The Wharf by the Docks, Florence Warden [e novels to read txt] 📗

left by the timber, calling himself a fool for his journey.

And just as he was reaching the narrow street by which he had come he was startled to find a girl's face peering down at him from the top of a pile of timber.

Max stopped, with an exclamation. In an instant the girl withdrew the head, which was all he had seen of her, and he heard her crawling back quickly over the timber, out of his sight.

Although he had seen her for a moment only, Max had been chilled to the bone by the expression of the girl's face. Ghastly white it had looked in the feeble light of a solitary gas lamp some distance away, and wearing an expression of fear and horror such as he had never seen on any countenance before. He felt that he must find out where she had gone, his first belief being that she was a lunatic. Else why should she have disappeared in that stealthy manner, with the look of fear stamped upon her face? There was nothing in the look or manner of Max himself to alarm her; and if she had been in need of help, why had she not called to him?

He got a footing upon the timber and looked over it. But he could see nothing more of the girl. Beyond the stacks were some low-roofed outbuildings and the back of a shut-up warehouse. Reluctantly he got down, and passed into the narrow street. Not willing to leave at once a neighborhood which he had come so far to investigate, he turned, after going some dozen yards down the street, into a narrow passage on his left hand which led back to the river.

The width between the high walls and the warehouses on either side was only some five feet. It was flagged with stone, very dark. About ten yards from the entrance there was a small warehouse, on the left hand, on which hung an old board, announcing that the building was "To Let." And next door to this was a dingy shop, with grimy and broken windows, the door of which was boarded up. This shop, also, was "To Be Let," and the board in this case had been up so long that the announcement had to be divined rather than read.

Rather struck by the dilapidated appearance of these two buildings in a place where he supposed land must be valuable, Max paused for an instant. And as he did so, he became aware that there was some one by his side.

Looking down quickly, he saw the young girl of whom he had caught a glimpse a few minutes before.

He started.

She looked up at him, and, still with the same look of stereotyped horror on her thin, white face, whispered, in a hoarse voice, as she pointed to the boarded-up shop-door with a shaking forefinger:

"You daren't go in there, do you? There's a dead man in there!"


CHAPTER VII.

A QUESTIONABLE GUIDE.

Max started violently at the girl's voice.

"A dead man? In there? How do you know?"

In a hoarse voice the girl answered:

"How do I know? The best way possible. _I saw it done!_"

There was an awful silence. Max was so deeply impressed by the girl's words, her looks, her manner, by the gloom of the cold, dark passage, by the desolate appearance of the two deserted buildings before which they stood, that his first impulse was an overpowering desire to run away. Acting upon it he even took a couple of rapid steps in the direction of the street he had left, passing the girl and getting clear of the uncanny boarded-up front of the shop.

A moan from the girl made him stop and look around at her. Emboldened by this, she came close to him again and whispered:

"You're a man; you ought to have more pluck than I've got. It's two days since it happened--"

"Two days!" muttered Max, remembering that it was two days ago that he had surprised Dudley with his blood-stained hands.

"And for those two days I've been outside here waiting for somebody to come because I daren't go inside by myself. Two days! Two days!" she repeated, her teeth chattering.

Max looked at her with mixed feelings of doubt, pity and astonishment. It was too dark in the ill-lighted passage for him to see all the details of her appearance. She was young, quite young; so much was certain. She looked white and pinched and miserably cold. Her dress was respectable, very plain, and bore marks of her climbing and crawling over the timber on the wharf.

"Won't you go in with me?" she asked again, more eagerly, more tremulously than before. "I can show you the road--round at the back. You will have a little climbing to do, but you won't mind that."

"But what do you want me to do if I do get inside?" said Max. "It's the police you ought to send for, if a man has died in there. Go to the police station and give information."

The girl shook her head.

"I can't do that," she whispered. Then, after a shuddering pause, she came a step nearer and said, in a lower whisper than ever: "He didn't die--of his own accord. He was murdered."

Max grew hot, and cold. He heartily wished he had never come.

"All the more reason," he went on in a blustering voice, "why you should inform the police. You had better lose no time about it."

"I can't do that," said the girl, "because he--the man who did it--was kind to us--kind to Granny and me. If I tell the police, they will go after him, and perhaps find him, and--and hang him. Oh, no," and she shook her head again with decision, "I could not do that."

