But now, so far as he could judge, the house was absolutely deserted. He tried door after door softly, and each yielded to his touch, revealing gloom and desolation and dirt by the faint light of the vesta. As each stump burned low Rigby carefully dropped the end of it in his pocket. He was conscious of a feeling of disappointment. Almost before he was fully cognizant of that feeling he paused in an attitude of rigid attention. Something like the sound of a smothered cough struck on his ear; it seemed to him that he could hear somebody approaching. The stair creaked, and Rigby drew back into a doorway.
He was not mistaken. Somebody was coming up the stairs.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
THE CHOPIN FANTASIE.
It was nearly two hours later before Rigby crept cautiously down the steps and emerged by the way in which he had entered the house. The street as before was absolutely deserted; so far as Rigby could see he might have been in a city of the dead. Despite his disguise and the artistic make-up of his grimy face, an acute spectator would not have failed to notice the agitation of his features. He crept with trembling footsteps to the roadway, and clung to the railings with a swaying air of one who has seen things the tongue refuses to describe. Then his natural courage, fanned by the cool air of the evening and the sense of being no longer isolated, returned with virile force to him. Mechanically he fumbled in his rags and produced from a breast pocket a silver cigarette-case, that might have got him into serious trouble if a lynx-eyed policeman had been near at hand.
"Well, I have seen some queer things in my time, but, as the poet says, 'never aught like this,'" Rigby said, with teeth that chattered a little. "I really must have one of my own cigarettes."
Despite his excitement, Rigby was conscious that he ought to be just a little ashamed of himself. He had always prided himself upon the fact that his nerves were perfectly under control and that nothing ever put him out, otherwise he would not have occupied the position he did at the Planet office. He began to feel the effect of the cool night air, which braced him like a tonic. As he stood there waiting for something--though he would have found it difficult to say what--a policeman came slowly down the street. Rigby stooped and pretended to be busy with his stock of papers.
Some spirit of mischief moved him to chaff the representative of the law, and at the same time test to the utmost the disguise that he was wearing.
"Paper, sir?" he asked. "All the winners--horrible murder in Grosvenor Square. Ain't you going to buy one?"
Apparently the officer was one of the good-tempered sort, for he only smiled, and in a more or less gruff voice ordered the news-vender to move on.