listen.’
‘Look! I want to see the show.’
He followed me into the theatre, already dark. ‘They should have gone to Mr Zuss-Amor,’ he whispered. ‘Remember the name – it’s Zuss-Amor.’
13
Inspector Purity’s ingenious plan
Often I had tried for many weeks to visit Hamilton in his hospital, but they were not eager to allow me near him on account of his condition being critical. But on this present visit I was called in immediately to the Sister.
‘The patient is a relative of yours?’ she said.
‘No, he is my friend.’
‘Has he relatives in this country?’
‘I know of none. Why?’
‘In Africa, you know his family’s address?’
‘Hamilton did not tell it to you?’
‘He refused to …’
‘If he did not tell you this, I do not wish to. He has his reasons that his family should not know.’
This practical woman put on her kind face. ‘Your friend is very ill,’ she said. ‘He’s on what we call the danger list. Surely he would wish his family to know?’
‘I may speak with him?’
‘Yes. But not for long.’
That Hamilton would soon die was certain by his waste-away appearance, and also by his special situation convenient to the door. My friend also knew that this was to be his fate, for his first words were to tell me of his understanding. He spoke without fear of this, as you would expect of Hamilton, but very sadly. I did not deny what he foretold, nor would I agree to it, but sat by him and held his bony hands.
‘Speak to me of your life, Johnny. Tell me what happens to you now.’
‘I must not tire you, Hamilton.’
He smiled a very little. ‘What is the difference, Johnny Fortune? Speak to me. How is Muriel?’
‘Muriel is gone. I also have left our house.’
‘Why?’
‘Dorothy has come to live there now.’
‘To stay with you?’
‘No, man, no – I will explain. Muriel have sickness with her coming baby, and could not work. We owed rents to the landlord, and had no loot. Dorothy, without asking us, go see the landlord, pay over our arrears, and get the rent-book for herself. Then she say to Muriel and me that we can stay there if she stay there too.’
‘And you say yes?’
‘No, we say no. But where could we go to? Even I began to work, Hamilton, at labouring. But before I get my first week wage, we had no other place to go, and stayed on there with Dorothy. Even after that first week, we stay some while to make some little savings.’
‘And then?’
My friend’s eyes showed me he guess what happen then.
‘I keep away from Dorothy, Hamilton, like you would think. But one time when Muriel was out … well, this thing happen between me and she. Foolish, of course, I know, but a cold evening and we left alone together …’
‘And Dorothy tell Muriel of this happen?’
‘I think no: but Muriel she guessed. A woman can always tell it, Hamilton, when you betray her. How so, I do not know; but they can tell.’
My friend turned slowly in his bed. ‘And then Muriel leave you, Johnny?’
‘Yes. She go back to her horrible Mrs Macpherson mother, and will not see me. She say to me, “If is Dorothy you wish, not me, then you can take her.”’
‘But you do not wish for Dorothy?’
‘No. She ask me, of course, to stay and live off what she earn. But I wish for nothing of that woman. Though foolishly I stay in the house some weeks more for sleeping.’
‘For private sleeping, Johnny?’
‘Alone. Then we have quarrel, Dorothy and I, and I leave these rooms entirely. And now I stay this place, that place, with boys I know, till I can get my room.’
Hamilton thought about my story. ‘These Jumble friends of yours,’ he said. ‘You could not stay with them?’
‘Oh, you understand me, Hamilton! When Jumbles do the favour, always they ask some price. For payment of their deeds, they wish to steal your private life in some way or another.’
‘And you will not return again with Muriel at any time?’
‘She say to me, Hamilton, that if I do not marry her, now that she soon has the child, she does not wish to stay with me at all. But how can I marry such a woman? What would they say back home?’
Hamilton, he understood this. ‘The best thing, Johnny Fortune, is certainly for you to sail to Africa. Do not leave this too late, as I do, or you will find yourself in misery like me.’
What could I