The Moon Rock

by Arthur J. Rees

He glanced round him restlessly. The swaying noisy train and the compartment packed with stolid faces jarred on his overburdened nerves. Why were those women in the next compartment laughing like hyenas? What was there in life to laugh over at any time? It was a thing to impose silence on all by its desolation, its unescapable doom. His eye was caught by an advertisement above the rack opposite him—an advertisement which depicted a smiling grotesque face, and advised him to buy the comic journal it represented in order to dissipate melancholy and gloom.

Fools—fools all!

While he was thus looking around him his eyes encountered a curious glance from the man in the opposite corner seat, who had been in the compartment when he entered the train at Charleswood. The man dropped his gaze at once, but there was something in the quality of the look which put Charles on his guard. Charles did not turn his head again, but, leaning back in his seat, kept the other under view from seemingly closed eyes. He was soon convinced that the man in the corner seat was watching him—shooting furtive glances across the carriage from behind the screen of his newspaper.

Was he a detective? Not if Barrant was a usual representative of the tribe. Yet there was something infernally quizzical in the scrutiny which reached him through those gold-rimmed glasses. Stay, though! Did detectives wear glasses? Wasn’t there an eyesight test or something like that for officers of the law? He had never seen a policeman wearing glasses. If he was not a detective, why was he watching him? There was no reward offered for his arrest. Perhaps he belonged to the wretched type of beings who pride themselves on their public spirit—men who wrote letters to the newspapers and interfered in other people’s business. The beast might have guessed his identity and wanted to show his public spirit by handing him over to the police. The newspaper in his hand! Of course. He had read his description there, and identified him.

Charles found himself conjecturing how the man would set about carrying out his task of public watchdog, if that was in his mind. He pictured the possibility of him appealing to the others in the compartment. He might get up and say: “There is a murderer in this compartment. I recognize him from the description in this paper, and I call upon you all as public-spirited citizens to see that he does not escape justice.” The torpid passengers would start up, staring and looking foolish after the fashion of English people when asked to do something unusual. Would they help? There was a stout man opposite with the symptoms of a public spirit lurking in the creases of his fat self-satisfied face. Charles promised himself that he would give them a fight for it. He counted his chances. He was aware from his previous journey to Charleswood that the train he was in now ran through to Charing Cross without another stop. Perhaps the man in the corner seat would wait until they arrived there, and then give him in charge. That was a disconcerting possibility, but he could see no way of guarding against it unless he chose to drop from the train, now travelling at nearly forty miles an hour, taking the risk of being maimed or killed. He considered the advisability of that. It was a chance he might have taken casually enough on his own account, but he had also to think of Sisily. She would be quite friendless if he were killed. Besides, there was also the chance that he might be mistaken in interpreting the man’s intentions by his own fears. At all events he seemed to have no thought of springing up and denouncing him. Charles decided to wait and trust to luck to escape in the crowd at Charing Cross if the man made any move there.

In ten minutes the train was running into Charing Cross station at slowing speed. Charles’s mouth closed tightly, and his face flushed.

The man in the corner seat flattened his newspaper into a pocket, opened the carriage door, and sprang out on to the platform. Charles followed him quickly, and stood still watching him make his way towards the barrier. He saw him press through, give up his ticket, and disappear without so much as a backward glance.

There was something so ridiculous in this anticlimax to his poignant fears that the young man was for the moment actually exasperated. But his face and linen were wet with perspiration. Then a great feeling of relief swept over him like a cooling wave. He followed in the wake of the other passengers and emerged from the station into the street.

It was early enough for the shops to be still open, but the streets were thronged with pleasure-seekers going to restaurants and places of amusement. As he stood there a painted girl touched him on the arm with an enticing smile for such wares as she had to sell, and her solicitation awakened him sharply to the folly of standing in the lighted Strand at that hour in full view of every passing policeman. He walked slowly away, debating where to turn his steps. An outfitter’s shop displaying overcoats gave him a bright idea. He walked inside and selected a long dark coat which reached to his heels, putting it on over the light and fashionable coat he was wearing. The shopman seemed surprised at his choice, but made no comment as he took his money and handed him his change. Charles caught a glimpse of himself as he went out, and was satisfied with his changed appearance. In that shapeless garment he was no longer likely to catch the eye of any unduly curious observer as a “well-dressed” man.

He now walked swiftly. Turning out of Chandos Street from the Strand, he avoided the brightly lit proximity of Leicester Square, and plunged into the crooked dark streets on the other side of Charing Cross Road. He reached New Oxford Street, crossed it, and continued along obscure streets, his head bent forward, in the unconscious habit of a man thinking deeply as he went.