Read Dorothy Eden for Free Online Page A

was none of his business that she had seemed scared out of her wits. He had no wish to get involved in an unsavoury incident virtually on his wedding eve.
    He did not turn the corner beneath the street light, but walked on. He was fifty yards away when the shot rang out, followed instantly by a scream.
    Those were sounds he could not ignore. He turned on his heel and began retracing his steps, running. Another person, or persons, was running, but in the opposite direction. If he was not mistaken it was the two men who had been making a joke as they turned the corner. He could hear their footsteps fading in the distance.
    A feeble shaft of light shone on the street from the open door of one of the deplorable shacks. Gilbert could see a woman kneeling in the doorway and something lying half in the passage, half on the dusty path.
    At first he thought it was a dog. More accurately, he hoped it was a dog, though that was a wild hope. The shape turned face-wards to the night sky was that of a grey-haired man, and he appeared to be dead.
    Gilbert pushed the kneeling woman out of the way, and felt inside the man’s jacket. His fingers came away wet and sticky. He put his ear to the man’s breast.
    ‘Fetch a light,’ he said.
    With a small gasp the woman rose and went inside. She came back in a moment with a lighted candle. Gilbert moved the frail flame across the upturned face, and observed unemotionally that it was exactly the same colour as the tallow candle.
    He had seen enough dead men. This one looked as if he would not have been far from his natural end in any event. He was as thin as a starving dingo.
    He stood up slowly, giving the candle back to the woman.
    ‘What happened?’
    She was not crying, he observed with detachment. Although still breathing too fast, she told him quite lucidly that she had been coming home from the public house where she worked in the kitchen when two men had followed her. They had thought she was a street woman. When she refused to stop they had shouted abuse at her, and began to pursue her. She had thought she was safely home. She had wrenched open the door, calling to her husband, and he had come at once.
    He had stood in the open doorway shielding her. He was only a thin small man, as Gilbert could see. And one of the men had taken out a pistol and shot him. Just like that. The man, both of the men, were drunk. Though not so drunk that they couldn’t run off like weasels.
    ‘This is your husband?’ said Gilbert. He was surprised. Her father more likely, he would have thought.
    ‘Yes,’ said the woman. ‘He’s been through a lot. Seven years in Van Dieman’s Land. It’s aged him. He’s only forty-six. Was,’ she added belatedly. For the first time her voice trembled. ‘Is he really dead, sir?’
    ‘I fear so. But we’ll get a doctor.’
    ‘A doctor! In these parts at this time of night!’ The woman’s voice was stiff with contempt. ‘Why, there hasn’t been even a door opened to see what the noise was about.’
    ‘Have you any decent neighbours?’
    ‘Oh, yes. They only don’t want to stick their noses into trouble. There’s Mrs Murphy in there.’
    She pointed, and Gilbert stepped over the rickety fence that divided the two houses.
    ‘I’ll rouse her. You can stay with her while I go for a doctor. And I promise you one will come.’
    The woman’s head went down and the tumbling hair fell round her face. She was crying, though silently. Only her heaving shoulders indicated it.
    Gilbert patted her shoulder perfunctorily.
    ‘You’ve been splendid. Don’t give in now. I’ll be back soon.’
    He had to rouse his friend Doctor Philip Noakes who had just gone to bed after attending a dinner party.
    ‘Did your host offer you a decent wine?’ Gilbert asked. ‘Don’t answer. I can see it by your bleary eye.’
    ‘Port. It went round too deuced many times. What’s up? Did your bride arrive? She’s not ill, is she?’
    ‘Eugenia is in the best of health, I am glad