I.
Murder didn’t mean much to Raven. It was just a new job. You had to be careful. You had to use your brains. It was not a question of hatred. He had only seen the minister once: he had been pointed out to Raven as he walked
down the new housing estate between the little lit Christmas trees – an old, rather
grubby man without any friends, who was said to love humanity.
The cold wind cut
his face in the wide Continental street.
It was a good excuse for turning the collar of his coat well up above
his mouth. A harelip was a serious
handicap in his profession. It had been
badly sewn in infancy, so that now the upper lip was twisted and scarred. When you carried about you so easy an
identification you couldn’t help becoming ruthless in your methods.
II.
“You haven’t
failed,” he said.
London had its
roots in her heart; she saw nothing in
the dark countryside. She looked away
from it to Mather’s happy face. “You don’t
understand,” she said, sheltering the ghost for a very short while longer. “I did fail.”
But she forgot it herself completely
when the train drew into London over a great viaduct under which the small,
bright shabby streets ran off like the rays of a star with their sweet shops,
their Methodist chapels, their messages chalked on the paving stones.
