“My friend will pay,” said Mr. Maturin, and stalked away. Mr. Trevor says that, while retaining throughout the course of that miserable night his undoubted flair for generosity, he could not but hold Beau Maturin’s high-handed disavowal of his responsibilities against him; and he was hurrying after him up Conduit Street, turning over such phrases as might best point the occasion and make Mr. Maturin ashamed of himself, when that pretty gentleman swung round sharply and said: “Ssh!”
But Mr. Trevor was disinclined to Ssh, maintaining that Mr. Maturin owed him ninepence.
“Ssh, you fool!” snapped Mr. Maturin; and Mr. Trevor had not obliged him for long before he discerned in the quietness of Conduit Street a small discordant noise, or rather, says Mr. Trevor, a series of small discordant noises.
“She’s crying, let’s face it,” whispered Mr. Maturin.
“She! Who?”
“Ssh!” snapped Mr. Maturin.
They were at that point in Conduit Street where a turn to the right will bring one into a fat little street which looks blind but isn’t, insomuch as close by the entrance to the Alpine Club Galleries there is a narrow passage or alley leading into Savile Row. Mr. Trevor says that the repugnance with which he at that moment looked towards the darkness of that passage or alley had less than nothing to do with the blood-thirsty policeman’s last words but was due merely to an antipathy he had entertained towards all passages or alleys ever since George Tarlyon had seen a ghost in one. Mr. Maturin and he stood for some minutes in the full light of the moon while, as though from the very heart of the opposite darkness, the lacerating tremors of weeping echoed about their ears.
“I can’t bear it!” said Beau Maturin. “Come along.” And he advanced towards the darkness, but Mr. Trevor said he would not, pleading foot trouble.
“Come,” said Beau Maturin, but Mr. Trevor said: “To-morrow, yes. But not to-night.”
Then did Beau Maturin advance alone into the darkness towards the passage or alley, and with one pounce the darkness stole his top-hat from the moon. Beau Maturin was invisible. The noise of weeping abated.