Sinister Street by Compton Mackenzie (great books to read TXT) 📕

noticeable. What on earth was Barnes doing? He was turning the whole room upside-down.

“What the deuce are you looking for?” Michael yawned.

“That’s all right, old man, you get on with your sleep. I’m just putting my things together,” Barnes told him.

Michael turned over and was beginning to doze again when Barnes woke him by the noise he made in taking the dirty dishes out of the old grate.

“How on earth can I sleep, when you’re continually fidgeting?” Michael demanded fretfully. “What’s the time?”

“Just gone half-past five.”

Barnes paid no more attention to Michael’s rest, but began more feverishly than ever to rummage among all the things in the room.

Michael could not stand his activity any longer, and dry-mouthed from an uncomfortable sleep, he sat up.

“What are you looking for?”

“Well, if you want to know, I’m looking for a watch-bracelet.”

“It’s not likely to be under the carpet,” said Michael severely.

Barnes was wrenching out the tacks to Michael’s annoyance.

“Perhaps it isn’t,” Barnes agreed. “But I’ve got to find this watch-bracelet. It’s gold. I don’t want to lose it.”

“Was it a woman’s?”

Barnes looked round at him like a small animal alarmed.

“Yes, it was a woman’s. What makes you ask?”

“What’s it like?”

“Gold. Gold, I keep telling you.”

“When did you have it last?”

“Last night.”

“Well, it can’t have gone far.”

“No, blast it, of course it can’t,” said Barnes, searching with renewed impatience. He was throwing the clothes about the room again, and the odor of staleness became nauseating.

“I’m going to wash,” Michael announced, moving across to the bedroom.

“You’ll excuse the untidiness,” Barnes called out after him, in a tone of rather strained jocularity.

Of Michael’s old room no vestige remained. A very large double-bed took up almost all the space, and all the furniture was new and tawdry. The walls were hung with studies of cocottes pretending to be naiads and dryads, horrible women posed in the silvanity of a photographer’s studio. The room was littered with clothes, and Michael could not move a step without entangling his feet in a petticoat or treading upon hidden shoes. He tried to splash his face, but the very washstand was sickly.

“Well, you’ve managed to debauch my bedroom quite successfully,” he said to Barnes, when he came back to the sitting-room.

“That’s all right. I’ll get rid of all the new furniture. I can pop the lot. Well, it’s mine. If I could find this bloody watch-bracelet, I could begin to make some arrangements.”

“What about breakfast?” Michael began to look for something to eat. Every plate and knife was dirty, and there were three or four half-finished tins of condensed milk which had turned pistachio green and stank abominably.

“There’s a couple of herrings somewhere,” said Barnes. “Or there was. But everything seems upside-down this morning. Where the hell is that watch? It can’t have walked away on its own. If that mare took it! I’ve a very particular reason for not wanting to lose that watch. Oh, ⸻ ⸻! wherever can it have got to?”

“Well, anyway shut up using such filthy language. When does the milkman come round?”

“I don’t know when he comes round. Here, Fane, have you ever heard of anyone talking in their sleep?”

“Of course I’ve heard of people talking in their sleep,” Michael answered. “It’s not very unusual.”

“Ah, hollering out, yes⁠—but talking in a sensible sort of a way, so that if you came in and listened to what they said, you’d think it was the truth? Have you ever heard of that?”

“I don’t suppose I can give you an instance, but obviously it must often happen.”

“Must it?” said Barnes, in a depressed voice. “You see, I set particular value by this watch-bracelet; and I thought perhaps I might have talked about it in my sleep, and that mare just to spite me have gone and taken it. I wonder where it is now.”

Michael also began to wonder where it was now, and Barnes’ anxiety was transferred to him, so that he began to fancy the whole of this fine morning was tremendously bound up with exactly where the watch-bracelet now was. Barnes had begun to turn over everything for about the sixth time.

“If the watch is here,” said Michael irritably, “it will be found when you move your things out, and if it’s not here, it’s useless to go on worrying about it.”

“Ah, it’s all very nice for you to be so calm! But what price it’s being my watch that’s lost, not yours, old sport?”

“I’m not going to talk about it any more,” Michael declared. “I want to know what you’re going to do when you leave here.”

“Ah, that’s it! What am I?”

“Would you like to go to the Colonies?”

“What, say goodbye to dear old Leicester Square and pop off for good and all? I wouldn’t mind.”

“I don’t mind telling you,” said Michael, “that if I’d discovered you here a week ago living like this, I should have had nothing more to do with you. As it is, I’ve a good mind to sling you out to look after yourself. However, I’m willing to get you a ticket for wherever you think you’d like to go, and when I hear you’ve arrived, I’ll send you enough money to keep you going for a time.”

“Fane, I don’t mind saying it. You’ve been a good pal to me.”

“Hark, there’s the milkman at last!” Michael exclaimed. He went out into the sparkling air of the fine Summer morning and came back with plenty of milk for breakfast. After they had made a sort of meal, he suggested that Barnes ought to come with him and visit some of the Colonial Agencies. They walked down Victoria Street and across St. James’ Park, and in the Strand he made Barnes have a shave. The visit to the barber took away some of his nocturnal raffishness, and Michael found him very amusing during the various discussions that took place in the Agencies.

“I think the walk has done you good.”

“Yes,” Barnes doubtfully admitted. “I don’t think it has done me much harm.”

They had lunch at