by Algernon Blackwood (1937)
The November fog drifted in oily spirals over the region of Gorston Square. It hung obstinately, reluctant to be disturbed. In Victorian days the Square had been almost fashionable. Rich merchant princes and rising barristers inhabited its rather grim-looking houses, where now there was hardly a single private dwelling to be seen. The old buildings had sunk into cheap boarding-houses or small hotels of doubtful character, with a few bleak erections converted into so-called modern flats. No wonder the fog lingered and felt at home in Gorston Square. It offered cover to more than one transient who welcomed cover.
On the steps of the dingiest of these hotels, the Gorston Arms, stood a man who had all the appearance of one of these uneasy transients. He seemed part of the fog and gloom and murk: a tall, dark man with hunched shoulders, a pasty, discoloured face and shifty eyes. A scar ran from his jaw across the left cheek almost to his ear, a scar he cursed bitterly because no medical skill had been able to obliterate it. It had been acquired several years before in Denver City from a razor-blade, fixed in a potato, and its grim signature, intended for his throat, had been diverted only because his famous left arm had been a fraction of a second too quick. That famous pugilist's left had saved his life, but for a crook like Lefty Holt it was a damaging mark to carry.
Lefty was glad of the fog that night, as he stood on the steps of the Gorston Arms and sniffed the choking air. Looking right and left, he eyed the street uneasily, watching the few figures that moved so cautiously about their business through the murk. What was their business, was the question he asked himself. He preferred to see them moving rather than just loitering. For Lefty knew, with the strange, keen instinct of the hunted, that for days he had been shadowed. The fellow gangsters he had "let down" in Denver City were on his trail. He was being followed, and this uncanny instinct of the hunted would not let him rest. He had spotted no one in particular, but he was positive they were on his heels. He had been tracked across the water, for they knew that, as a Britisher, he would make for London. The warning whisper ran through his bones and blood: his temporary hotel was no longer safe. A chance caller, and before he even knew what the visitor wanted, the knife would be in his ribs. He must at once find lodgings where he could more easily check new arrivals.
Lefty Holt, crook and double-crosser, hid behind the shelter of the porch and studied the roadway carefully, peering about him into the welcome fog. Few people, thank God, were on the move, but he would not venture forth till he made quite sure there was no suspicious figure loitering on a corner. A postman passed on his rounds, sure of each familiar step; a youth on a bicycle, obviously some clerk hurrying home to his supper or high tea; a blind man tapping along the pavement by the Square railings, safer than any pedestrian, since darkness was his natural condition. A rare taxi crawled slowly by. The outlook seemed safe enough—reasonably safe.
Lefty slipped out swiftly, and in a moment the fog had swallowed him up. In his pocket lay one or two addresses he had sifted that morning from likely papers. He moved rapidly. He did not make the mistake of looking behind him or over his shoulder, but his eyes, for all that, were wide open in his back, nerves and instinct as alert as a wolf's. The postman, the clerk, were gone, and the blind man went as before, tapping his dreadful stick, though the note had slightly changed, and the taps came at longer intervals. He, too, was moving away. Two men slid out from the doorway of an office-building lower down the street and disappeared, but they, too, went in the opposite direction. The blind man no longer tapped, for he was round the corner. Lefty felt safe. He could go now and inspect the lodgings he had in view.
Nor was the region unfamiliar to him. It was here in boyhood he had learned his first pick-pocketing; the police court a few hundred yards beyond the Square he remembered, too; against these very railings on fragrant summer nights he had courted the girl he took later to Colorado as his wife, a crook even smarter than he was himself. His face darkened at the thought. Mean-hearted double-crosser though he was, the knowledge that she in turn had given him the same treatment filled his heart with vicious rage. She had got away with it, too, stones and all, his own share into the bargain. Yet she, too, he reflected, if she ever got clear of the Denver City gang, would make for these same parts and comparative safety. Beasts in danger, he knew, invariably return to their familiar haunts where "hides" and funk-holes are known to them. Thoughts and memories ran on through his mind in their nasty circle.
He almost collided with a burly figure in blue standing motionless beneath a lamppost, and instinctively his coat collar went up to hide that scar.
"Evening, mate," he said gruffly, without turning his face.
