hen he reached
the hall there were two skeletons sitting on the hall chest? Suppose
that on the landing above a number of rats rushed out from the
housemaid's closet to bite his legs and climb over him and gnaw his
face? Suppose that from the landing outside his own room a masked
burglar were stealing into his room to hide himself under the bed?
Suppose that when he arrived back at the day-nursery, Stella and Nurse
were lying with their heads chopped off, as he had once seen a family
represented by a pink newspaper in the window of a little shop near
Hammersmith Broadway? Michael used to reach his goal, white and shaking,
and slam the door against the unseen follower who had dogged his
footsteps from the coal-cellar. The cries of a London twilight used to
oppress him. From the darkening streets and from the twinkling houses
inexplicable sounds floated about the air. They had the sadness of
church-bells, and like church-bells they could not be located exactly.
Michael thought that London was the most melancholy city in the world.
Even at Christmas-time, behind all the gaiety and gold of a main road
lay the trackless streets that were lit, it seemed, merely by pin-points
of gas, so far apart were the lamp-posts, such a small sad circle of
pavement did they illuminate. The rest was shadows and glooms and
whispers. Even in the jollity of the pantomime and comfortable smell of
well-dressed people the thought of the journey home through the rainy
evening brooded upon the gayest scene. The going home was sad indeed, as
in the farthest corner of the jolting omnibus they jogged through the
darkness. The painted board of places and fares used to depress
Michael. He could not bear to think of the possibilities opened up by
the unknown names beyond Piccadilly Circus. Once in a list of fares he
read the word Whitechapel and shivered at the thought that an omnibus
could from Whitechapel pass the corner of Carlington Road. This very
omnibus had actually come from the place where murders were done.
Murderers might at this moment be travelling in his company. Michael
looked askance at the six nodding travellers who sat opposite, at the
fumes of their breath, at their hands clasped round the handles of their
umbrellas. There, for all he knew, sat Jack the Ripper. It happened that
night that one of the travellers, an old gentleman with gold-rimmed
eye-glasses, alighted at the corner and actually turned down Carlington
Road. Michael was hor