The Wharf by the Docks by Florence Warden (novel24 TXT) 📖

called tenderness:

"We've always been chums, now, haven't we? And a row between you and Doreen, or between you and my father, wouldn't make any difference to me. I--I suppose you don't mean to give me the cold shoulder for the future, eh?"

Dudley had turned his back upon him, and was standing on the hearth-rug, looking down at the fire, in an attitude which betrayed to his friend the uneasiness from which he was suffering. It was an attitude of constraint, as different as possible from any in which Max had ever seen him.

Another pause. Dudley seemed unable on this occasion to give a simple answer to a simple question without taking thought first. At last he laughed awkwardly and half turned toward Max.

"Why, of course not," said he, but without heartiness. "Of course not. Though it will be rather awkward, mind, for us to see much of each other just at first, after my having got kicked out like that, won't it?"

The tone in which Max answered betrayed considerable surprise and perplexity.

"Kicked out!" he exclaimed. "My father said he hardly got a word out before you took yourself off in a huff."

Dudley turned round quickly and faced him this time, with a sullen look of defiance on his dark face.

"Well, the wise man doesn't wait to be kicked out," said he. "He removes himself upon the slightest hint that such a proceeding on his part would be well received."

"You were a little too quick on this occasion," replied Max, dryly, "for my father has got himself into hot water, and mother had a fit of crying, while Doreen--"

Something made Max hesitate to tell his friend how Doreen had taken his desertion. Max himself was ready to stand by his friend, whatever difficulties the latter might be in. But Doreen, his lovely sister, must have a lover without reproach.

At the mention of the girl's name there came a slight change over Dudley's face--a change which struck the sensitive Max and touched him deeply. Dudley took a step in the direction of his bedroom, and pulled out his watch. As he did so a railroad ticket jerked out of his pocket with the watch and fell to the ground.

Max saw it fall, but before he could pick it up or draw attention to it his ideas were diverted by Dudley's next words:

"Well, you '11 excuse me, old chap. I've got to see a friend off by the midnight train to Liverpool."

As he spoke Dudley turned, with his hand on the door, to cast a glance at Max. He seemed to be asking himself what he should tell the other. And then he took a step toward his friend and began an explanation, which, as his shrewd eyes told him, Max required.

"The fact is that I got into the way of a beastly accident at Charing Cross just now. Woman run over--badly hurt. Got myself covered with blood. Ugh!"

Max was convinced that the shudder was genuine, although he had doubts--of which he was ashamed--about the tale itself.

And how did that explain the proposed journey?

Dudley went on:

"I've only just got time to change my clothes and make myself decent. See you in a day or two. Sorry I can't stay and have a pipe with you and one of our 'hard-times' suppers."

He was on the point of disappearing into the inner room, when Max stopped him.

"Oh, but you can," said he. "I have something particular to say to you, and I can wait till you come back, if it's two o'clock, and I can bring in the supper myself."

Dudley frowned impatiently, and again he cast at Max the horrible, furtive look which had been his first greeting.

"That's impossible," said he, quickly. "I may have to go on to Liverpool myself. Good-night."

And he shut himself into the bedroom.

Max felt cold all over. After a few minutes' hesitation, he went out of the chambers, down the stairs and out of the house.

At the door a cab was waiting. The driver spoke to him the moment he stepped out on the pavement. Evidently he took him for Dudley, his late fare.

"The lady's got out an' gone off, sir. I hollered after her, but she wouldn't wait. Oh, beg pardon, sir," and the man touched his hat, perceiving his mistake; "I took you for the gentleman I brought here with the lady."

"Oh, he'll be down in a minute or two," answered Max.

And then he thought he would wait and see what new developments the disappearance of the lady would lead to. He was getting sick with alarm about his friend. These instances of the blood-stained clothes, the possible journey to Liverpool, and the flight of the mysterious lady, were so suspicious, taken in conjunction with each other, that Max found it impossible to rest until he knew more. He walked a little way along the pavement, and then returned slowly in the middle of the road. He had done this for the third time when Dudley dashed out of the house with rapid steps, and had reached the step of the hansom before he discovered that the vehicle was empty.

An exclamation of dismay escaped his lips, and to the cabman's statement of the lady's disappearance he replied by asking sharply in which direction she had gone. On receiving the information he wanted, he gave the man his fare, and walked rapidly away in the direction the cabman had indicated.

Max followed.