"Thick night, ain't it?" came the answer, as Lefty passed on quickly.
But a policeman had no terrors for him at the moment, though it was just as well his face should not be recognised. He was not "wanted" here. He had done no violence in his early days, only the lesser, meaner crimes … and ten minutes later he tried the first address in his list, only to find that the room advertised was already taken. Luck failed him at the next house, too; and at the third he rang and rang for some time without an answer. He tried the knocker, for he was getting impatient, and waiting, he felt, was dangerous. Though the fog was now so thick that it was difficult to see even across the street, or ten yards along the pavement, he felt exposed and defenceless, as though he stood naked on the doorstep Yet he persisted, for some instinct told him this was the house he wanted. The door opened suddenly but cautiously, a few inches only. He liked that caution, it confirmed his instinct.
"What d'you want 'ere?" came a harsh voice in his ear, no face yet visible. It was a woman's voice.
For an instant, Lefty almost lost his self-possession, but for an instant only. If anyone should know that voice, he should He had heard it last in Denver City some years ago, but he could never fail to recognise it. It went through him now like a flash of steel or fire. The hair on his spine, so to speak, stood up. Questions and suspicions blazed in him. Had she followed him? Had she, too, made her own get-away?
"Who's in there with you—Lizzie?" his snarling voice asked with a filthy oath.
"N-no one," came the reply, after an instant's hesitation he did not fail to notice. "But I don't want you," she snapped, trying to shut the door in his face, without success, for his foot had already jammed it. A second later he had forced his way inside and slammed the door behind him, and the horrid pair stood facing one another in the dim-lit little hall.
"It's no good, kid," said Lefty, in a voice now ominously softer. "We got to have a show-down, you and me," and he gave her a cruel blow across the mouth with the famous left that had earned him his name. As the woman, scared to death, staggered back against the hat-rack, protecting her face from further blows that, however, did not follow. Lefty swept the hall with quick, cunning eyes. No hat, he saw, was hanging there, though that did not mean there was no man about. He might just be out. His hand strayed to his left arm-pit.
"And where's Shearer?" he asked again, in that ominous soft voice.
"Dead," whispered the woman, white with terror, "these two years gone."
Lefty examined her face very closely in the dim light for some seconds.
"He's lucky," he observed. "Maybe he had a sweeter death than what I had waiting for him."
The woman, shivering from head to foot, said nothing.
"There's only one thing I want from you, Lizzie," Lefty went on threateningly, "but I want it quick. You two sure played me for the blind sucker I was. Where are the stones?" He slipped the gun neatly from his armpit.
The woman's voice had gone, so that it was barely audible. "Upstairs," she managed to whisper, pointing overhead with a hand that shook like a leaf. "I kept your share for you, Lefty, all this time."
"Like hell you did," snarled Lefty with an ugly grin.
"I'll get them for you," came her terrified whisper, with eyes on the pointing gat in his hand, as she began to move. After a moment's hesitation, Lefty decided to let her go alone. Knowing her as he did, he felt her terror was real, and instinct assured him there was no man in the house.
"And move fast," he told her savagely, fingering his gun. "No funny stuff, either, or you'll get what's coming to you," he added, with a flood of blasphemy, as he watched her backing clumsily up the stairs. "Too hot to cash in, I suppose," he threw after her, referring to the stones," too hot for a — — like you!"
A nasty expression ran down his lop-sided face like a streak of fire or poison. He watched her go, counting each step as she stumbled up, yet his eyes simultaneously everywhere in turn, his ears intent for the slightest suspicious sound. He said no further word. He felt certain she still had the stones, or some of them, and would bring them down. He saw her turn the corner along the dark, narrow landing, and when she was out of sight, though still listening closely to the sound of her footsteps, he turned away and looked cautiously about him.
A door faced him, and he flung it wide open with a rapid sudden gesture, but he did not enter the room till he was quite certain it was empty. He saw a fire burning in the grate, a round table in the centre with books lying open and a few children's toys. A wooden elephant, a golliwog, a tiny aeroplane, lay beneath his eyes. A child's room, obviously.
"She's got a kid, I do believe," darted across his mind. "And Shearer's, by God, unless I'm crazy!"
