My first impulse, when I discovered that we were neighbours, was to fly before he made the same discovery on his own account. Had he chosen, he might have made my position absolutely untenable. While this mood was on me, I did my little best to conceal the fact. When I went out, I took care not to pass his house, lest he should see me from the windows. And the funny part of it was that the first time I did pass his house, he saw me.
The papers were full of the Three Bridges tragedy. The hue-and-cry was hot against the man who had travelled in that blood-stained carriage. What amazed me was his continued silence. It showed not only abject cowardice, but drivelling idiocy to boot. Anything was better--for him!--than keeping still. It was the Friday night. I had some letters to post. I had a headache. I felt that I must have some fresh air, or a change of air if fresh air was not obtainable; so I took them myself to the pillar-box at the end of the road. Doing so involved passing Tommy's residence. But it was dark; there was more than the suspicion of fog--the risk seemed small.
I went on the opposite side of the street. The fog was so thick that, when I had despatched the letters, it seemed absurd to take precautions.
"I'll stroll back past Tommy's. Why should I be afraid of him?"
I strolled. The fog appeared to be thicker every moment. The houses in the street, externally, were as like as two peas. I really found it difficult to find out exactly whereabouts I was. I was thinking of Tommy, and of how eagerly he was being hunted, and of what a sensation I might make by sending his address to Scotland Yard--when there he was in front of me!
Right close in front of me!
He was standing at the bottom of a flight of steps--his own steps--hatless, his hands in his trousers' pockets, as if, like me, he had come out to get a change of air. Suddenly he became conscious of my presence. He turned my way, and stared. The encounter was more than I had bargained for. It made me feel a trifle awkward. But the effect which it had on him was most astounding. The look which came upon his face actually frightened me--it's a fact! I had not thought that a human countenance could have been capable of an expression of such awful horror. To look at him--and I had to look!--made me go all cold. As I advanced, he went--automatically, I am sure--backwards up the steps, never removing his eyes from off me, the awful something that was on his face intensifying every second. At the bottom of the steps I paused--I had to; something made me. I don't know what he thought; but, as he saw me standing there, he made a convulsive movement backwards, went into the house, and banged the door.
I am cool enough as a rule. It takes something to put me off my balance. But I was off my balance then. The whole thing was so unlooked for, and seemed so strange; it unnerved me. When Tommy had gone I found that I was trembling.
But the incident was not by any means concluded.
When I had gone a few steps further on, I all but cannoned into what seemed to be a crowd of men, who, of malice prepense, were blocking up the pavement. What with the fog and my state of fluster, I did not perceive what they were till I was right upon them.