the difference between the figures of the two men; for while Gordon was a slender man grown fat, Elton was a broad man grown thin; which, in a way, averaged their superficial area.
Elton watched the process of investment and noted the caution with which Gordon smuggled the various articles from his own pockets into those of the borrowed garments without exposing them to view; heard the jingle of money; saw the sumptuous gold watch and massive chain transplanted and noted with interest the large leather wallet that came forth from the breast pocket of the wet coat. He got a better view of this from the fact that Gordon himself examined it narrowly, and even opened it to inspect its contents.
“Lucky that wasn’t an ordinary pocketbook.” he remarked. “If it had been, your receipt would have got wet, and so would one or two other little articles that wouldn’t have been improved by salt water. And, talking of the receipt, Tom, shall I hand it over now?”
“You can if you like,” said Elton; “but as I told you, I haven’t got the money;” on which Gordon muttered: “Pity, pity,” and thrust the wallet into his, or rather, Elton’s breast pocket.
A few minutes later, the two men came out together into the gathering darkness, and as they walked slowly up the close, Elton asked: “Are you going up to town to-night, Gordon?”
“How can I?” was the reply. “I can’t go without my clothes. No, I shall run over to Broadstairs. A client of mine keeps a boarding-house there. He’ll have to put me up for the night, and if you can get my clothes cleaned and dried I can come over for them to-morrow.”
These arrangements having been settled, the two men adjourned, at Gordon’s suggestion, for tea at one of the restaurants on the Front; and after that, again at Gordon’s suggestion, they set forth together along the cliff path that leads to Broadstairs by way of Kingsgate.
“You may as well walk with me into Broadstairs,” said Gordon; “I’ll stand you the fare back by rail;” and to this Elton had agreed, not because he was desirous of the other man’s company, but because he still had some lingering hopes of being able to adjust the little difficulty respecting the instalment.
He did not, however, open the subject at once. Profoundly as he loathed and despised the human spider whom necessity made his associate for the moment, he exerted himself to keep up a current of amusing conversation. It was not easy; for Gordon, like most men whose attention is focussed on the mere acquirement of money, looked with a dull eye on the ordinary interests of life. His tastes in art he had already hinted at, and his other tastes lay much in the same direction. Money first, for its own sake, and then those coarser and more primitive gratifications that it was capable of purchasing. This was the horizon that bounded Mr. Solomon Gordon’s field of vision.
Nevertheless, they were well on their way before Elton alluded to the subject that was uppermost in both their minds.
“Look here, Gordon,” he said at length, “can’t you manage to give me a bit more time to pay up this instalment? It doesn’t seem quite fair to keep sending up the principal like this.”
“Well, dear boy,” replied Gordon, “it’s your own fault, you know. If you would only bear the dates in mind, it wouldn’t happen.”
“But,” pleaded Elton, “just consider what I’m paying you. I originally borrowed fifty pounds from you, and I’m now paying you eighty pounds a year in addition to the insurance premium. That’s close on a hundred a year; just about half that I manage to earn by slaving like a nigger. If you stick it up any farther you won’t leave me enough to keep body and soul together; which really means that I shan’t be able to pay you at all.”
There was a brief pause; then Gordon said dryly: “You talk about not paying, dear boy, as if you had forgotten about that promissory note.”
Elton set his teeth. His temper was rising rapidly. But he restrained himself.
“I should have a pretty poor memory if I had,” he replied, “considering the number of reminders you’ve given me.”
“You’ve needed them, Tom,” said the other. “I’ve never met a slacker man in keeping to his engagements.”
At this Elton lost his temper completely.
“That’s a damned lie!” he exclaimed, “and you know it, you infernal, dirty, blood-sucking parasite.”
Gordon stopped dead.
“Look here, my friend,” said he; “none of that. If I’ve any of your damned sauce, I’ll give you a sound good hammering.”
“The deuce you will!” said Elton, whose fingers were itching, not for the first time, to take some recompense for all that he had suffered from the insatiable usurer. “Nothing’s preventing you now, you know, but I fancy cent. per cent. is more in your line than fighting.”
“Give me any more sauce and you’ll see,” said Gordon.
“Very well,” was the quiet rejoinder. “I have great pleasure in informing you that you are a human maw-worm. How does that suit you?”
For reply, Gordon threw down his overcoat and umbrella on the grass at the side of the path, and deliberately slapped Elton on the cheek.
The reply followed instantly in the form of a smart left-hander, which took effect on the bridge of the Hebrew’s rather prominent nose. Thus the battle was fairly started, and it proceeded with all the fury of accumulated hatred on the one side and sharp physical pain on the other. What little science there was appertamed to Elton, in spite of which, however, he had to give way to his heavier, better nourished and more excitable opponent. Regardless of the punishment he received, the infuriated Jew rushed at him and, by sheer weight of onslaught, drove him backward across the little green.
Suddenly, Elton, who knew the place by daylight, called out in alarm.
“Look out, Gordon! Get back, you fool!”
But Gordon, blind with fury, and taking this as attempt to escape, only pressed him harder. Elton’s pugnacity died out instantly in mortal terror. He shouted out another warning and as Gordon still pressed him, battering furiously, he did the only thing that was possible: he dropped to the ground. And then, in the twinkling of an eye came the catastrophe. Borne forward by his own momentum, Gordon stumbled over Elton’s prostrate body, staggered forward a few paces, and fell. Elton heard a muffled groan that faded quickly, and mingled with the sound of falling earth and stones. He sprang to his feet and looked round and saw that he was alone.
For some moments he was dazed by the suddenness of the awful thing that had happened. He crept timorously towards the unseen edge of the cliff, and listened.
There was no sound save the distant surge of the breakers, and the scream of an invisible sea-bird. It was useless to try to look over. Near as he was, he could not, even now, distinguish the edge of the cliff from the dark beach below. Suddenly he bethought him of a narrow cutting that led down from the cliff to the shore. Quickly crossing the green, and mechanically stooping to pick up Gordon’s overcoat and umbrella, he made his way to the head of the cutting and ran down the rough chalk roadway. At the bottom he turned to the right and, striding hurriedly over the smooth sand, peered into the darkness at the foot of the cliff.
Soon there loomed up against the murky sky the shadowy form of the little headland on which he and Gordon had stood; and, almost at the same moment, there grew out of the darkness of the beach a darker spot amidst a constellation
