The blue-clad postman stroked his cob's ear with a dexterous whip. Because he was a punctual man who had been kept waiting, there was a touch of stingo about the flick. The animal jumped off, settling to a trot. For a minute the cart showed scarlet against the great white road. But before it had gone a hundred yards it was hidden in the dust of six weeks' drought.
Betty Marsh, the postmistress, turned and went into the shop. Presently she came out again with some knitting. She sat down in the porch. Opposite to her, on the other seat, a huge tortoise-shell cat blinked and stared. Betty Marsh was a woman of thirty-five. She was pretty, still. Her features were alert and well-marked. Her carriage was quick and free. For all her years of country life, she had the air of having once been a dweller in towns.
It was barely seven; but no one ever troubled the little post office after the mail had gone. So she knitted undisturbed, with needles that glittered in the sunset. Every now and then she paused and looked idly down the road. Children and passers-by gave her good evenings from time to time. Except for the fact that her husband had gone away she was perfectly content. Over and above the shop and the post office, which was her province, he was a rent collector for the lord of the manor. And sometimes, as now, his duties took him away for a day or two into the remoter parts of the moor that the village fringed.
Presently, however, a vague, inexplicable feeling of uneasiness mastered the postmistress there as she sat. And she looked up suddenly, as if in obedience to some compelling, alien will. She saw a man standing at the gate. He was a stranger. He looked ill-clad, ill-nourished, dirty and unkempt.
Though she was a courageous woman, she felt the finger of fear, sudden and cold, at her heart. There had been a cruel murder at the big town ten miles away, and only that morning she had been reading about it in a local paper that was turgid with all the dished-up horrors of the crime. Nevertheless, she forced her trembling fingers to the needles again, and bent her head resolutely over her work. Then the latch clicked; the gate swung; and footsteps crunched the gravelled path. And the cat on the seat opposite moved uneasily and mewed.
Betty Marsh jumped to her feet, and stood before the door with outstretched arms. Her first thought was for the post office and the money in the till. The man was in the porch now. The cat growled at him, spat venomously, and fled at the sight of his lifted hand.
"What does this mean?" asked the woman stoutly, for all her fear.
The man looked at her. His bloodshot eyes smiled. So did the lips beneath his straggling red beard and moustache. As her terror grew, his evil leer increased. And when, with a cry of horror, she started back, he laughed aloud. It was a very evil laugh.
"Yes, Betty; it's me!" he said. "It's your old friend and accomplice, Arthur Lowe. But you don't seem pleased to see him!"
The woman shuddered. She shrank from the hand whose fingers had touched her own. Then she faced him, flashing out a torrent of words.
"Friend?" she echoed. "Enemy, you mean! You know that I was never a friend of yours. You know that I was no accomplice. I was an ignorant little girl who just cashed the postal order to oblige you—because you told her a lie about how you came by it. You said that because it had a woman's name on it, it had to be signed in that name, and that only a woman could get the money. How should I have known that it came out of a stolen letter ? I wrote what you asked, and went to the post office, and then got taken up when you were caught. But the judge believed my story—so did every one else. That's why they let me go when you were sentenced....!"
She broke off, breathless. The man leered still, leaned forward and touched her familiarly on the shoulder. She tried to shrink away—but her back was against the door.
"That be hanged for a tale!" he said. "You knew what you were doing well enough. You weren't a fool. But because you cried and looked pretty, and all that, they let you off!"
The woman stamped her foot. "It's a lie. It's a foul lie," she cried. "And what's more, you know it!"
The other came closer still. "What if I do?" he asked. "What if I do? Others don't! Then he thrust his horrible face into hers and drew a bow at a venture. "I'll wager you never let on to your husband that you'd been in quod!"
The drop of her eyelids, the swift in-taking of her breath, her sudden cry, all told him that his shaft had got home.
"He doesn't know! " he triumphed.
The postmistress faced him squarely. She spoke in even, confident tones.
"No, he doesn't know," she conceded. "I never told him. I thought there was no need. It wasn't as if I had anything to be ashamed of. And it all happened long before I met him. Though I wish—her voice faltered and broke—"oh, how I wish I had! But I'll tell him the moment he comes back!"
Before the words were out of her mouth she saw her mistake, and the gleam in the tramp's eyes. She had let her enemy know that she was alone.
The wretch that had once been Arthur Lowe, post-office clerk, smiled.
"So hubby's away, is he? Well, my dear, that makes things easier. There's only one of you to deal with. You must just give me the money now and square things up with him afterwards."
"Or else?"
"Or else I shall take it!" And he pushed past her into the little shop.
But its darkness tricked him. And while he stumbled over a chair the postmistress had passed in behind the counter and had pulled open a drawer. She snatched up the whistle that the village postboy used of mornings and set it to her lips.
"Now!" she cried. "Now go or I'll whistle for help!"
