The Prelude to Adventure Part 5

And here, in the heart of the Sannet Wood, is death from violence, death, naked, crude, removed from all sense of life as we know it. The High Tables avoid Carfax's body with all possible discretion; for an hour or two the Port has lost its flavour, Homer is hidden by a cloud, the gentle chatter is curtailed and silenced. Amongst the lower order--those wild and turbulent undergraduates--it is the only topic.

Carfax is very generally known; he had ridden, he had rowed, he had played cricket. A member of the only sporting club in the University, he had been known as a "real sportsman and a d.a.m.ned good fellow" because he was often drunk and frequently spent an evening in London . . . and now he is dead.

In Saul's a number of very young spirits awake to the consciousness of death. Here is a red-faced hearty fellow as fit as anything one moment and dead the next. Never before had the fact been faced that this might happen to any one. Let the High Table dismiss it easily, it is none so simple for those who have not had time to build up those defending walls. For a day or two there is a hush about the place, voices are soft, men talk in groups, the mystery is the one sensation. . . . The time pa.s.ses, there are other interests, once more the High Table can taste its wine. Death is again bundled into noisier streets, into a harder, shriller air. . . .

2

Olva, on the morning after the discovery of the body, heard from Mrs.

Ridge speculations as to the probable criminal. "You take _my_ word, Mr.

Dune, sir, it was one of them there nasty tramps--always 'anging round they are, and Miss Annett was only yesterday speakin' to me of a ugly feller comin' round to their back door and askin' for bread, weren't you, Miss Annett?"

"I was, indeed, Mrs. Ridge."

"And 'im with the nastiest 'eavy blue jaw you ever saw on a man, 'adn't 'e, Miss Annett?"

"He had, indeed, Mrs. Ridge."

"Ah, I shouldn't wonder--nasty-sort-o'-looking feller. And that Sannet Wood too--nasty lonely place with its old stones and all--comfortable?--I _don't_ think."

Olva made inquiries as to the stones.

"Why, ever so old, they say--before Christ, I've 'eard. Used to cut up 'uman flesh and eat it like the pore natives, and there's a ugly lookin'

stone in that very wood where they did it too, or so I've 'eard. Would you go along that way in the dark, Miss Annett?"

"Not much--I grant _you_, Mrs. Ridge."

"Oh yes! not likely on a dark night, I _don't_ think!--and that pore Mr.

Carfax--well, all I say is, I 'opes they catch 'im, that's all _I_ say . . ." with further reminiscence concerning Mrs. Birch who had worked on Carfax's staircase the last ten years and never "'ad no kind of luck.

There was that Mr. Oliver---"

Final dismissal of Mrs. Ridge and Miss Annett.

Meanwhile, strange enough the relief that he felt because the body was actually removed from that wood. No longer possible now to see it lying there with the leg bent underneath, the head falling straight back, the ring on the finger. . . . Curious, too, that the matchbox had not been discovered; they must have searched pretty thoroughly by now--perhaps after all it had not been dropped there.

But over him there had fallen a strange la.s.situde. He was outside, beyond it all.

And then Craven came to see him. The event had wrought in the boy a great change. It was precisely with a character like Craven's that such an incident must cleave a division between youth and manhood. He had, until last evening, considered nothing for himself; his father's death had occurred when he was too young to see anything in it but a perfectly natural removal of some one immensely old. The world had seemed the easiest, the simplest of places, his years at Rugby had been delight.

Fully free from shocks of any kind. Good health, friends.h.i.+p, a little learning, these things had made the days pa.s.s swiftly. Rupert Craven had been yesterday, a child precisely typical of the system in which he had been drilled; now he was something different. Olva knew that he was capable of depths of feeling because of his extraordinary devotion to his sister. Craven had often spoken of her to Olva--"So different from me, the most brilliant person in the world. Her music is really wonderful----people who know, I mean, all say so. But you see we're the same age--only two of us. We've always been everything to one another."

Olva wondered why Craven had told him. It was not as though they had ever been very intimate, but Craven seemed to think that Olva and his sister would have much in common.

Olva wondered, as he looked at Craven standing there in the doorway, how this sister would take the change in her brother. He had suddenly, as he looked at Craven, a perception of the number of lives with whose course his action had involved him. The wheel was beginning to turn. . . .

