Nobel Crimes by Marie Smith

Author:Marie Smith [Smith, Marie]
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

II

When he reached the little drawing-room of their flat, his wife was making tea. She was rather short, with a good figure, and brown eyes in a flattish face, powdered and by no means unattractive. She had Slav blood in her—Polish; and Granter never now confided to her the finer shades of his thoughts and conduct because she had long made him feel he was her superior in moral sensibility. He had no wish to feel superior—it was often very awkward; but he could not help it. In view of this attempt at blackmail, it was more than awkward. For it is extraordinarily unpleasant to fall from a pedestal on which you do not wish to be.

He sat down, very large, in a lacquered chair with black cushions, spoke of the leaves turning, saw her look at him and smile, and felt that she knew he was disturbed.

‘Do you ever wonder,’ he said, tinkling his teaspoon, ‘about the lives that other people live?’

‘What sort of people, Charles?’

‘Oh—not our sort; matchsellers, don’t you know, flower-sellers, people down and out?’

‘No, I don’t think I do.’

If only he could tell her of this monstrous incident without slipping from his pedestal!

‘It interests me enormously; there are such queer depths to reach, don’t you know.’

Her smile seemed to answer: ‘You don’t reach the depths in me.’ And it was true. She was very Slav, with the warm gleam in her eyes and the opaque powdered skin of her flat comely face. An enigma—flatly an enigma! There were deep waters below the pedestal, like—like Phylae, with columns still standing in the middle of the Nile Dam. Absurd!

‘I’ve often wondered,’ he said, ‘how I should feel if I were down and out.’

‘You? You’re too large, Charles, and too dignified, my dear; you’d be on the Civil List before you could turn round.’ Granter rose from the lacquered chair, jingling his coins. The most vivid pictures at that moment were like a film, unrolled before his mind—of the grey sunlit river, and that accosting blackguard with his twisted murky face, and lips uttering hoarse sounds; of the yellow baby, and the girl’s gipsy-dark glance from behind it; of a Police Court, and himself standing there and letting the whole cart-load of the Law fall on them. And he said suddenly:

‘I was blackmailed this afternoon, on the Embankment.’

She did not answer, and, turning with irritation, he saw that her fingers were in her ears.

‘I do wish you wouldn’t jingle your money so!’ she said.

Confound it! She had not heard him.

‘I’ve had an adventure,’ he began again. ‘You know the flower-girl who stands at that corner in Tite Street?’

‘Yes; a gipsy baggage.’

‘H’m! Well, I bought a flower from her one day, and she told me such a pathetic story that I went to her den to see if it was true. It seemed all right, so I gave her some money, don’t you know. Then I thought I’d better see how she was spending it, so I went to see her again, don’t you know.

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