Then, in the waning light, she saw his face change. The triumph left it; the leer was gone. Fear came and stayed—the fear that follows a hunted creature, be he man or beast.
"My God!" he cried. "Don't do that ! Give me some money and I'll go!"
But she shook her head.
"Not a shilling," she retorted. "Not a copper!" And again she held the whistle to her lips.
The tramp fell to cursing. He cursed her with every conceivable curse. But he never advanced a step. The counter was between them still. Betty Marsh pointed to the door.
"Go!" she said, again.
Suddenly he changed his tone. "I must have the money," he whined. "I must have it. I'm on the rocks. It means life and death to me. Give me a few shillings, Betty, for the love of God! "
The postmistress took her purse from her pocket and flung it across the intervening space. "Take that!" she cried. "There's some silver in it. Two or three shillings only. You're welcome to it. It's all I have to give !"
But he persisted still.
"Give me more, Betty!" he cried. "Give me gold. Give me five pounds. I want to go abroad. I want to make a new start. Help me to emigrate! " His voice was piteous now, and his body cringed and fawned.
But Betty Marsh was adamant. She pointed to the door.
"If you're not gone in sixty seconds," she said, "I'll blow!"
He played his last card.
"If you whistle, the whole village will know that you've been a gaol-bird!" he whispered.
She snapped the fingers of her free hand. "D'you think they'd believe you? " she cried scornfully. "You, a tramp and a thief and Heaven knows what else. Now, mind, I give you sixty seconds. Pick up the purse and clear out!"
There, in the fading light, his eyes searched hers and read that she meant what she said. With more curses he picked up the purse. He fumbled a moment with the door, opened it and passed out. Betty Marsh followed. Standing in the porch, she saw him go down the little gravelled walk, out of the gate, into the highway—and beyond. When he was out of sight she sank down on to the bench where her knitting still lay. In the hour of her triumph she was more frightened than ever. She had had time to think. And, knowing Arthur Lowe, she knew that he would come back in the night and take the money that she had refused to give.
For a minute she made up her mind to run, hot foot, to the constable at the far end of the village, to implore his protection, to have her persecutor caught and locked up. But only for a minute. In spite of what she had said, she was afraid of the scandal. The village, intolerant, uncharitable, and gossiping, would make her life unbearable. She and her husband—if he still stuck to her—would have to leave. He would be obliged to give up his job. And she would lose the post office and the little shop and the white-walled, black-beamed, dormer-windowed cottage that she loved.
Perhaps, after all, he would not come? Perhaps he had really gone—gone for good. But her knowledge of Arthur Lowe's character froze the hope as it budded. Common sense insisted that it was absurd to expect anything but the worst. He would return, by stealth, to steal. But he should not find.
She ran into the shop, pulled out the post-office drawer, and hurried into the kitchen. From the kitchen the stairs ran up. And soon the drawer lay snug and safe under her bed. Then she went back for the shop money. That, too, she hid upstairs. When Arthur Lowe came there would be nothing to steal. And if, hunting still, he so much as set foot on the first stair, she would rush to her bedroom window, throw it wide and blow. Scandal or no scandal, she would summon help, then. For a sense of duty was bred deep into her bones, and she would not spare herself so that she saved what she held in trust.
She supped hastily, slenderly—as a woman sups when there is no man by. Then she jumped to her feet with a cry of alarm. In her haste to hide the money she had forgotten to lock the shop door. Snatching up the candle, she hurried out. But the key was gone. And as her hair stood on end and her skin grew to goose-flesh and her breath caught, the horrible certainty glimpsed on to her. She knew now why Arthur Lowe had fumbled with the door.
Again she made up her mind to summon help. Once more she vacillated; once more she shrank from the scandal to be. Then, though she was only too sure that the thief would come, she gave herself the utterly improbable chance that he might not. But, since she feared that he would enter unheard, she cast about for something to serve her as alarum.
The shop door was bell-less and bolt-less, both. It had a latch. It had had a key. The key was gone. The latch was too high for any protecting chair-back to wedge under it. There was no means of making it secure. Nor could she move a piece of furniture into the shop for buttress. Arthur Lowe would have no difficulty in getting in.
But, entrance effected, what then? There was now nothing for him to take. And she, hearing him come, and if he so much as put foot upon the first stair, would set the whistle to her lips and blow till all the village flocked to help. Yet supposing that sleep overcame her and she did not hear? With the thought a means of alarum came.
In the kitchen corner a superb grandfather's clock comfortably ticked. She opened the case, lifted off the heavy, leaden weight, staggered out into the shop, and let it fall on to the counter. Then she dragged a chair to the door, picked up the weight and mounted, drawing dificult breath.
