9 FROGNALL STREET, W. C.
The covered alleyway gave upon Quadrant Mews; or so declared a notice painted on the dead wall of the passage.
Overhead, complaining as it swayed in the wind, hung the smirched and weather-worn sign-board of the Hog-in-the-Pound public house; wherefrom escaped sounds of such revelry by night as is indulged in by the British working-man in hours of ease. At the curb in front of the house of entertainment, dejected animals drooping between their shafts, two hansoms stood in waiting, until such time as the lords of their destinies should see fit to sally forth and inflict themselves upon a cab-hungry populace. As Kirkwood turned, a third vehicle rumbled up out of the mews.
Kirkwood can close his eyes, even at this late day, and both see and hear it all again—even as he can see the unbroken row of dingy dwellings that lined his way back from Quadrant Mews to Frognall Street corner: all drab and unkempt, all sporting in their fan-lights the legend and lure, "Furnished Apartments."
For, between his curiosity about and his concern for the girl, he was being led back to Number 9, by the nose, as it were,—hardly willingly, at best. Profoundly stupefied by the contemplation of his own temerity, he yet returned unfaltering. He who had for so long plumed himself upon his strict supervision of his personal affairs and equally steadfast unconsciousness of his neighbor's businesses, now found himself in the very act of pushing in where he was not wanted: as he had been advised in well-nigh as many words. He experienced an effect of standing to one side, a witness of his own folly, with rising wonder, unable to credit the strength of the infatuation which was placing him so conspicuously in the way of a snubbing.
If perchance he were to meet the girl again as she was leaving Number 9,—what then? The contingency dismayed him incredibly, in view of the fact that it did not avail to make him pause. To the contrary he disregarded it resolutely; mad, impertinent, justified of his unnamed apprehensions, or simply addled,—he held on his way.
He turned up Frognall Street with the manner of one out for a leisurely evening stroll. Simultaneously, from the farther corner, another pedestrian debouched, into the thoroughfare—a mere moving shadow at that distance, brother to blacker shadows that skulked in the fenced areas and unlively entries of that poorly lighted block. The hush was something beyond belief, when one remembered the nearness of blatant Tottenham Court Road.
Kirkwood conceived a wholly senseless curiosity about the other wayfarer. The man was walking rapidly, heels ringing with uncouth loudness, cane tapping the flagging at brief intervals. Both sounds ceased abruptly as their cause turned in beneath one of the porticos. In the emphatic and unnatural quiet that followed, Kirkwood, stepping more lightly, fancied that another shadow followed the first, noiselessly and with furtive stealth.
Could it be Number 9 into which they had passed? The American's heart beat a livelier tempo at the suggestion. If it had not been Number 9—he was still too far away to tell—it was certainly one of the dwellings adjacent thereunto. The improbable possibility (But why improbable?) that the girl was being joined by her father, or by friends, annoyed him with illogical intensity. He mended his own pace, designing to pass whichever house it might be before the door should be closed; thought better of this, and slowed up again, anathematizing himself with much excuse for being the inquisitive dolt that he was.
Approaching Number 9 with laggard feet, he manufactured a desire to light a cigarette, as a cover for his design, were he spied upon by unsuspected eyes. Cane under arm, hands cupped to shield a vesta's flame, he stopped directly before the portico, turning his eyes askance to the shadowed doorway; and made a discovery sufficiently startling to hold him spellbound and, incidentally, to scorch his gloves before he thought to drop the match.