声；n.沉默，静寂；v.使安静 | |
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30
ominous
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| adj.不祥的，不吉的，预兆的，预示的 | |
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31
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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32
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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33
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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34
tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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35
supplementary
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| adj.补充的，附加的 | |
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36
fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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37
wry
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| adj.讽刺的；扭曲的 | |
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38
reprobation
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| n.斥责 | |
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39
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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40
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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41
engulfed
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| v.吞没，包住( engulf的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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42
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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43
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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