The door must, in any case, go unfastened. Why not, then, leave it ajar altogether? She opened it a few inches. On the top she rested one end of the leaden, sausage-shaped weight. The other end she set upon the framework. It was a perfect, resonant booby-trap. At the first touch of the thief's hands the door would swing inwards, and the weight come crashing to the ground. The weight balanced beautifully. It was a simple, splendid scheme. She tip-toed down from the chair, which she carried to the counter's side. Then she passed into the kitchen and up the narrow staircase to her room. There she locked the door and put a chair-back under the handle. She got into bed in her clothes. She lay listening and still. But for long the hammer-hammer of her heart was all that she heard.
Then she began to imagine all manner of noises, to hear sounds that were not; to start feverishly at the lightest rustle of the sheets. She lost all sense of time. She seemed to have lain there a full twelve hours. And, above all, she missed the familiar, comforting tick and strike of the clock at the foot of the stairs.
At last, after a thousand empty frights and false, nerve-destroying alarms, the faintest, feeblest, yet definite sound came up to her through the half- open lattice pane. Betty Marsh sat up in bed, hair on end, skin goose-flesh again. And on the door of the shop there was a sound as of a fingernail grating on wood. Betty Marsh gripped her whistle and tried to moisten her lips. The door creaked on its hinges. Then there was a sudden thud—the thud of a heavy weight meeting a soft body. A wail followed, faint, human, and distinct. Then silence; nothing but silence. And on Betty Marsh's forehead the beads burst out and stood, large as rain-drops in July.
"I've killed him," she thought simply. "Oh, my God, my God! What will become of me? "
The darkness and solitude appalled her. The long, unceasing thought of the horror downstairs almost sent her mad. She had never meant to hurt him—only to frighten him and to give the alarm. And now she was—a murderess! The word was printed in flaming capitals on the eyelids that she uselessly closed. In the horrible silence she tortured her brain with questionings. What was her position in the sight of the law? Was she justified in what she had done? Would she once more be a gaol-bird by Arthur Lowe's means? Her head ached, and her forehead burned, and Fear sat at the head of her pillow and set his icy finger on her heart. Yet always, beneath the terror and the pain and the aching of her eyes, one thought stayed thankful and quick. "Whatever happens," she said to herself, "my husband will never know that I have hidden something from him all these years !"
At last, when the darkness had grown to greyness, and the greyness to the full light of the summer morning, she got up and walked across to the looking-glass that topped the oak, brass-handled chest of drawers. There were crows' feet around and about her eyes: the eyes themselves were swollen and sore. She looked ten years older. She felt a hundred. She regarded her image with curious care.
"Yes; I suppose I am a murderess!" she said. And she smoothed her hair, turned the key, and went downstairs, tip-toeing, as in the presence of death.
She passed out of the kitchen, into the little shop where nothing was touched or altered from the night before. Only the door was a little more ajar—and in the opening the big tortoise-shell cat was lying with the clock-weight resting half upon his back, half upon the floor. The beast's eyes were sightless and staring. It was quite cold: quite dead.
Betty Marsh staggered backwards, clutched at the counter, leaned bewilderedly against it. Then she laughed aloud, voicing the relief that made her heart light. But presently a passion of remorse mastered her. She caught the cat to her bosom, and, childless woman that she was, wailed for it as any Rachel might have wailed for her slaughtered babe. After a while she carried it tenderly into the garden behind the cottage and dug a grave. When she had buried it she repeated the Lord's Prayer softly to herself, very reverently and in supreme innocence. She said other prayers, too. And she ended by whispering fervently, "Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner!"
When she came back to the shop it was seven o'clock, and the sun was high in the heavens. Far down the road a cloud of dust heralded the approaching mail-cart. As it swung into sight she saw that the postman was not alone. Some one was sitting beside him on the box. It was her husband. Almost before the cart drew level with the gate he jumped down, running up the path to take her in his arms.
"You're back early, dear!" she said.
He smiled into her tired eyes, holding her at arm's length.
"Yes," he answered. "I got as far as Murcester last night and was waiting for James here to give me a lift at five this morning." He broke off, pulled up by a sudden recollection.
"They've got the murderer at last," he cried. "I saw him brought in!"
His wife shuddered, averting her face.
"How awful!" she whispered. And then, "Wherever did they catch him?" she asked.
"On this very road, about ten last night. A mounted policeman nearly ran over him only half a mile from here!"
Betty Marsh's head began to ache afresh. A new suspicion was stabbing her brain.
"What was he like to look at?" she forced from the dry lips that almost refused sound.
Her husband's jolly eyes grew hard, his lips primmed, and his voice came out vindictively as he answered:
"Like? Why, just like what one would expect a murderer to be. A ruffianly looking brute with bloodshot eyes, and red, tangled hair, and a horrible, cruel face. But he'll swing right enough—won't he, James? So finish all murderers, say I!" And he turned sharply to the postman for confirmation.
But before James could answer Betty Marsh's husband felt his wife become a dead weight on his outstretched arms.