The Narrow Corner (28 page)

A
MONTH
later Dr. Saunders was sitting on the little dusty terrace of the van Dyke Hotel at Singapore. It was late in the afternoon. From where he sat he could see the street below. Cars dashed past and cabs drawn by two sturdy ponies; rickshaws sped by with a patter of naked feet. Now and then Tamils, tall and emaciated, sauntered along, and in their silence, in the quiet of their stealthy movement, was the night of a far-distant past. Trees shaded the street and the sun splashed down in irregular patches. Chinese women in trousers, with gold pins in their hair, stepped out of the shade into the light like marionettes passing across the stage. Now and then a young planter, deeply sunburned, in a double-brimmed hat and khaki shorts, walked past with
the long stride he had learnt tramping over the rubber estates. Two dark-skinned soldiers, very smart in their clean uniforms, strutted by conscious of their importance. The heat of the day was past, the light was golden, and in the air was a crisp nonchalance as though life, there and then, invited you to take it lightly. A water-cart passed, slithering the dusty road with a stream of water.

Dr. Saunders had spent a fortnight in Java. Now he was catching the first ship that came in for Hong-Kong, and from there he intended to take a coasting vessel to Fu-chou. He was glad he had made the journey. It had taken him out of the rut he had been in so long. It had liberated him from the bonds of unprofitable habits, and, relaxed as never before from all earthly ties, he rejoiced in a heavenly sense of spiritual independence. It was an exquisite pleasure to him to know that there was no one in the world who was essential to his peace of mind. He had reached, though by a very different path, the immunity from the concerns of this world which is the aim of the ascetic. While, like the Buddha contemplating his navel, he was delectably immersed in his self-satisfaction, someone touched him on the shoulder. He looked up and saw Captain Nichols.

“I was passin’ by and saw you sittin’ there. I came up to say ’ow d’ye do to you.”

“Sit down and have a drink.”

“I don’t mind if I do.”

The skipper wore his shore-going clothes. They were not old, but they looked astonishingly seedy. He had two days’ growth of beard on his lean face, and the nails on his hands were rimmed with grime. He looked down at heel.

“I’m ’avin’ me teeth attended to,” he said. “You was right. The dentist says I must ’ave ’em all out. Says ’e’s not surprised I suffer from dyspepsia. It’s a miracle I’ve gone on as long as I ’ave, according to ’im.”

The doctor gave him a glance and noticed that his upper front teeth had been extracted. It made his ingratiating smile more sinister than ever.

“Where’s Fred Blake?” asked Dr. Saunders.

The smile faded from the skipper’s lips, but lingered sardonic in his eyes.

“Come to a sticky end, poor young chap,” he replied.

“What d’you mean?”

“Fell overboard one night or jumped over. Nobody knows. He was gone in the morning.”

“In a storm?”

The doctor could hardly believe his ears.

“No. Sea was as flat as a mill-pond. He was very low after we come away from Kanda. We went to Batavia same as we said we was goin’ to do. I suspicioned ’e was expectin’ a letter there. But if it come or if it didn’t I don’t know, and it’s no good askin’ me.”

“But how could he go overboard without anyone noticing? What about the man at the helm?”

“We’d ’ove to for the night. Been drinkin’ very ’eavy. Nothin’ to do with me, of course, but I tell ’im he’d better go easy. Told me to mind me own bloody business. All right, I says, go your own way. It ain’t goin’ to disturb my night’s rest what you do.”

“When did it happen?”

“A week ago last Tuesday.”

The doctor leaned back. It was a shock to him. It was so short a while since that boy and he had sat together and talked. It had seemed to him then that there was in him something naïve and aspiring that was not devoid of charm. It was not very pleasant to think of him now drifting, mangled and terrible, at the mercy of the tides. He was only a kid. Notwithstanding his philosophy, the doctor could not but feel a pang when the young died.

“Very awkward it was for me, too,” continued the skipper. “He’d won nearly all my money at cribbage. We played a lot after we left you, and I tell you the luck ’e ’ad was unbelievable. I knew I was a better player than ’im; I’d never ’ave took him on if I ’adn’t been as sure of that as I am that you’re sittin’ there, and I doubled the stakes. And d’you know, I couldn’t win. I began to think there was somethin’ phoney about it, but there’s not much you can teach me in that direction, and I couldn’t see ’ow it was done if it was done. No,
it was just luck. Well, to cut a long story short, by the time we got to Batavia ’e’d took off me every penny I’d got for the cruise.

“Well, after the accident I broke open his strong box. We’d bought a couple when we was at Merauke. I ’ad to, you know, to see if there was an address or anythin’ so as I could communicate with the sorrowin’ relatives. I’m very particular about that sort of thing. And d’you know, there wasn’t a shillin’ there. It was as empty as the palm of my ’and. The dirty little tyke carried all ’is money in ’is belt and ’e gone overboard with it.”

“It must have been a sell for you.”

“I never liked him, not from the beginnin’. Crooked ’e was. And mind you, it was me own money, most of it. You can’t tell me ’e could win like that playin’ on the square. I don’t know whatever I should ’ave done if I ’adn’t been able to sell the ketch to a Chink at Penang. It looked like I was bein’ made the goat.”

The doctor stared. It was a queer story. He wondered if there was any truth in it. Captain Nichols filled him with repulsion.

“I suppose you didn’t by any chance push him overboard when he was drunk?” he asked acidly.

“What d’you mean by that?”

“You didn’t know the money was in his belt. It was quite a packet for a bum like you. I wouldn’t put it past you to have done the dirty on the wretched boy.”

Captain Nichols went green in the face. His jaw dropped and a glassy stare came into his eyes. The doctor chuckled. That random shot of his had gone home. The scoundrel. But then he saw that the skipper was not looking at him, but at something behind; he turned round and saw a woman slowly ascending the steps from the street to the terrace. She was a shortish woman and stout, with a flat, pasty face and somewhat protruding eyes. They were strangely round and shone like boot-buttons. She wore a dress of black cloth that was a little too tight for her, and on her head a black straw hat, like a man’s. She was most unsuitably dressed for the tropics. She looked hot and out of temper.

“My God!” gasped the skipper, under his breath. “My old woman.”

She walked up to the table in a leisurely manner. She looked at the unhappy man with distaste in her eyes and he watched her in helpless fascination.

“What ’ave you done with your front teeth, Captain?” she said.

He smiled ingratiatingly.

“Whoever thought of seein’ you, my dear,” he said. “This is a joyful surprise.”

“We’ll go and ’ave a cup of tea, Captain.”

“Just as you say, my dear.”

He got up. She turned round and walked the way
she came. Captain Nichols followed her. His face wore a very serious expression. The doctor reflected that now he would never know the truth about poor Fred Blake. He smiled grimly as he saw the skipper walk in silence down the street by his wife’s side.

A faint breeze rustled suddenly the leaves of the trees and a ray of sun found its way through them and danced for a moment by his side. He thought of Louise and her ash-blonde hair. She was like an enchantress in an old tale whom men loved to their destruction. She was an enigmatic figure going about her household duties with that steady composure and with serenity waiting for what would in due course befall her. He wondered what it would be. He sighed a little, for whatever it was, if the richest dreams the imagination offered came true, in the end it remained nothing but illusion.

THE END