He was surprised at himself. After all this time—what could it possibly matter? But—it did matter. For the blood in his veins boiled up till it almost frothed. Never before had he felt such a storm of wild, animal rage. Ungovernable fury rose in him, yet with it something cold as ice, a combination that made the blood ebb and flow strangely, making the scar across his face a livid streak, the face itself a devil's face.
He listened. Overhead he could hear her shuffling about, drawers being opened, furniture moved, but there was no one with her, and only one pair of feet went stumbling across that upper floor. He was quite positive of that. He kept his wolf's ears divided between that upper floor, the corridor outside and the front-door step. His gat was ready pointing for instant use if needed.
Then a door opened suddenly in the hall, and he froze to attention.
"Mummie, where are you?"
The reply came down: "In a minute, darling! Coming!" And a little boy entered the room, smiling and unafraid.
"Are you the new lodger?" asked the little fellow, as he looked the tall stranger over with a fearless eye.
"Well, no—I guess not," said Lefty in his gentlest voice. "I just called in to see your ma. You see," he added, "I used to know her a long time back."
The child listened with rather an examining expression, then turned his eyes to his toys on the table.
"Look what she gave me for my birfday," he exclaimed proudly, unearthing something Lefty had not noticed before among the others. "A real pistol, like they have in the movies. Isn't it grand? Hands up, or I shoot!" he added, trying to look fierce and determined.
Lefty was watching the child closely, his face working.
"Why, say!" he cried, "isn't that just fine! It covers the heart every time, don't it just!"
"You bet it does," laughed the child, playing with it. And Lefty knew. The same eyes, the same ears, the same set of the head upon the neck. It was Shearer's kid all right. The child of his pal, the pal who had stolen his wife, his share of the jewel-robbery as well, and skipped, leaving him, Lefty, to dodge the cops and make his get-away as best he could without a cent. There was no doubt about it in his mind. The proof faced him here and now, and his blood rose to its maximum of bitter fury. Only one idea lay in his being—revenge
He heard Lizzie's footsteps stumbling down the stairs.
"Quick," he said to the boy, with a smile, taking his gun from his pocket, "we'll play your mother a grand trick. It's a great idea. You take my pistol—it's just a toy like yours, only heavier and bigger—and when she comes in you just point it at her and cry, "Hands up, you villain!" and then fire. And she'll fall down and pretend to be dead just like they do in the movies. And then I'll arrest you, and we'll all laugh together! What d'you say, boy—eh?"
"Oh, that'll be fun!" cried the boy, eagerly taking the automatic Lefty handed to him.
"It sure will," agreed Lefty, putting the catch at ready.
"Why, it's ever so much heavier than mine." said the little fellow admiringly.
"Sure. It's the latest toy-model," Lefty told him. "Hold it steady against that book now. There! That's fine. Then point straight, and pull the trigger quick, remember. It'll go quite easy!"
The woman came in with a large envelope in her hand. "Here they are," she whispered, glancing a moment at her child as though in uneasy surprise.
"Hands up, you villain!" she heard in the boy's excited voice.
The pistol cracked. She slithered to the floor, the envelope fell towards Lefty's feet. He stared at it a moment, watching the blood pouring from the woman's mouth, then swiftly picked it up, stuffed it into his pocket, and passed out into the hall. The pistol he deliberately left behind him. A moment later he was lost in the fog outside, the excited laughter of the boy still ringing in his ears.
"Shearer's kid," he muttered, wiping the icy perspiration from his forehead. "And serve her damn well right! She got what was coming to her at last!" But he was trembling from head to foot.
He moved fast, soon entering Gorston Square. He would find a room to-morrow. The fog was thicker than ever. So much the better, he thought, clutching the big envelope tightly in his pocket and feeling the hard edges of what it contained. There was no single pedestrian about, though he heard again the tapping of that blind man's stick as he fumbled along by the icy railings. And this time he did not like the sound. A violent shiver ran over him. At the corner two other lost pedestrians came towards him. They slipped up uncomfortably close, one on either side. Too late he realised the meaning of that blind man's tapping stick. There was a swift gleam of steel. His hand, whipping to his arm-pit, found it empty—too late again, for he had lent his gun to a little boy. The two figures vanished in the fog, but Lefty lay quite still against the icy railings.