The light had gone from Craven's eyes. His vitality and energy had slipped from him, leaving his body heavy, unalert. He seemed puzzled, awed; there were dark lines under his eyes, his cheeks were pale and his mouth had lost its tendency to smile, its lines were heavy; but, above all, his expression was interrogative. Finally, he was puzzled.

For an instant, as he looked at him, Olva felt that he could not face him, then with a deliberate summoning of the resources of his temperament he strung himself to whatever the day might bring forth.

"This is awful----"

"Yes."

"Of course it doesn't matter to you, Dune, as it does to me, but I knew the fellow so awfully well. It's horrible, horrible. That he should have died--like that."

Olva broke out suddenly. "After all not such a bad way to die--swift enough. I don't suppose Carfax valued life especially."

"Oh! he enjoyed it--enjoyed it like anything. And that it should be taken so trivially, for no reason at all. It seems to be almost certain that it was some tramp or other--robbery the motive probably, and then he was startled and left the money--it was all lying about on the gra.s.s.

But then Carfax was mixed up with so many ruffians of one kind and another. It may have been revenge or any-thing. I believe they are searching the wood now, but they're not likely to bring it home to any one. Misty day, no one about, and the man simply used his fist apparently--he must have been most awfully strong. Have you ever heard of any one killing a man with one blow--except a prize-fighter?"

"It's simply a knack, I believe, if you catch a fellow in a certain spot."

Supposing that some wretched tramp were arrested and accused? Some dirty fellow from behind a hedge? All the tramps, all the ruffians of the world were now a danger. The accusation of another would bring the truth from him of course. His dark eyes moved across the room to Craven's white, tired face. Within himself there moved now with every hour stirring more acutely this desire for life. If only they would let him alone . . . let the body alone . . . let it all alone. Let the world sink back to its earlier apathy.

His voice was resentful.

"Carfax wasn't a good fellow, Craven. No, I know--_Nil nini bonum_ . . .

and all the rest of it. But it looks a bit like a judgment--judgment from Heaven."

Craven broke in.

"But now--just now when his body's lying there. I know there were things he did. He was a bit wild, of course----"

"Yes, there was a girl, a girl in Midgett's tobacconist's shop--his daughter. Carfax ruined her, body and soul . . . ruined her. He boasted of it. Looks like a judgment."

"I don't care." Craven sprang up. "Carfax may have done things, but he was a friend of mine, and a good friend. They _must_ catch the man, they _must_. It's a duty they owe us all. To have such a man as that hanging about. Why, it might happen to any of us. You must help me, Dune."

"Help you?"

"Yes--help them to catch the murderer. We must think of everything that could make a clue. Perhaps this girl. I _had_ heard something about her, of course; but perhaps there was another lover, a rival or something, or perhaps her father----"

"Well," Dune said slowly, "my advice to you, Craven, is not to think too much about the whole business. A thing like that is certain to get on one's nerves--leave it alone as much as you can----"

"What a funny chap you are! You're always like that. As detached from everything as though you weren't alive at all. Why, I believe, if you'd committed the murder yourself you wouldn't be much more concerned!"

"Well, we've got to go on as we're made, I suppose, only _do_ take my advice about not getting morbid over it. By the way, I see I'm playing against St. Martin's this afternoon."

"Yes. I thought at first I wouldn't play. But I suppose it's better to go on doing one's ordinary things. You're coming in to-night, aren't you?

"Are you sure you want me after all this disturbance?

"Why, of course; my mother's expecting you. Half-past seven. Don't dress." He raised his arms above his head, yawning. He was obviously better for the talk. His eyes were less strained, his body more alert.

"I'm tired to death. Didn't get a wink of sleep last night--saw poor Carfax in the dark--ugh! Well, we meet this afternoon."

When the door closed Olva had the sensation of having been on his trial.

Craven's eyes still followed him. Nerves, of course . . . but they had strangely reminded him of Bunker.

3

Olva had never been to Craven's house before. It stood in a little street that joined Cambridge to the country. At one end of the prim little road the lamps stopped abruptly and a white chalk path ran amongst dark common to a distant wood.