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Ebook has 1564 lines and 92513 words, and 32 pages

THE GREEN HAT

I saw it for the first time on the eve of my removal from one residence in London to another; although when I say residence I mean that I was, by the grace of God and at the impulse of my own temerity, removing to somewhat more habitable premises nearby from two rooms and a bathroom above a mean lane in a place called Shepherd's Market. Not that our lane hadn't attractions of its own to offer. Our lane was one in which many improbable things were wont to happen, but it somehow seemed inevitable that such things should happen there. But maybe I had better select a few of these things, that you may know the sort of lane ours was. I have seen men arrested there, and I have seen a heavy constable worsted in a fight with a little Jew pickpocket, who was for some time responsible for a rag-shop in our lane. I have seen two butlers fighting in our lane. I have seen a very old nobleman woo a flower-girl in our lane, but whether or not she ever favoured his suit our lane had no means of telling. One night I fell over the body of a woman lying in the blood of a broken head, and in our lane by night policemen solace themselves by smoking cigarettes into the crowns of their helmets, while cats, I must tell you, will never cease to sport together all about it.

But it was by day that our lane attained to any real interest for a student of such things, for then it was sacred to the activities of a hearty-looking man in a brown bowler-hat, who with one hand would write interminably in a small book, while with the other he dealt with passing men in slips of paper known to the law as "betting-slips." As partner to the hearty-looking man--we are, I venture to say, already embarked on our tale, for these gentlemen will make a faint devil's chorus for more spacious happenings--was a tall, wizened man who wore a check cap and had hair growing out of his ears. This man would stand at one end of the lane and now and then say, "Oi!" When he had said "Oi!" he would light a cigarette, while the hearty-looking man would run heavily round our end of the lane, for "Oi!" meant that the law was after him. When the law had gone he would come back wiping his mouth, and jokes were exchanged with the butcher and the fishmonger; but when the law really wanted him, say twice a year, a posse of policemen would simultaneously rush both ends of our lane, and the hearty-looking man was mulcted in a fine not exceeding so much and was back again the next morning within a yard of my door. Among his most persistent admirers was a little bent old man with blood-shot eyes and a twitching mouth, who was a window-cleaner without a Union, which meant that he would clean a window for threepence and want no tip. He liked me, and used to give me racing information, but I never won anything.

Now the first thing to do is to clear the ground as quickly as possible for the coming of the green hat, for Mr. H. G. Wells says that there is no money to be made out of any book that cannot bring a woman in within the first few thousand words. But in setting the scene in Shepherd's Market we have evaded the necessity for any "writing-up" of atmosphere, for that place has an atmosphere quite impossible to convey in a book, unless, of course, you were to take the book to Shepherd's Market and leave it in our lane for a few days in nice warm weather. Shepherd's Market is, in fine, a collection of lively odours bounded on the north side by Curzon Street, on the south by Piccadilly, on the west by Hertford Street, and on the east by Half-Moon Street; and rejoices, therefore, in the polite direction of Mayfair, as you will see printed on the notepaper of any of its residents. A flower-shop which was opened in our lane lived for only six months, and that in spite of the gardenia gallantly affected by the old nobleman from Curzon Street every day. I, after having lived there for six years, was leaving on the morrow.

It is late, after midnight, when the tale begins.

I had been that evening to a party; for that is now the name that folks give to a dance,--I am not sure why. In America, I believe, one doesn't even give a party, one just throws a party, but as to this party I am telling of, it had, with that infallible sense of direction peculiar to parties, whether given or thrown, taken a man by the nerves at the back of his head and had hurled him into a deep pit. And it was as one encompassed by that pit, deep as the playground of the seven devils, dark as the very dungeons of gaiety, that I found myself back in my flat above the mean lane. It would be the last night I would ever spend in that flat, and I was so glad. The bookshelves had already been taken away, and books littered the floor, books and pictures and what-nots crowded the gate-leg table, while the ottoman with its soiled Chinese yellow cover was a shambles of whatever you will find in a bachelor's flat if you begin to clean out the drawers. The bedroom, however, was still ordered for human habitation.