Every moment increased his belief that some appalling circumstance had occurred by which Dudley's mind had for the time lost its balance. Every word, look and movement on the part of his friend betrayed the fact. Now he was evidently setting off in feverish haste in pursuit of this woman whom he had left in the cab; and Max, who believed that his friend was on the brink of an attack of the insanity which old Mr. Wedmore feared, resolved to dog his footsteps, and not to let his friend go out of his sight until the latter got safely back to his chambers.

Dudley went at a great pace into Holborn, and then he stopped. The traffic had dwindled down to an occasional hansom and to a thin line of foot-passengers on the pavements. He looked to right, to left, and then he turned suddenly and came face to face with Max.

"Hello!" cried he. "Where are you going to? Where are you putting up?"

"At the Arundel," answered Max, taken aback, and stammering a little.

Dudley had recovered his usual tones.

"Come to my club," said he. "We can get some supper there and have that pipe."

"But how about Liverpool and the friend you had to see off?" asked Max.

Dudley hesitated ever so slightly.

"Oh, he's given me the slip," he answered, in a tone which sounded careless enough. "Gone off without waiting for me. So my conscience is free on his score."

Max said nothing for a moment. Then he thought himself justified in setting a trap for his friend.

"Who is he?" asked he. "Anybody I know?"

"No," replied Dudley. "A man I met in the country, who showed me a good deal of kindness. From Yorkshire. Man named Browning. Very good fellow, but erratic. Said he'd wait for me in the cab, and disappeared before I could come down. Had an idea I should make him lose his train, I suppose. Well, never mind him. Come along."

Max went with him in silence. Dudley had not only got back his usual spirits, but seemed to be in a mood of loquacity and liveliness unusual with him. When they got to the club, he ordered oysters and a bottle of champagne, and drank much more freely than was his custom.

It was Max, the ne'er-do-weel, the extravagant one, who drank little and did the listening. Dudley had cast off altogether the gravity and taciturnity which sometimes got him looked upon as a bit of a prig, and chatted and told his friend stories, with a tone and manner of irresponsible gayety which became him ill.

And Max, who was usually the talker, listened as badly as the other told his stories. For all the time he was weighed down with the fear, so strong that it seemed to amount to absolute knowledge, of some horrible danger hanging over his friend.

Abruptly, before he made the expected comment on the last of Dudley's stories, Max rose from his chair and said he must go home.

"I'll see you as far as your diggings first," said he. "It's not much out of way, you know."

At these words Dudley's high spirits suddenly left him, and the furtive look came again into his face.

"Oh," said he, "oh, very well. And on the way I can tell you the whole story of the accident that I saw at Charing Cross, this evening, just before I met you."

So they went out together, and Dudley, as he had suggested, gave his friend a long and extremely circumstantial account of the way in which the wheel went over the woman, and of the difficulty he and the policeman had experienced in getting her from between the wheels of the van by which she had been crushed.

Max heard him in silence, but did not believe a word. Whatever had reduced Dudley to the plight in which he had returned to his chambers, Max was convinced that it differed in some important details from the version of the affair which he chose to give.

"We won't talk any more about it," he went on, without seeming to remark his friend's silence. "It's a thing I want to forget. It has quite upset me for a time; you could see that yourself when you met me. I--I don't know quite what to do to get the thing out of my mind. I think I shall run down to Datton with you, and see what that will do. What do you think?"

Now, although he had drunk more wine than usual, Dudley knew perfectly well what he was saying, and Max stared at him in astonishment.

"What?" he exclaimed. "After what you told me? About my father?"

"Oh, yes, yes. But I can explain everything. I can, and I will," returned Dudley, quickly. "I have not been myself lately. I have had certain business worries. But they are all settled now, and I feel more like myself than I have done for weeks."

Max stopped short and stared at his friend by the light of a gas-lamp.

"Well, you don't look it," said he, shortly.

Dudley laughed loudly, but rather uneasily.

"Don't you think I could give an explanation which would satisfy your father, if I wished?" he asked, with a sudden relapse into gravity.

"I'm hanged if I know," retorted Max, energetically. "You haven't given any explanation which would satisfy _me_."

Dudley stared into his face for a few seconds inquiringly, and then quietly hooked his arm and led him along the Strand.

"You don't want to be satisfied, old chap," said he, in a low voice. "You know me."

Again Max was deeply touched. This was a sudden and unexpected peep under the surface of deception into the real heart of his old chum. He replied only by a slight twitching of the arm Dudley had taken.

They walked on at a quicker pace, and ran up the stairs to the door