Read Elk 04 White Face for Free Online Page B

course.
    “We shall want you as a witness,” said Elk’s voice. “He’s a dock labourer from Poplar—a man named Stephens.”
    “How thrilling!” said the doctor, hung up the receiver and went back to his book—the intrigues of Louis’s court, the scheming Polignacs and the profitable machinations of Madame de Lamballe.
    He heard the shrill call of the door-bell, looked plaintively round, finally rose and went to the door. The night had come down blackly; the pavement outside was glistening: you do not hear the rain falling in the East End.
    “Are you Dr. Marford?”
    The woman who stood in the doorway exhaled the faint fragrance of some peculiarly delicate perfume. Her voice, thin for the moment with anxiety, had the quality of culture. She was a stranger; he had never heard that voice before.
    “Yes. Will you come in?”
    The surgery had no other light than the reading-lamp on the desk. He felt that she would have had it this way.
    She wore a leather motoring coat and a little tight-fitting hat. She unfastened the coat hurriedly as though she were hot or had some difficulty in breathing. Under the coat she wore a neat blue costume. From some vague clue, he thought she was American. A lady undoubtedly, having no association with Tidal Basin, unless she was a passenger on the Moroccan boat which sailed with the tide from Shrimp Wharf.
    “Is he—is he dead?” she asked jerkily, and in her dark eyes he read an unconquerable fear.
    “Is who dead?”
    He was puzzled; searched his mind rapidly for patients in extremis and could find none but old Sully, the marine store dealer, who had been dying for eighteen months.
    “The man—he was brought here…after the fight. A policeman told me.. they were fighting in the street and he was brought here.”
    She stood, her hands clasped, her thin body bent forward towards him, breathless.
    “A man?…Oh, yes; he’s dead, I’m afraid.”
    Dr. Marford was for the moment bewildered. How could she be interested in the fate of one Stephens, dock labourer, of Poplar?
    “Oh, my God!”
    She whispered the words, dropped for a second. Dr. Marford’s arm went round her and assisted her to a chair.
    “Oh, my God!” she said again and began to cry.
    He looked at her helplessly, not knowing for whom he could frame a defence—for the dead or the living.
    “It was a fair fight as far as one could see,” he said awkwardly. “The man fell…hit his head on the sharp edge of the kerb…”
    “I begged him not to go near him,” she said a little wildly. “I begged him! When he telephoned to say he was on his track and had traced him here…I came by cab…I implored him to come back.”
    All this and more came incoherently. Dr. Marford had to guess what she said. Some of the words were drowned in sobs. He went to his medicine shelf and took down a bottle labelled “Ap. Am. Arm.,” poured a little into a medicine glass and added water.
    “You drink this and tell me all about it,” he said authoritatively.
    She told him more than she would have told her confessor. Sorrow, remorse, the crushing tragedy of fear removed all inhibitions. The doctor listened, looking down at her, twiddling the stem of the medicine glass in his fingers.
    Presently he spoke.
    “This man Stephens was a dock labourer—a heavy fellow, six feet tall at least. A fair-haired man. The other man was a young fellow of twenty something. I only saw him for a second when he was in the hands of the police. He had a light, almost a white, moustache—”
    She stared up at him.
    “Fair…a young man…”
    Dr. Marford held the glass out to her.
    “Drink this; you’re hysterical. I hate telling you so.”
    But she pushed the glass aside.
    “Stephens—are you sure? Two, well, two ordinary men?…”
    “Two labourers—both drunk. It’s not unusual in this neighbourhood. We have an average of two fights a night. On Saturday nights—six. It’s a dull place and they have to do something.”
    The colour was