BOOK SIXTH (continued 2)

He remembered his way through the labyrinth of the shop; he knew her department was on the upper floor. He walked through the place, which was crowded, as if he had as good a right as any one else; and as he had entertained himself on rising with putting on his holiday garments, in which he made such a tidy figure, he was not suspected of any purpose more nefarious than that of looking for some nice thing to give a lady. He ascended the stairs and found himself in a large room where made-up articles were ranged and where, though there were twenty people in it, a glance told him he shouldn’t find Millicent. She was perhaps in the next one, into which he passed by a wide opening. Here also were numerous purchasers, most of them ladies; the men were but three or four and the disposal of the wares all committed to neat young women attired in black dresses with long trains. It struck him at first that the young woman he sought was even here not within sight, and he was turning away to look elsewhere when he suddenly noted a tall gentleman who stood in the middle of the room and who was none other than Captain Sholto. It next became plain to him that the person standing upright before the Captain, as still as a lay-figure and with her back turned to himself, was the object of his own quest. In spite of her averted face he instantly “spotted” Millicent; he knew her shop-attitude, the dressing of her hair behind and the long grand lines of her figure draped in the last new thing. She was showing off this treasure to the Captain, who was lost in contemplation. He had been beforehand with Hyacinth as a false purchaser, but he imitated a real one better than our young man, as, with his eyes travelling up and down the front of their beautiful friend’s person, he frowned consideringly and rubbed his lower lip slowly with his walking-stick. Millicent stood admirably still—the back view of the garment she displayed was magnificent. Hyacinth stood for a minute as still as she. By the end of that minute he was convinced Sholto saw him, and for an instant he thought him about to make Milly do as much. But Sholto only looked at him very hard a few seconds, not telling her he was there; to enjoy that satisfaction he would wait till the interloper had gone. Hyacinth gazed back at him for the same length of time—what these two pairs of eyes said to each other requires perhaps no definite mention—and then turned away.

That evening about nine o’clock the Princess Casamassima drove in a hansom to Hyacinth’s lodgings in Westminster. The door of the house was a little open and a man stood on the step, smoking his big pipe and looking up and down. The Princess, seeing him while she was still at some distance, had hoped he was Hyacinth, but he proved a different figure indeed from her devoted young friend. He had not a forbidding countenance, but he faced her very directly as she descended from her hansom and approached the door. She was used to the last vulgarity of stare and didn’t mind it; she supposed him one of the lodgers in the house. He edged away to let her pass and watched her while she tried to twist life into the limp bell-pull beside the door. It gave no audible response, so that she said to him: “I wish to ask for Mr. Hyacinth Robinson. Perhaps you can tell me——”

“Yes, I too,” the man strangely smirked. “I’ve come also for that.”

She seemed to wonder about him. “I think you must be Mr. Schinkel. I’ve heard of you.”

“You know me by my bad English,” her interlocutor said with a shade of benevolent coquetry.

“Your English is remarkably good—I wish I spoke German as well. Only just a hint of an accent, and evidently an excellent vocabulary.”

“I think I’ve heard also of you,” Schinkel returned with freedom.

“Yes, we know each other in our circle, don’t we? We’re all brothers and sisters.” The Princess was anxious, was in a fever; but she could still relish the romance of standing in a species of back slum and fraternising with a personage so like a very tame horse whose collar galled him. “Then he’s at home, I hope; he’s coming down to you?” she went on.

“That’s what I don’t know. I’m waiting.”

“Have they gone to call him?”

Schinkel looked at her while he puffed his pipe. “I’ve galled him myself, but he won’t zay.”

“How do you mean he won’t say?”

“His door’s locked. I’ve knocked many times.”

“I suppose he is out,” said the Princess.

“Yes, he may be out,” Schinkel remarked judicially.

They stood a moment face to face, after which she asked: “Have you any doubt of it?”

“Oh es kann sein. Only the woman of the house told me five minutes ago that he came in.”

“Well then he probably went out again.”

“Yes, but she didn’t hear him.”

The Princess reflected and was conscious she was flushing. She knew what Schinkel knew about their young friend’s actual situation and she wished to be very clear with him and to induce him to be the same with her. She was rather baffled, however, by the sense that he was cautious—justly cautious. He was polite and inscrutable, quite like some of the high personages—ambassadors and cabinet ministers—whom she used to meet in the great world. “Has the woman been here in the house ever since?” she asked in a moment.

“No, she went out for ten minutes half an hour ago.”

“Surely then he may have gone out again in that time,” the Princess argued.

“That’s what I’ve thought. It’s also why I’ve waited here,” said Schinkel. “I’ve nothing to do,” he added serenely.

“Neither have I,” she returned. “We can wait together.”

“It’s a pity you haven’t some nice room,” the German suggested with sympathy.

“No indeed; this will do very well. We shall see him the sooner when he comes back.”

“Yes, but perhaps it won’t be for long.”

“I don’t care for that; I’ll wait. I hope you don’t object to my company,” she smiled.

“It’s good, it’s good,” Schinkel responded through his smoke.

“Then I’ll send away my cab.” She returned to the vehicle and paid the driver, who said with expression “Thank you, my lady” and drove off.

“You gave him too much,” observed Schinkel when she came back.

“Oh he looked like a nice man. I’m sure he deserved it.”

“It’s very expensive,” Schinkel went on sociably.

“Yes, and I’ve no money—but it’s done. Was there no one else in the house while the woman was away?” the Princess resumed.