Now I had no sooner cast my hat on the bed than the bell rang. It was one of those infernal things you pull at, so that they may go on clanging for ever, and as it clanged I wondered, I am afraid ungraciously, who it could be. Could it, I wondered, be any one for Gerald March, who lived in the flat above mine? But no one, I told myself, has called on Gerald March within the memory of man, for that man discourages callers, that man knows how to discourage callers.

I had no hope in pretending not to be at home, for my lights were plain to see from our lane. And in my mind's eye I saw the hearty face of the acquaintance at the door, and with my mind's ear I heard the hearty greeting that dropped from his parasitical and thirsty lips. He had seen my light, that man, as he went his way home from some party even more pestilential than the one which had sent me home stricken; and he would fain drink a glass with me, after the fashion of pests of the night, that are hearty with the weary and thirsty with the unwary.

I could, however, always order my privacy without seeming too unfriendly by looking down from my bedroom window, for whereas the windows of my sitting-room faced the public-bar of The Leather Butler and an angle of the offices of the Duke of Marlborough's fine house, from my bedroom window I had a clear prospect of our lane. Of pests, however, there was neither sight nor sign; nor of cats, nor of men, nor of any low and usual thing; only, under the lamp at the Sheep Street end of our lane, a long, low, yellow car which shone like a battle-chariot. It was empty.

Now I am of those who are affected by motor-cars: their lines thrill me, the harmony of their colour touches me, a gallant device wins my earnest admiration so that, walking along Piccadilly, I will distress my mind by being a partisan of this one, a despiser of that one. Nor am I to be won by any cheap thing, no matter how brave-seeming it may be to the eye, how admirable in endurance; but I am to be won only by the simple lines, the severe and menacing aspect, of the aces among motor-cars; for economy hath charms, but not to the eye. This car charmed the eye. Like a huge yellow insect that had dropped to earth from a butterfly civilisation, this car, gallant and suave, rested in the lowly silence of the Shepherd's Market night. Open as a yacht, it wore a great shining bonnet, and flying over the crest of this great bonnet, as though in proud flight over the heads of scores of phantom horses, was that silver stork by which the gentle may be pleased to know that they have just escaped death beneath the wheels of a Hispano-Suiza car, as supplied to His Most Catholic Majesty.

"Do you know if Mr. March is in?" asked the voice of the green hat. But I could not see her face for the shadow of the brim, for it was a piratical brim, such as might very possibly defy the burning suns of El Dorado.

I said I was not sure. I was very surprised--a caller for Gerald March! "If we look up," I said, "we can see by his lights if he is in." And I stepped out into the lane, and the green hat and I stared up at the topmost windows of the grubby little house.

"There is," I said, "but it's very faint. He's in all right."

Still she looked up, thoughtfully. She was tall, not very tall, but as tall as becomes a woman. Her hair, in the shadow of her hat, may have been any colour, but I dared swear that there was a tawny whisper to it. And it seemed to dance, from beneath her hat, a very formal dance on her cheeks. One had, with her, a sense of the conventions; and that she had just been playing six sets of tennis.

"If I look surprised," I said, "that is because you are the first caller Gerald March has ever had."

She seemed to smile, faintly, as one might in the way of politeness. Otherwise she did not seem to be given to smiling.

"He's my brother," she said, as though explaining herself, the hour, everything. "It's very nice of you to have opened the door...."

I was listening, oh, intently! One had to, to make out what she was saying. Then the voice suddenly expired and one was left standing there, listening to nothing, unprepared to say anything. It was, you can see, rather silly; but one got used to it.

"Oh," I said, "Gerald wouldn't open a door! He never opens doors...."

She looked vaguely about our lane. I was proud of our lane at that moment, for it set off the colour of her hat so well. There was no doubt but that she was tired. Seven sets, possibly. Her eyes seemed at last to find the car of the flying silver stork.

"That car ... I suppose it will be all right there?"

