Seizing him by the arm, she thrust a key into the lock of the door with her other hand, and half led, half pushed him into the dark front room.
Dudley was seized with a nervous tremor when he found himself inside the room. By the light of the candle the woman held, he could see at a glance into every corner of the bare, squalid apartment--could see the stains on the dirty walls, the cracks and defects in the dilapidated ceiling, even the thick cl.u.s.ters of cobwebs that hung in the corners.
Having taken in all these details in a very rapid survey, he looked down at the floor, at the very center of the bare, grimy boards, with a fixed stare of horror which the old woman, by pa.s.sing the candle rapidly backward and forward before his eyes, tried vainly to divert.
Even she, however, seemed to be impressed by the hideous memory the room called up in her, for she spoke, not in her usual gruffly indifferent tones, but in a husky whisper.
"Tst--tst!" she began, testily. "Haven"t you got over that yet? One Jew the less in the world! What is it to trouble about? Be a man--come, be a man! See, this is how I got rid of him."
As she spoke, Mrs. Higgs suddenly dropped Dudley"s arm, which she had been clutching tenaciously, and hobbling away from him at an unusual rate of speed for her, she went back to the door, turned the key in the lock, and then withdrew it and dropped it into her pocket. This action Dudley was too much absorbed to notice.
Then she made her way at her usual pace, leaning heavily on the stout stick she was never without, toward the corner where the heap of lumber lay, on the left-hand side of what had once been the fireplace. Here she stooped, lifted a couple of bricks and a broken box-lid from the floor, and then easily raised the board on which they had stood, and beckoned to Dudley to come nearer. He did so, slowly, and with evident reluctance.
"Look here," said she, pointing down to the s.p.a.ce where the board had been. "Look down. Don"t be afraid," she added, in a jeering tone.
"There"s nothing there to frighten you. See for yourself."
Dudley stooped, and looking through the small opening available, saw that there was a s.p.a.ce hollowed out underneath.
"And you put him there--under the boards?" said Dudley, in a low voice.
"But it was in the water that the body was found--in the river outside."
"Why, yes, so it was," said the old woman, slowly, as she lifted the board out of its place altogether, and displacing also the one next to it, descended through the opening she had made.
Dudley watched her with fascinated eyes. Apparently the s.p.a.ce below was not very deep, for she had only disappeared as far as the knees down-ward, and then knelt down, and for a moment was lost to sight altogether. She appeared to be struggling with something, and Dudley, consumed with horror, took a step back as he watched.
Presently she looked up. Her face was in shadow, but he could see that she was panting, as if with some great exertion.
"Get back! Stand in the middle of the room there, if you"re afraid,"
said she, mockingly. "Right out of my reach, mind, where I can"t get at you."
Instinctively Dudley obeyed, stepping back into the little patch of light thrown by the candle.
He had scarcely reached the middle of the room when he felt the boards under his feet give way. Staggering, he tried to retrace his steps, to reach the end of the room where the old woman, now again on a level with him, was watching him in silence.
But as he moved towards her she made a spring at him, and forcing him back with so much suddenness that he, quite unprepared, was unable to resist her attack, she flung him to the ground in the very middle of the room.
As he fell he felt the flooring give way under him. The next moment he was struggling, like a rat in a well, in deep water.
CHAPTER XX.
THE PREY OF THE RIVER.
"Help! Help!" shouted Dudley. "Do you want to drown me?"
Great as the shock was of finding himself flung suddenly into what he supposed was a flooded cellar, Dudley did not at first believe that the old woman had any worse intention than that of playing him an ugly and malicious trick.
But as he uttered this question he looked up, and saw her face half a dozen feet above him, wearing an expression of fiendish malignity which froze his blood.
She was holding the candle so that she might see his face, and as he kept himself afloat in the small s.p.a.ce available--for he had no room to strike out, and no foothold on the slimy earthen sides--he began to understand that she was in grim, deadly earnest, and that the place where the dead body of Edward Jacobs had been concealed was to be his own grave.
Then he did not cry out. He saw that he would only be wasting his breath; that there was no mercy in the hard-light eyes, in the lines of the wicked, wrinkled mouth.
He made a struggle to climb up one side of the pit in which he found himself; but the soft earth, slimy with damp, slipped and gave way under him. He tore out a hole with his fingers, then another, and another above that. And all the while she watched him without a word, apparently without a movement.
But just as he came to a point in his ascent from which he might hope to make a spring for the top, she raised her thick stick and dealt him a blow on the head which sent him, with a splash and a gurgling cry, back into the water.
He saw strange lights dancing before his eyes. He heard weird noises thundering in his ears, and above them all a chuckling laugh, like the merriment of a demon, as the boards of the displaced flooring were drawn slowly up by a cord from above until they closed over his head, shutting him down.
When the police made their descent upon Dudley"s chambers, Max, after giving his name and address, was allowed to go away without hindrance.
He wanted Carrie to go with him, but as she persistently held down her head and refused to look at him, he came to the conclusion that she had her own reasons for wishing him to go away without her.
So he went slowly down into the Strand, wondering whether he dared to go to the wharf to try to warn Dudley, or whether he would be drawing down danger upon his friend"s head by doing so. For although he could not ascertain that he was himself shadowed, he thought that it might very possibly be the case.
He had reached the corner of Arundel Street, when he found that Carrie was beside him. She was panting, out of breath.
"h.e.l.lo!" said he.
"I"ve been such a round!" said she. "Just to see whether they were following me. But they weren"t. I guessed you"d come this way, and I went down by the embankment and up to try to meet you. Are they after you?"
"I don"t think so. Dare we--"
"Wharf? Yes, I think we may. By the way, I"ll show you."
She took him across Waterloo Bridge, where they took a cab and traversed southward to a point at which she directed the driver to stop.
On the way, Max, from his corner of the hansom, watched the girl furtively. For a long time there was absolute silence between them. Then he came close to her suddenly, and peered into her face.
"Carrie," said he, "I want you to marry me."
Now Max had been some time making up his mind to put this proposition--some minutes, that is to say. He had been turning the matter over in his brain, and had imagined the blushing, trembling astonishment with which the lonely girl would receive his most unexpected proposal.
But the astonishment was on his side, not on hers; for Carrie only turned her head a little, scarcely looking at him and staring out again in front of her immediately, remarked in the coolest manner in the world:
"Marry you! Oh, yes, certainly. Why not?"
Max was taken aback, and Carrie, at last stealing a glance at him, perceived this. She gave a pretty little kindly laugh, which made him expect that she would say something more tender, more encouraging.
But she didn"t.
Turning her head away again, she went on quietly laughing to herself, until Max, not unnaturally irritated by this acceptance of his offer, threw himself back in his corner and tried to laugh also.
"It"s a very good joke, isn"t it--an offer of marriage?" said he at last, in an offended tone.