The Cinema Murder

ernoon train from London came to a standstill in the station at Detton Magna. An elderly porter, putting on his coat as he

th an expectancy dulled by daily disappointment, for the passengers who seldom alighted. On this occasion no records were broken. A solitary young man stepped out on to the wet an

ope, were dripping also with raindrops. The road, flinty and light grey in colour, was greasy with repellent-looking mud-there were puddles even in the asphalt-covered pathway which he trod. On either side of him stretched the shrunken, unpastoral-looking fields of an industrial neighbourhood. The town-village which stretched up the hi

lar, yet with a good carriage notwithstanding a stoop which seemed more the result of an habitual depression than occasioned by any physical weakness. His features were large, his mouth querulous, a little discontented, his eyes filled with the light of a silent and rebellious b

nty minutes past four. For a moment he hesitated. Then he strolled on, and, turning at the gate of an adjoining cottage, the nearest to the schools of a little unlovely row, he tried the latch, found it yield to his touch, and stepped inside. He closed the door behind him and turned, with a little weary sigh of content, towards a large easy-chair drawn up in front of the fire. For a single moment he seemed about to

rs, some old prints upon the wall. On the sideboard was a basket, as yet unpacked, filled with hothouse fruit, and on a low settee by the side of one of the easy-chairs were a little pile of reviews, several volumes of poetry, and a couple of library books. In the centre of the mantelpiece was a photograph, the photograph of a man a l

he muttered

ter possibilities were slowly framing themselves in his mind. While he stood there he was suddenly conscious of the sound of the opening gate, brisk footstep

exclaimed. "

g woman of medium height and slim, delicate figure, attractive, with large, discontented mouth, full, clear eyes and a wealth of dark brown hair. She was very simply dressed and yet in a manner which scarcely suggested the school-teacher. To the man who confronted her, his left hand gripping the mant

it mean,

a little shrug of the shoulders she turned

, Philip," she begged. "

please," h

yet somehow, although she would have given the world to have passed for a few moments

want some tea, and so do I. Sit down, please, and make your

," he agreed quietly. "However, si

certain compensatory doggedness. His challenge was there to be faced. There was no way out of it. She would have lied

your question a little more exact

he of words. A hundred questions were burning upon his lips. It

al table, one rather hard easy-chair and a very old wicker one. You had, if I remember rightly, a strip of linoleum upon the floor, and a single rug. Your flowers w

ore expensively

once accustomed to them, because we have both since experienced the passionate craving for them or the things they represent. Chippenda

All the things which you see here and

t with a sudden vigour

om

she admitted, "f

only shrugged her shoulders. She was holding herself in reserve. As for him, his eyes were hot, there was a dry choking in his throat. He had passed through many w

mean?" he as

round. There was a new look in her face, a look of decision. She was more or less a cowa

nced slowly, "exactly

things to him, but he was sp

discomfort and misery. You, as you admitted last time we met, have done no better. You have lived in a garret and gone often hungry to bed. For three years this has been going on. All that time I have waited for you to bring something human, something reasonable, somethi

absolutely mistress of the situation…. She passed him carelessly by, flung herself into the easy-chair and crossed her legs. As t

had three years of sordid and utterly miserable life, teaching squalid, dirty, unlovable children things they had much better not know. I have lived here, here in Detton Magna, among the smuts and the mists, where the flowers seem withered and even the meadows are stony, where the people are hard and coarse as their ugly house

t you stay her

ness I can't stand-the ugliness of cheap food, cheap clothes, uncomfortable furniture, coarse voices, coarse friends if I would have them. How do you suppose I have lived here these last three years, a teacher in the national schools? Look up and down this long, dreary street, at the names above the shops, at the villas in which the tradespeople live, an

ed wheezily. A lump of coal fell out on the hearth, which she replaced mechanically with her foot. His silence seemed to irritate and perplex her. She

othe your phrases? Are you afraid of the naked words? I'm not. Let me hear them. Don't be more melodramatic tha

tive which she found it hard to endure. Then, after a momen

give them. What is it they pay you," she went on contemptuously, "at that miserable art school of yours? Sixty pounds a year! How much do you get to eat and drink out of that? What sort of clothes have you to wear? Are you content? Yet even you have been better off than I.

e unnatural calm which seemed to have descended upon him. He took up his hat from the table, and thrust the little brown paper parcel which he had be

, as he turned awa

rn, upbraidings, even violence-she had been prepared for all of these. There was something about this self-res

"You're not going? You

't said a

w, holding tightly to the sash. He had reached the gate now and paused for a moment, looking up the long, windy street. Then he crossed to the other side of the road, stepped over a