Chapter XXXII: In the House of Ah Lee

“Twenty-four hours it will last,” said Ah Lee to himself. “And he will drink himself blind when he wakes. It will do.”

He glanced angrily at Churchill, who was too long in dying, and drew a coverlet over his face. Asleep or not asleep, he need have no chance of seeing what Ah Lee went out and brought in; what he flung down in the wine room as if it were lifeless.

He had no orders from Stratharden, and he feared him as he had never feared God nor devil. He was in his own clothes now, and he stumped off for orders. When he came back he yawned with a huge indifference. If she could not help dying, she would die. To make her live, as Stratharden ordered, was impossible. There was nothing that would make that drug pass off before its allotted span.

“Twenty-four hours I told him,” said he, “and he will not come before. I will smoke and sleep.”

But he had forgotten something. The girl Stratharden wanted out of the way was made of good stuff. Clean blood ran in her; there was no weak spot, no flaw in her for the drug to catch in. And, above all, she was brave. In the dark room where he had left her she was lying like a log. She made no more of those efforts to speak or move that she knew resulted in unavailing anguish. Torture ran and crawled through every limb, as it was, but something made her know that it was people who struggled under Ah Lee’s drug who died. It might be better to die, but she would not help it on. Instead, she prayed the whole night through, with Dolly--only Dolly--in her thoughts.

She must live for Dolly, help Dolly; pay Lovell--who was Stratharden’s son--for each pain that rent her slim body. And at five in the morning a cry she did not know was her own voice come back to her, and sent the cold drops out on her forehead.

“Dolly!” she heard again, and knew she could speak. She said the word over and over, like a nun in a litany, not in despair, but to keep herself brave. “Dolly! Dolly!” and then sat upright with a pain that turned her cold. She must die here after all.

For there was a light in her eyes--a dreadful stooping figure in a gaudy draping, coming toward her; the dazzle of it made her spring up to face Ah Lee.

But it was not he.

“Don’t moan,” some one drawled, “I hate moaning.”

“You’re English,” she muttered, and found it difficult to make her tongue obey her.

“Did you come here to smoke?” said the man listlessly. “You’re too young.”

“Take me out! Take me away!” She caught at him with her hands that she could not guide. “They brought me here. Dolly!--Oh! get me back to Dolly!”

He touched her hand, her gown.

“You’re a lady,” said Bertie Churchill. “A lady--here!” He turned away, and because she thought he was going to leave her she staggered after him, clutching at him with wild words.

“Hush!” said the man with one of those queer revivings of a dead self. “I’ll take care of you. Drink this.” To her mouth he held the brandy that he courted death with, and made her swallow it drop by drop, till there was heat, not ice, in her stagnant veins.

“Now tell me why you came,” he said watching her. It was a long time since a lady had drunk from Bertie Churchill’s glass.

She told him in slow whispers; but she was getting supple now; her fingers could hold the glass that at first they had let fall. But it seemed to her that he gathered no meaning from what she said.

“Don’t you see,” she cried desperately, “that he means to kill me? Can’t you help me to get back to Dolly? She will be--they’ll ruin Dolly! I heard them say so.”

“Ruin Dolly,” he repeated. He started as if he had been stung. “Dolly Deane,” he said as if to himself. “I saw her before I came here. I wonder why I--but that’s a long time ago.”

“What do you know about Dolly Deane?” she exclaimed. She looked at him, and for the first time recognized his face.

“You’re the man!” she said recoiling, “that called her--that made the noise at Krug’s restaurant! What was Dolly to you?”

“Nothing,” was the old instinct to lie coolly for a woman. “I was drunk. I don’t remember anything about it.”

A quick thought took her--and if Ah Lee’s drug had any good in it, it was that it sharpened the wits.

“Are you Churchill?” she cried.

The bow he gave her was grotesque in his red dressing-gown; but she was only looking at his face.

“I was,” he said. “I’m dying now you know.”

“Did you marry Dolly?” she demanded. “They say you married Dolly. They’re going to prosecute her for bigamy.”

The man flinched. She had struck him to the bone.

“Who are you?” he said very low and, when she told him, covered his face.

“She’s young still,” he said; “I saw her at Krug’s and it made me mad, for I’m old and dying. But bigamy--she knows I never married her! I spent her money and left her like a cur. I used to wake up in the night and think of her--little Dolly, who was a fool and pretty, and loved me, till I left her to die in the gutter. And then I saw her at Krug’s, well dressed and young. Tell her----”

“Come away. Take me out and come to Dolly!” she broke in. “Say you never married her!”

“I never married her,” but the flash of life in him was gone. “I can’t come,” he said courteously. “I belong here, you know. It seemed warm and no one worries me. But you must go. No white girl should be here.”

He moved to the side of the room and touched it gently. Nothing gave and an ugly light came in his eyes.

“Locked in,” said he; “which was not in my bargain. But Ah Lee forgets.”

He fumbled in the folds of his wrapping and brought out a thin, strong wire. With a dexterity that spoke volumes for the life he had led he did something to the door.

“My patent, that Ah Lee forgets he bought from me,” said he. “Allow me,” and he took her hand.

At the top of the long labyrinth of stairs and passages he stopped; he pointed to the rows of boots at a door.