“No, the people are out; she only has single men. I asked her that. She has a daughter, but the daughter has gone to see her cousin. The mother went only a hundred yards, round the corner there, to buy a pennyworth of milk. She locked this door and put the key in her pocket; she stayed at the grocer’s, where she got the milk, to have a little conversation with a friend she met there. You know ladies always stop like that—nicht wahr? It was half an hour later that I came. She told me he was at home, and I went up to his room. I got no sound, as I have told you. I came down and spoke to her again, and she told me what I say.”

“Then you determined to wait, as I’ve done,” said the Princess.

“Oh yes, I want to see him.”

“So do I, very much.” She said nothing more for a minute, but then added: “I think we want to see him for the same reason.”

“Das kann sein—das kann sein.”

The two continued to stand there in the brown evening, and they had some further conversation of a desultory and irrelevant kind. At the end of ten minutes the Princess broke out in a low tone, laying her hand on her companion’s arm: “Mr. Schinkel, this won’t do. I’m intolerably worried.”

“Yes, that’s the nature of ladies,” the German sagely answered.

“I want to go up to his room,” the Princess said. “You’ll be so good as to show me where it is.”

“It will do you no good if he’s not there.”

“I’m not sure he’s not there.”

“Well, if he won’t speak it shows he likes better not to have visitors.”

“Oh he may like to have me better than he does you!” she frankly suggested.

“Das kann sein—das kann sein.” But Schinkel made no movement to introduce her into the house.

“There’s nothing to-night—you know what I mean,” she remarked with a deep look at him.

“Nothing to-night?”

“At the Duke’s. The first party’s on Thursday, the other next Tuesday.”

“Schön. I never go to parties,” said Schinkel.

“Neither do I.”

“Except that this is a kind of party—you and me,” he dreadfully grinned.

“Yes, and the woman of the house doesn’t approve of it.” The footstep of a jealous landlady had become audible in the passage, through the open door, which was presently closed from within with a little reprehensive bang. Something in this touch appeared to quicken exceedingly the Princess’s impatience and fear; the danger of being warned off made her wish still more uncontrollably to arrive at the satisfaction she had come for. “For God’s sake, Mr. Schinkel, take me up there. If you won’t I’ll go alone,” she pleaded.

Her face was white now and, it need hardly be added, all beautiful with anxiety. The German took in this impression and then, with no further word, turned and reopened the door and went forward, followed closely by his companion.

There was a light in the lower region which tempered the gloom of the staircase—as high, that is, as the first floor; the ascent the rest of the way was so dark that the pair went slowly and Schinkel led his companion by the hand. She gave a suppressed exclamation as she rounded a sharp turn in the second flight. “Good God, is that his door—with the light?”

“Yes, you can see under it. There was a light before,” he said without confusion.

“And why in heaven’s name didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I thought it would worry you.”

“And doesn’t it worry you?”

“A little, but I don’t mind,” Schinkel professed. “Very likely he may have left it.”

“He doesn’t leave candles!” she returned with vehemence. She hurried up the few remaining steps to the door and paused there with her ear against it. Her hand grasped the handle and turned it, but the door resisted. Then she panted to her companion: “We must go in—we must go in!”

“But what will you do when it’s locked?” he contended.

“You must break it down.”

“It’s very expensive,” said Schinkel.

“Don’t be abject!” cried the Princess. “In a house like this the fastenings are worth nothing; they’ll easily yield.”

“And if he’s not there—if he comes back and finds what we’ve done?”

She looked at him a moment through the darkness, which was mitigated only by the small glow proceeding from the chink. “He is there! Before God he’s there!”

“Schön, schön,” said her friend as if he felt the contagion of her own dread but was deliberating and meant to remain calm. She assured him that one or two vigorous thrusts with his shoulder would burst the bolt—certain to be some wretched morsel of tin—and she made way for him to come close. He did so, he even leaned against the door, but he gave no violent push, and the Princess waited with her hand against her heart. Schinkel apparently was still deliberating. At last he gave a low sigh. “I know they find him the pistol, it’s only for that,” he mumbled; and the next moment she saw him sway sharply to and fro in the gloom. She heard a crack and saw the lock had yielded. The door collapsed: they were in the light; they were in a small room which looked full of things. The light was that of a single candle on the mantel; it was so poor that for a moment she made out nothing definite. Before that moment was over, however, her eyes had attached themselves to the small bed. There was something on it—something black, something ambiguous, something outstretched. Schinkel held her back, but only an instant; she saw everything and with the very vision flung herself, beside the bed, upon her knees. Hyacinth lay there as if asleep, but there was a horrible thing, a mess of blood, on the counterpane, in his side, in his heart. His arm hung limp beside him, downwards, off the narrow couch; his face was white and his eyes were closed. So much Schinkel saw, but only for an instant; a convulsive movement of the Princess, bending over the body while a strange low cry came from her lips, covered it up. He looked about him for the weapon, for the pistol, but in her rush at the bed she had pushed it out of sight with her knees. “It’s a pity they found it—if he hadn’t had it here!” he wailed to her under his breath. He had determined to remain calm, so that, on turning round at the quick advent of the little woman of the house, who had hurried up, white, staring, scared by the sound of the smashed door, he was able to say very quietly and gravely: “Mr. Robinson has shot himself through the heart. He must have done it while you were fetching the milk.” The Princess rose, hearing another person in the room, and then Schinkel caught sight of the small revolver lying just under the bed. He picked it up and carefully placed it on the mantel-shelf—keeping all to himself, with an equal prudence, the reflexion that it would certainly have served much better for the Duke.

THE END

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