This Was Ivor Trent полностью

“I told him he was ill. But—no!—he must know best. Door always locked—and never a sound. No doctor, and him getting what meals he had. Yes! believe it or not, that’s what he did. I’d creep up all them stairs and listen. Lor! I could hear my own heart beating. I could straight. Then I’d put my ear to the keyhole. Nothing! One evening I called out: ‘You all right, Mr. Wrayburn?’ Not a sound! I stood there all gooseflesh.”

A brief pause.

“Up I went again the next morning. Don’t you think I neglected him! Not me! I always feel sort of motherly to me lodgers. Silly, I daresay, but I do—it’s me nature. So up I went next morning—and there was an envelope pushed under the door. Lor! I thought, here’s a change! And what do you think it was? A week’s notice.”

Mrs. Munnings looked at the jury—her little black eyes extended to their maximum capacity.

“A week’s notice! It stabbed me to the heart. God forbid that I should say a word against the departed—no, not me! Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. And then, the next night, I think it was, anyway it was the night, I happened to be in the hall about nine o’clock, I should say. And I heard someone coming downstairs.”

A long pregnant pause.

“It was him. Lor! I thought it was a ghost. Step by step, he come down them stairs. I can see him now. He looked that queer I thought he was walking in his sleep. I did straight. ‘Don’t tell me you’re going out a dirty night like this.’ I says to him. Scared I was, and I don’t mind owning it. He passed me—as near as that—and never a word. Opens the front door and out he goes.”

Mrs. Munnings nodded her head repeatedly and significantly.

“Well, I went down to wash up some things, and then I go up and into a room off the hall—and stay there, in the dark, with the door ajar. And then before so very long I hear a latch key. There I stood in that dark room, holding the door open an inch or two. He never knew I was in that room, watching him. I see him go up the stairs slowly—carrying a bottle of whisky. Lor! I said to myself, here’s a change. Up he goes, but he stops once and leans against the banisters. Then he goes on, and I never see him——”

Mrs. Munnings collapsed, and received the ministrations of Mrs. Marks.

Rendell was the last to give evidence.

He explained that he had known Wrayburn only a few weeks; that he was a highly-strung sensitive man of considerable intellectual capacity; and one who held the most pessimistic views concerning world conditions. Wrayburn was a thinker and a student. He had no friends—apparently no relatives—and no money. He had gained a precarious living in a number of jobs—all of a temporary nature. He was ill—and the necessity for obtaining employment preyed on his mind. He was very independent and would have refused any offer of financial help. Also, and above all, he was terribly lonely. It was impossible to over-emphasise that fact.

“I blame myself bitterly,” Rendell concluded, “for not seeing him more often. I knew he was lonely, but I failed him. As I said earlier, Wrayburn apparently had no relatives, but I shall, of course, make myself responsible for the funeral.”

Suicide While of Unsound Mind.

This verdict did not satisfy Mrs. Munnings. It was too familiar to be dramatic. She had expected something sensational. She did not know the meaning of Felo-de-se, but she liked the sound of it. Also, her sense of reverence was outraged by the knowledge that Wrayburn would receive Christian burial. Mrs. Munnings didn’t like that at all—and she was confident that God wouldn’t like it either.

Still, she recovered. And the chief cause of that recovery was Rendell.

Till now, Mrs. Munnings had regarded him as a nobody. The fact that he was Wrayburn’s friend had convinced her of his social insignificance. But the proceedings in the Coroner’s Court transformed this opinion. He was going to pay for the funeral! Clearly, therefore, he had money to waste. A pauper’s funeral was quite good enough for Wrayburn. Also, the coroner had treated him with respect. Yes, there was something impressive about him—although he was living in a Chelsea lodging-house.

Mrs. Munnings became cringingly obliging to Rendell. Then, as that was not an outstanding success, she adopted a confidential motherly manner, referring to Wrayburn on one occasion as “our poor boy.” But, as Rendell remained unresponsive to these solicitations, Mrs. Munnings consulted Mrs. Marks. The latter, however, had not been idle. She had made certain underground inquiries at No. 77, and was therefore in a position to report that Rendell was a proper gent who had money to burn.

Mrs. Munnings’ next move was to hint—in the pleasantest manner possible—that Rendell might find Waldegrave Road more comfortable than Potiphar Street. She even suggested that, as Wrayburn’s room was now vacant, he might care to take it—for old times’ sake.