There were newspaper cuttings and plans and dreadful photographs, the like of which the outside world do not see, and there was a little key ticketed with an inscription. Angel looked through the dossier carefully, then read the woman’s letter again....
Vinnis, the man with the dead-white face, finishing his late breakfast, and with the pleasurable rustle of new banknotes in his trouser pocket, strolled forth into Commercial Road, E. An acquaintance leaning against a public-house gave him a curt nod of recognition; a bedraggled girl hurrying homeward with her man’s breakfast in her apron shrank on one side, knowing Vinnis to her sorrow; a stray cur cringed up to him, as he stood for a moment at the edge of the road, and was kicked for its pains.
Vinnis was entirely without sentiment, and besides, even though the money in his pocket compensated for most things, the memory of old George and his babbling talk worried him.
Somebody on the other side of the road attracted his attention. It was a woman, and he knew her very well, therefore he ignored her beckoning hand. Two days ago he had occasion to reprove her, and he had seized the opportunity to summarily dissolve the informal union that had kept them together for five years. So he made no sign when the woman with the bruised face called him, but turned abruptly and walked towards Aldgate.
He did not look round, but by and by he heard the patter of her feet behind, and once his name called hoarsely. He struck off into a side street with a raging devil inside him, then when they reached an unfrequented part of the road he turned on her.
She saw the demon in his eyes, and tried to speak. She was a penitent woman at that moment, and hysterically ripe for confession, but the savage menace of the man froze her lips.
“So,” he said, his thin mouth askew, “so after what I’ve said an’ what I’ve done you follow me, do you. Showing me up in the street, eh!”
He edged closer to her, his fist doubled, and she, poor drab, fascinated by the snakelike glare of his dull eyes, stood rooted to the spot. Then with a snarl he struck her—once, twice—and she fell a huddled, moaning heap on the pavement.
You may do things in Commercial Road, E., after “lighting-up time” that are not permissible in the broad light of the day, unless it be Saturday, and the few people who had been attracted by the promise of a row were indignant but passive, after the manner of all London crowds. Not so one quiet, middle-aged man, who confronted Vinnis as he began to walk away.
“That was a particularly brutal thing to do,” said the quiet man.