Max was silent for a few moments, looking at her for the first few seconds with pity and then with suspicion.

"Why do you tell all this to me, then--a stranger--if you're so afraid of the police finding out anything about it?"

The girl did not answer for a moment. She seemed puzzled to answer the question. At last she said:

"I didn't mean to. When I saw you first, at the wharf, at the back there, I just looked at you and hid myself again. And then I thought to myself that as you were a gentleman perhaps I might dare to ask you what I did."

Max, not unnaturally, grew more doubtful still. This apparently deserted building, which he was asked to enter by the back way, might be a thievish den of the worst possible character, and this girl, innocent as she certainly looked, might be a thieves' decoy. Something in his face or in his manner must have betrayed his thoughts to the shrewd Londoner; for she suddenly drew back, uttering a little cry of horror. Without another word she turned and slunk back along the passage and into the street.

Now, if Max had been a little older, or a little more prudent, if he had indeed been anything but a reckless young rascal with a taste for exciting adventure, he would have taken this opportunity of getting away from such a very questionable neighborhood. But, in the first place, he was struck by the girl's story, which seemed to fit in only too well with what he knew; and in the second place, he was interested in the girl herself, the refinement of whose face and manner, in these dubious surroundings, had impressed him as much as the expression of horror on her face and the agony of cold which had caused her teeth to chatter and her limbs to tremble.

Surely, he thought, the suspicions he had for a moment entertained about her were incorrect. He began to feel that he could not go away without making an effort to ascertain if there were any truth in her story.

He went along the passage and got back to the wharf by the same means as before. Making his way round the pile of timber upon which he had first seen the girl, he discovered a little lane, partly between and partly over the planks, which he promptly followed in the hope of coming in sight of her again.

And, crouching under the wall of a ruinous outhouse, in an attitude expressive of the dejection of utter abandonment, was the white-faced girl.

The discovery was enough for Max. All considerations of prudence, of caution, crumbled away under the influence of the intense pity he felt for the forlorn creature.

"Look here," said he, "I'll go in, if you like. Have you got a light?"

"No--o," answered the girl, in a voice which was thick with sobs. "But I can show you where to get one when you get inside."

Max had by this time reached the ground, which was slimy and damp under the eaves; and he pushed his way, with an air of recklessness which hid some natural trepidation, into the outhouse, the door of which was not even fastened.

"Why," said he, turning to the girl, who was close behind him, "you could have got in yourself easily enough. At least you would have been warmer in here than outside."

His suspicions were starting up again, and they grew stronger as he perceived that she was paying little attention to him, that she seemed to be listening for some expected sound. The place in which they now stood was quite dark, and Max, impatient and somewhat alarmed by the position in which he found himself, struck a match and looked round him.

"Now," said he, "find me a candle, if you can."

Even by the feeble light of the match he could see that he was in a sort of a scullery, which bore traces of recent occupation. A bit of yellow soap, some blacking and a couple of brooms in one corner, a pail and a wooden chair in another, were evidently not "tenant's fixtures."

And then Max noted a strange circumstance--the two small windows were boarded up on the inside.

By the time he had taken note of this, the girl had brought him a candle in a tin candlestick, which she had taken from a shelf by the door.

"That's the way," she said, in a voice as low a before, pointing to an inner door. "Through the back room, and into the front one. He lies in there."

Max shuddered.

"I can't say that I particularly want to see him," said he, as he took stock of her in the candle-light, and was struck by the peculiar beauty of her large blue eyes.

He felt a strong reluctance to venturing farther into this very questionable and mysterious dwelling; and he took care to stand where he could see both doors, the one which led farther into the house and the one by which he had entered.

The girl heaved a little sigh, of relief apparently. And she remained standing before him in the same attitude of listening expectancy as he had remarked in her already.

"What are you waiting for--listening for?" asked Max sharply.

"Nothing," she answered with a start. "I'm nervous, that's all. Wouldn't you be, if you'd been waiting two days outside an empty house with a dead man inside it?"

Her tone was sharp and querulous. Max looked at her in bewilderment.

"Empty house!" he repeated. "What were you doing in it, then?"

And he glanced round