“Past those and two others,” he said. “I will stand between them and you. When you get to the door in front of you knock on the right wall. Five taps--nine--then five again. They’ll let you out.”

“Come,” she whispered, white lipped. “Come away from this dreadful place. Save yourself as well as me. For God’s sake, come!”

He laid his gentleman’s hand on her mouth.

“I belong here,” he said softly. “Will you say good-by to me and go?”

There was something dignified in his ravaged face; something, too, that agonized her with pity. He, half dead himself, had saved her; would stay here and bear the brunt of it.

“Mr. Churchill!” she begged, but he hushed her; he held out a hand to her and drew it back.

“It isn’t fit--I’m not fit,” he muttered.

Magdalen Clyde--and to the day of her death she will be glad she did it--stooped and kissed that shadowy hand--bade God bless him to eternity and knocked at the bronze-bound door.

It swung back as he had said it would do. She went through and was in another passage with another shut door before her. She looked back for guidance to Churchill, but the door between them was fast. She knocked again with shaking fingers, lost count and hesitated.

The door before her opened, then began to close with dreadful swiftness. She leaped to it, shrieked, was caught and tore her gown away.

Behind her rose a quick sound of opening doors, of flying feet. All round the court faces, and such faces as nightmare knows, filled the windows; a man rose as if by magic in her path and she flew by him.

The morning daylight dazzled her and saved her, too, for once out of that court--and she never knew that she struck savagely at men and women who sprang out of doorways--the streets were empty.

She caught her skirts to her knee and ran.

Blundered into alleys and out again; ran on and on, she cared not where, but away from Ah Lee; and dropped at last as a driven dog does that cowardly people say is mad.

Like a dog she lay and panted, the blood beating in her as though her veins must break. It was not seven o’clock yet, and the stones she lay on had the chill of the night. Where she was, she neither knew nor cared, so that she was out of Ah Lee’s house. No one passed in the empty street and at last her sickening pulse-beats ceased to shake her.

From somewhere there came a footstep, coming nearer, stepping flatly without heels. She raised her head, looked one way and the other and could not get to her feet. A Chinaman turned into the street, looked at her impassively and took to his heels.

“He’s one of them! He’s gone to tell Ah Lee.” She would be caught in who knew how little time. “I----” She wrenched herself till she stood up and stared round her. She did not know where she was; she dared not run one way or another; could not have run had she dared.

Hatless, her hair loose and matted, her black gown torn, she stood still. To knock at these decent doors would result in her being turned away for a drunken outcast; there would be no pity in these snug houses; Ah Lee might be on her before she roused the inmates from their beds. Were there no police in London? Was all the world asleep but she and Chinamen?

She looked down at her bedraggled clothes, and knew a policeman would arrest her and consider her story a drunken lie. There would be hours lost before she got back to Dolly.

“Milk--milk!” The cry came like a voice from heaven.

Magdalen turned and saw a milkman coming toward her with his cans in his hands. He was a big man with a kind face; he whistled as he poured out and left his milk. With a quick hand she straightened her hair and caught up her dress to hide the rents. The milkman looked at her.

“Milk?” he said bruskly.

She shook her head. He would think her mad if she asked to drink it from the can.

“I’ve lost my way,” she said. “I want to get to Featherston Street and Hare’s Buildings.”

“You’re miles off,” with a bewildered look at her. “Been out all night?”

She nodded.

“I suppose you’re used to it,” half kindly; she must have been a pretty woman when she was sober. “I’m about finished here. If I show you out to the Northend Road can you find your way?”

“Northend Road!” she gasped. “How did I get so far?”

“You know best, I s’pose. Ain’t you got no hat?”

“I lost it.”

“Well, step on,” he said with a laugh. “I guess my character’ll stand it. There ain’t no one up, anyhow.”

She shook as she followed him; and if she had told him why he would not have believed her. But he was better than his word.

“This isn’t the Northend Road,” she said as they came out on a thoroughfare and she saw the safe and blessed omnibuses going to and fro.

“Wasn’t no use in going there if you’re in a hurry to get to Featherston Street,” he gruffly answered.

“This is nigher. You get into a red bus and you’ll go straight to Charing Cross. Oh, it’s only a step out of my way--you needn’t thank me.”

There was nothing but a penny in her pocket and she must keep that. She asked him his name and he laughed.

“No matter. I don’t want you round my way,” said he. “You take my advice and stay home of nights. Here’s your bus.”

There are few people to whom the inside of a stuffy bus seems heaven; but it did to Magdalen Clyde. Her penny would take her only to Hyde Park corner, but after that she would be safe. No one would dare to lay hands on her from there to Hare’s Buildings.

How she walked it she never knew. People turned their heads, but no one stopped her; her feet kept on mechanically, that was all. “Hare’s Buildings!--Dolly!” she said to herself over and over. It was not till she stood in front of them at ten o’clock in the day that she remembered. Dolly was not there.

She turned her head like a hunted beast and knew that lonely house was her only refuge, felt her latch-key in her pocket and ran up-stairs.

The green baize door swayed under a yellow hand. Ah Lee with his fish eyes alive at last had followed her. He had his own debt to pay now, not his master’s; and he had nothing to lose by doing it. Churchill had been right, after all. Magdalen Clyde would be “caught at the door.”