She seemed to me to lack a proper pride in her car. I said I thought it would be quite all right there, as though a Hispano-Suiza was a usual sight near my door; and I suggested that maybe I had better see her upstairs to her brother's flat, as it was the top flat and there were no lights on the stairs. But she appeared to be in no hurry. Thoughtful she was. She said dimly: "You are very kind...."

One somehow gathered from her voice that her face was very small.

"I've often wanted," she murmured, looking about, "to live in this place. You know, vaguely...."

"Of course, vaguely," I said.

"Perhaps you are right," she admitted doubtfully. Not that I had the faintest idea what she was talking about.

I went before her up the dark narrow stairs, sideways, lighting and dropping matches, after the custom of six years. There were three floors in the little house, but the first was untenanted except by mice. I wondered whether it would interest her if I told her I was leaving to-morrow, but I did not see why it should. She, after all, had probably just come back from foreign parts. About her, it was perfectly obvious, was the aura of many adventures. But I was looking on her in brotherly sort, interested in her because she was Gerald March's sister. For that was a most deficient man in every other respect. Fancy, I thought. She said: "Oo, isn't it dark!"

"Not," she said, whispered, "for years and years. Nearly ten, I think. Do you think that comes, perhaps, of having been almost twins once upon a time?"

I did not say anything for I was thinking hard. Now I was Gerald's friend. This lady of the green hat was Gerald's sister, nay, his twin sister. Fancy, I thought. Where, I asked myself, did one stand? It was a matter for thought, for deep thought, and so I treated it, as she did not appear to be in any great hurry.

Now while these things were passing, the lady and I were standing on my landing, which was four foot by three; she with one foot on the stair below, one leather shoulder against the wall. And one had again, with her, a sense of the conventions.

"You are thinking," she accused me. "I wonder what about...."

The light that plunged through my half-open sitting-room door fought a great fight with the shadow of her green hat and lit her face mysteriously. She was fair. As they would say it in the England of long ago--she was fair. And she was grave, so grave. That is a sad lady, I thought. To be fair, to be sad ... why, was she intelligent, too? And white she was, very white, and her painted mouth was purple in the dim light, and her eyes, which seemed set very wide apart, were cool, impersonal, sensible, and they were blazing blue. Even in that light they were blazing blue, like two spoonfuls of the Mediterranean in the early morning of a brilliant day. The sirens had eyes like that, without a doubt, when they sang of better dreams. But no siren, she! That was a sad lady, most grave. And always her hair would be dancing a tawny, formal dance about the small white cheeks.

She smiled, when it occurred to her that she was looking at me.

"I know what you are thinking," she said.

"I wonder!"

"Yes. You like Gerald, don't you?" She thought about that. "Well, what you are thinking is, whether it is fair to him to take me up there in case he is drunk...."

"If only it was 'in case,'" I said. "You see?"

She closed her eyes.

"Poor Gerald!" she whispered. "Isn't it a shame!"

"I'm afraid," I said, "there's nothing to be done...."

"Oh, I know!" Oh, she seemed to know that from her heart. And I wondered why they had not seen each other for ten years. I couldn't imagine her disliking Gerald--childish, furious Gerald! Probably, I thought, he was to blame, and I wondered if there was anything in Gerald's life for which he was not to blame. Poor Gerald.

"Oh," I said, "come on."

She laughed, a little nervously, abruptly. Gerald's door was at the head of the next flight of stairs, and it was, as usual, wide open. She moved one step forward into the room, she stopped, her eyes on the ceiling, as fixed as lamps. Yes, those were very sensible eyes. She didn't look at Gerald.

"What is it?" she asked dimly.

"Whisky," I said. It was so obvious.

"But more than that! There's certainly whisky, but...."

"Wet shoes...."

"But that's too literary! Oh, of course! Old women in alms-houses...."

She was talking, it was so easy to see, against her eyes. Now she was here she didn't want to see Gerald. She was trying to put off the moment when her eyes must rest on Gerald. Still just within the dingy room, she looked everywhere but at Gerald.

"Lot of books," she said.

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